Matthew 14:22-33 Commentary

Jesus finally gets that alone time he yearned for when hearing about John the Baptist’s death (see verse 13). He first sends the disciples away, presumably so that they will not dutifully follow him up the hill later, but perhaps also because he wants to give them a rest too. After all, they just catered a meal for 1000s of people!

Jesus also dismisses the crowds and goes up the mountain to commune with God his Father. There are a number of patterns in Matthew’s story, and Jesus going off to pray is one of them.

The storyteller cleverly turns our attention from Jesus alone on the mountain to the desperate disciples being battered by a stormy Sea of Galilee. They have not made much progress on the water since leaving Jesus’s side: the wind is against them. Is there significance to this turn in the storytelling? That these two scenes are so counter to one another is clear: a calm and serene mountainside versus the winds and waves and desperation of men in a boat who feel like they are no closer to safety than they were when the storm picked up. One scene has Jesus squarely at the center and in the other he is far away.

Well actually, the text doesn’t make clear what the disciples were feeling during the storm; it seems likely that many of them—the former fishermen at least—would have been in situations like this before. But at the same time, Matthew leans heavily into Jewish symbolism and the sea has always represented chaos, and this story very much parallels the story of Jesus calming the storm in chapter 8. To be stuck in the swirling and battering chaos without your miracle working leader, yeah, I think they were probably afraid.

That fear is only compounded when things seem to go from bad to worse. They see a figure on the water and can only assume it is a ghost come out of the chaos. They are rightly terrified and finally start to scream and cry; there is nowhere to go, no way to protect themselves. They are vulnerable to all of the elements, physical and spiritual.

Jesus speaks immediately in order to calm their fear. He doesn’t waste any time letting them know that he is not a harbinger of doom, but their beloved leader. “Take heart, it is I; do not be afraid.” Take heart is this powerful phrase to describe grabbing hold of the parts of you that feel like they are about to explode and then talking them through their anxiety to restore them to a place of calmness.

Peter takes it a step further. If this is really Jesus, he’s like the toddler who has heard a loud noise and rushes to grab their parent’s leg: he wants to be where Jesus is, even if that’s out on the open water. So he says, “If it’s you, command me to come to you!” Personally, I keep wondering about this little test; wouldn’t the forces of evil just love to trick someone into their doom? But that’s not Matthew’s point here—there aren’t evil forces actually present here, just their symbolic representation. Jesus, on the other hand, is most definitely there, front and center where he has felt absent or delayed. Jesus is there and saying, “Do not be afraid” because he is not afraid. So he tells Peter to come to him.

Peter’s first steps go fine, but the circumstances do not change. The water is still choppy and the headwind is still strong and Peter falters, beginning to sink. The translation of Jesus’s use of the word “doubt” is unfair (or at least our modern understanding of the word is). Eugene Peterson’s The Message depicts Jesus as asking, “Faint-heart, what got into you?” when Jesus grabs hold of Peter. Other scholars argue that the word distazo has to do with hesitating because “personal confusion or uncertainty that prevents action or commitment.” (Senior, Abingdon New Testament Commentaries) And since there is no direct object connected to “doubt” (i.e., no clarity spoken by Jesus as to what Peter was doubting) the case ought to be made that Peter was, yet again, overwhelmed by the circumstances he found himself in. Though we cannot rule it out, it seems to me very unlikely that it was Jesus Peter was doubting—otherwise why would he call out for Jesus to save him?

So if it’s not Jesus Peter is doubting, the freeze and sink is better understood as him realizing what he’s asked Jesus for. He asked Jesus to call him out on the water but when he did so, he didn’t stop to think about the fact that the water would still be the water and the wind would still be the wind: Jesus is literally more in the storm than they are in the nominal safety of the boat. Peter gets overwhelmed realizing that his desire to be with Jesus has only meant he’s gone further into the situation that feels beyond himself and his abilities. Even as he “doubts” himself and the situation, he calls out for help to God. His faith in Jesus has not wavered, his unsureness is about how to proceed. And God is there to save him, and help him—help them all—safely back to shore.

Textual Point

The gospel of John has seven “I am” statements and it turns out Matthew has seven instances of Jesus saying, “Do not be afraid…” The circumstances of these scenes are just as a much a revelation of God’s identity as the John’s explicit proclamations.

Illustration Idea

In this last season of the show “The Bear,” Richie is trying a new calming and anxiety management technique. Any time he starts to feel overwhelmed or angry or anxious (which is often), he’s supposed to touch things around him and slowly identify them: desk… tablet… napkin… He hates it but he keeps trying to make it work. Then one of his co-workers (who he happens to be crushing on) asks him what he’s doing and when she asks if it’s helping, he says, “No.” She says, “Try again,” and holds out her hand to him. He takes it, says, “Hand,” and smiles as they interlock fingers and stay standing, calming and breathing together. Sometimes, it takes a person to take hold of us to help us; sometimes that person is God.