Matthew 14:25-26
Jesus came toward them walking on the sea very early in the morning. When the disciples saw him walking on the sea, they were terrified. “It’s a ghost!” they said, and they cried out in fear.
It was about 3 am, or there abouts. Jesus is spending the night alone in prayer after a long and troubling day. He had been rejected by some of Israel's elites, and he had just learned about his cousin John who was executed by Herod. He sails off to get alone and ends up spending all day healing the crowds of people who followed him there. And he miraculously feeds five thousand plus people with only five loaves of bread and two fish.
Jesus is worn out and he sends his disciples by boat to cross back over while he goes up to pray, and FINALLY be alone with himself and his God.
Jesus, the Son of God, the Christ, the Messiah, is at that point in his earthly journey where he's taking on the sins of all mankind. This isn't just some thing we say about him. This is him literally having to experience the sins of all the people. He experienced it in debates with the religious community. He experienced it in healing the masses who were thoughtlessly abusing his grace and personal space. He experienced it when his cousin John died for his namesake. And he experiences it when his own disciples can't quite seem to get him. His hour had not come yet, but it was drawing near, and there are far worse things yet to come. There's a whole world of sin to take onto himself still.
At any point he could have just secured himself by divine power. He's both human and God. If he wanted he could have just been done with it all. Nothing would have been diminished if he had just packed it all up and took off on vacation. This is something we all need to reflect upon. Jesus isn't bound to do the things he does. He's not beholden to humanity and thereby required to meet their challenges as an obedient servant, he chooses to love the world, and he chooses to express that love in his sacrifice. That was his plan. That is the fulfillment of his design. That obedient servant is obedient to Himself. No one takes this obedience from him, or demands it of him, he gives it freely from his own authority. When Jesus gives tender compassion to the crowds, it's out of his own obedience to his own love. When he saw the multitudes, he had compassion on them, because that's who God is, that's who he is. He doesn't just see a seething mass of sick people in need of medical attention, he sees a multitude of immortal souls who need their God's grace, His grace.
Jesus is the living example of God's grace. He is both human and God, and he prays.
Q: Why would he pray if he's God?
A: He is our example.
He's not trying to convince himself or reach out to a different god, or even to some essence of himself that was left behind in the heavenly realms when he came down from heaven. He's, our example. It's notable that we often have these prayerful moments recorded. Sometimes we even have the words he spoke when speaking to God.
Why do you think that is?
God understands what builds up and what destroys human relationships. And likewise he understands what inspires and influences love for God. He understands this because he chose to become human. So, he prayed, like one having authority. He's seen, by others, blessing and giving thanks. When he blessed, he looked up to heaven, to teach us, in prayer, to keep our eye on God as our Father in heaven. To look to heaven for all good things.
See...this feeding of the multitude isn't really a miracle.
It's really no different than what this same God does every day. It is the same divine power that multiplies the seed sown into the ground every planting season. It is the same God who nurtures the grain with the soil and the rain that he created. It is with that grain that we make the bread that represents his body. It is this same God who fills the sea with fish that fills the bellies of the world. This Jesus is the same sponsor of grace and provision that created all the good things of the world. So, it's no more a miracle then what he's already done for us from the very beginning in the natural order of things. And yet we call it "supernatural". But is it really?
My point is he doesn't owe us anything. He's already given us more than enough, but he still comes to us as one of us and takes upon himself all the sins of the world.
So what's really going on here.
God, in Jesus, is "praying" alone. Praying? Or affirming?
He's making his plan in prayers.
Jesus praying = God making his plan
He's praying for a storm to come.
He's praying that the disciples will not fear him when they see him coming on the waves.
He's praying for Peter's faith which is about to walk on that water.
He's praying for the disciples to answer correctly when he asks them "who do you say that I Am?"
It's all according to His will when he's praying to his Father, "your will be done."
He's teaching us to trust him as our intercession. He's both the intercession and the intercessory agent.
Can you put that one together in your mind?
He's God's grace and instruction (The Word), and he's God's Son. The Heavenly expression and the earthly expression. The same God in two persons.
The disciples are alone on the troubled seas where Jesus sent both them and the storm. He did that to, and for them. He's training them up by degrees of faith. Teaching them to live by faith. He left them alone on the sea to test them. He did it in this way because the Christ can take whatever way he pleases to save his people. None of this is by accident. This is a prayer planned, trial by design.
He knows they'll be frightened; he knows they're going to think he's a ghost walking towards them on the dark waves. And He knows how much joy and faith affirming wonder they're going to experience when he says to them, "Be courageous, it is I."
Be courageous and love me.
Be courageous and come to me.
Be courageous and follow me.
Be courageous and give your life for me.
"Come out Peter"
Don't worry about what follows, just come to me.
He bid him come. Knowing Peter will deny him three times. He bid him come when the Pharisees demanded a sign and yet he refused them but here he offers the gift of increased faith because Peter is sincere, even though not too far in the future he'll deny knowing Jesus.
Put that one together.
Jesus prayed alone because he was planning all of it, affirming it with himself and blessing it all in himself.
You see...this whole human/God thing is beyond our full comprehension. We don't know how Jesus does what he does. And we can't fully grasp how the God/Man is doing any of this. Did he cause the water molecules to transform in such a way so that they become solidified as he steps on them and them immediately revert back into normal waters when he steps off? We don't know. Is he simply levitating? If so, what the hell does that mean? Levitating. Again...causing the air molecules...and so on and so forth.
What we do know.
Peter also walked on the water.
His faith, for a time, became a supernatural force. There's that word again.
Is it really supernatural, or just something that could be if only you had faith.
And maybe that was the point all along.
Jesus created a means for saving grace, he created the faith paradigm. And everything we see going on throughout the entire biblical record is God building up faith in people. All of it is about this faith thing. The Pharisees didn't have it. The crowds did have it, and they were healed because of it. Herod didn't have it. John The Baptist died for it. Peter walked in it before he lost sight of it, and thankfully he regains his sight again. As does Saul who eventually becomes Paul when his sight is restored. All of them were wrestling with Faith. Like Jacob, they all had to wrestle with their faith. Some find it and keep it. And some don't.
Jesus prayed that we all will be unified in that faith.
Luke 22:32
"I have prayed for you, that your faith should not fail"