We heard last week how, after Jesus’ cousin John was murdered, he attempted to go off by himself but was followed by crowds who wouldn’t leave him be.
Taking pity on their neediness he cures and feeds them. Now we hear how following this he does escape the crowds for a little while, and sends the disciples on ahead of him by boat (Matthew 14:22-33).
The disciples still have a lot to learn. They didn’t handle the situation of feeding the crowd very well – they were clueless about Jesus‘ power. As fishermen they should have been pretty competent about dealing with a storm. It seems even then they couldn’t go it alone. Jesus needs to walk out to them over the water to rescue them.
What is he rescuing them from – their fear. And Peter of course, ever one to try to upstage everyone else, leaps in, only to find that he really didn’t have control of the situation. The message for us is to avoid that over-exuberant approach of Peter, to heed well the lesson that Elijah had to learn – God is in the little things, the unremarkable incidents (1 Kings 19:9a, 11-13a). And when God is with us we know it – because he rescues us from fear.