Water-Walker

The gale broke over them in the middle of the lake without warning and roared all night. For hours they strained at the oars, fighting the winds and the waves. They are seasoned veterans on this lake, but it was getting the best of them. The raging lake was showing its legendary renown as the face of Chaos.

And then, suddenly, they saw the unthinkable - the form of a man walking towards them across the water. ‘Ghost’ was all they could imagine.

But this ‘ghost’ was actually their very down-to-earth friend Jesus coming to them where they least expected him – but when they most needed his help. He called to them above the wind, “It is I. Don’t be afraid!”

It was a night they never forgot. It was a voice that rang in their memory forever.


Decades later new storms broke over them; winds of persecution howled around the fledgling church; religious and political opposition was furious and relentless; the outlook was dark. Again and again, the disciples reached back into their memory and re-told their experience of Jesus mastering the storms on Galilee.

Three of the four Gospels tell this story and every generation of the church has needed to call it to mind. Being storm-tossed in this world is part of the collective experience of God’s people. Storms among us and around us. Each of us knows the storm of crisis in a personal way.

But over and over again, the Water-Walker, the Storm-Treader himself, comes to reassure struggling, bewildered, storm-weary rowers that He is lord, and the storm is not. He bolsters us with fresh courage and re-assures us that we are not alone. The I Am is with us!

Take courage. Whatever storm you are facing today, don’t be afraid!

*The title for this post comes from the 1984 Bill Mason film Waterwalker about canoeing, God and nature. It is well-worth viewing.