EDENTON — At this Sunday’s service at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, Jonathan Tobias delivered a sermon on the familiar Gospel account of Peter walking on water (Matthew 14:22–33), offering a fresh take on a story many churchgoers have heard interpreted simply as an admonition to “keep your eyes on Jesus.”

If you don’t know, Tobias is a priest, writer, and seminary theology lecturer who has lived in Edenton for many years. 

I confess that when I saw one of my favorite award-winning newspaper columnists at the pulpit, I was a bit apprehensive that he would dive into topics where I don’t agree with him – I didn’t come to church to be lectured on why terriers are better than dachshunds. 

Instead, Tobias gave the best sermons about Peter that I’ve ever heard. His complete sermon appears below.

Why report on a Sunday sermon — if we can report on a football game, we can certainly share the news about Christ’s love.   

Tobias challenged that traditional reading, arguing it can unintentionally burden struggling believers with the message that faith alone determines whether they stay afloat. Instead, he emphasized that Christ initiates the rescue before Peter ever steps out of the boat, and that Jesus comes not just for Peter individually but for the entire frightened crew.

The sermon’s central theme centered on the word “immediately” — the moment in Matthew’s account when Jesus catches the sinking Peter without waiting for an explanation or a display of stronger faith. Tobias framed this as evidence that grace and rescue come first, with correction and teaching following only from within that embrace, not as a precondition for it.

Drawing a connecting thread to Acts chapter 3, Tobias pointed to Peter later healing a man at the Temple’s Beautiful Gate, suggesting Peter had internalized the lesson of Christ’s grip and become an instrument of that same reaching hand for others.

The sermon closed with a broader message for both individuals and the institutional church: that hope rests not in personal strength, resources, or the “seaworthiness of the boat,” but in Christ’s initiative toward those who are struggling. Tobias encouraged congregants facing hardship — whether grief, illness, financial anxiety, or exhaustion — that even a simple prayer, “Lord, save me,” is sufficient, since rescue does not wait for polished faith or complete understanding.

The Hand of Christ
Is Quicker Than the Abyss

Matthew 14:22–33

Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of our hearts be acceptable in your sight, O Lord, our strength and our redeemer. Amen.

When I was younger, I often heard this Gospel of Jesus walking on the water preached in a particular way.

Perhaps you did too.

Peter walks on the water. Then Peter notices the wind. He becomes frightened. He begins to sink.

And the lesson was simple:

Keep your eyes on Jesus.

There is truth in that.

Fear divides our attention. There are times when we become so absorbed in the storm around us that we lose sight of the One who has called us.

But over the years I have begun to wonder whether that is really the center of this story.

Because if we are not careful, “Keep your eyes on Jesus” can become one more burden laid upon frightened people.

Believe hard enough.

Suppress your fear.

Do not notice the wind.

Do not look at the waves.

As if any of that were possible.

It can begin to sound as though Peter remains above the water only so long as he maintains perfect spiritual concentration.

But Matthew begins somewhere else.

Before Peter ever gets out of the boat—

Jesus is already coming toward him.

The disciples are frightened. The boat is battered by waves. It is dark. They are far from land. The wind is against them.

And Jesus comes.

The initiative belongs entirely to Christ.

Christ Comes to the Whole Boat

And notice something else.

Jesus has not crossed the sea merely to stage a private spiritual adventure for Peter.

He is coming to the whole boat.

To the frightened little community being battered together in the dark.

Peter says, “Lord, if it is you, command me to come to you on the water.”

That is courageous.

It is also impulsive.

In other words, it is thoroughly Petrine.

And perhaps Peter might simply have stayed in the boat.

After all, Jesus is already coming to them.

The point of Jesus walking across the sea is not to escape his companions but to reach them.

Unlike Odysseus, who finally survives the sea having lost every companion entrusted to him, Jesus does not save himself at the expense of his crew.

He comes for all of them.

Still, Peter asks.

And Jesus says:

“Come.”

And Peter does.

He actually climbs over the side of that boat.

Let us not diminish that.

Peter’s faith is real.

His courage is real.

He trusts Christ—but he notices the wind.

He believes—and he is frightened.

He walks—and he begins to sink.

Peter is not a superhero. Peter is a disciple.

Which is wonderfully good news, because so are we.

But perhaps there is something deeper happening here than Peter simply failing to concentrate.

A few chapters later Peter will make the great confession:

“You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God.”

Those are the right words. But Peter still has almost no idea how large the reality behind those words actually is.

Neither do we.

All of us are, in one way or another, Christologically deficient. In other words, our Jesus is too small.

We confess him truthfully—and then quietly put him into a shoebox small enough for us to manage: We like a Jesus who can comfort us. A Jesus who can forgive respectable sins. A Jesus who can help us become slightly nicer. A Jesus who can perhaps get us safely into heaven.

But Matthew gives us a Jesus who does not respect our carefully drawn boundaries between possible and impossible.

He walks across what cannot be walked across. He reaches people who cannot be reached.

Elsewhere he tells us that a camel can somehow get through the eye of a needle if God desires it.

He tells a paralytic to rise—and then does something even more outrageous:he forgives his sins.

He calls Lazarus across the supposedly unbridgeable abyss of death.

The problem in this story may not merely be that Peter’s faith is too small. Peter’s Jesus is too small.

The wind suddenly appears larger than the Christ standing upon the sea.

And perhaps that is why Jesus eventually asks: “Why did you doubt?”

Not: “Peter, why weren’t you spiritually tougher?”

Perhaps the question is closer to: Peter, why did you think the wind had set a limit on me?

Immediately

And now we come to the word in this Gospel that has captured my heart.

Peter begins to sink.

Whatever confidence he had is gone.

Whatever theology he possesses has now become extremely concise.

He cries: “Lord, save me!”

And Matthew says: “Immediately … Jesus reached out his hand and caught him.”

Immediately.

Peter does not have time to correct his Christology. Jesus does not wait for him to calm down. He does not wait for Peter to regain composure. He does not demand a coherent explanation of precisely what went wrong.

Jesus does not conduct an examination in advanced waterborne discipleship while Peter disappears under the waves.

Jesus reaches. Jesus catches. Then and only then does he speak.

The rescue comes before the lesson.

Jesus asks, “You of little faith, why did you doubt?”

But he asks the question while Peter is already being held.

Peter is not being interrogated at the bottom of the Sea of Galilee.

The hand is already around him.

The correction comes from inside the embrace.

That is grace.

Grace does not mean that Christ never corrects us. He does.

It means that his correction comes from within a mercy that has already reached us.

The love is not Peter’s prize for providing the correct answer.

The love is the place from which the question can finally be asked.

And maybe faith at that moment is much simpler than we sometimes make it.

Faith is sometimes nothing more than knowing whom to call while you are sinking.

“Lord, save me.”

That is not impressive faith. It is not eloquent faith. It is barely a sentence.

But it knows the Name. And Christ’s hand is already moving.

A Hand Before a Homily

I think the Church sometimes gets this backward.

We explain before we embrace.

We analyze before we accompany.

We lecture drowning people before we extend a hand.

But Jesus does not.

His hand comes before the homily.

There are people in churches this morning who are sinking.

Some are carrying grief.

Some are frightened by illness.

Some are worried about children or grandchildren.

Some are anxious about money.

Some are exhausted by caring for somebody they love.

Some have become strangers to the future they once imagined.

Some have even been wounded by the Church itself.

What do they need first?

Not an explanation.

A hand.

Food before judgment. Companionship before explanation. Mercy before moral analysis.

A community willing to remain in the storm with frightened people … long enough for them to discover that Christ has already come there.

That is not the abandonment of truth. It is exactly how divine truth comes to us.

“The Word became flesh and lived among us.”

God did not send an argument from a safe distance. God himself came near. God entered the boat. God reached into the water.

And Christ did not give Peter a swimming lesson. He gave him his hand.

The Hand Keeps Reaching

And a few days after Pentecost, something extraordinary happens.

In the third chapter of the Book of Acts Peter and John go to the Temple to prayer, and there they encounter a man at the Gate called Beautiful.

What a name: Beautiful Gate.

A man whose body, from birth, has never been able to carry him through that gate.

Peter says: “Silver and gold have I none; but what I have I give you. In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, stand up and walk.”

But Peter does not merely tell the man to stand. Acts says Peter takes him by the right hand—and raises him.

Do you see what has happened?

The hand of Christ is still reaching. Now through Peter. Now through the Church.

The disciple who once needed to be caught has become a disciple through whom another person is caught.

Peter has learned the grammar of grace in his own body.

He knows what that hand feels like. And now his hand becomes an extension of Christ’s.

The same Peter who panicked on the sea now looks at an impossibility lying at a gate and says: In the Name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, rise.

And it occurred to me this week that on that day—Peter really did walk on water. And this time he did not sink.

Not literally. Something greater. Peter participated in Christ’s impossible mercy.

He crossed the boundary everybody else had accepted: This man has never walked. This is simply how things are. It is what it is. This is the limit. This cannot be crossed.

But Peter has met the One who walks across what cannot be crossed. And now Peter participates in that life.

Not because Peter has become powerful. Because Peter finally knows whose Name to speak and whose hand he is extending.

That is what Christian faith finally means. Not becoming impressive. Not learning how to manufacture miracles.

To see Jesus more truthfully is to become less willing to accept the world’s declaration that love, reconciliation, mercy, healing, welcome, forgiveness, and new life are impossible. Because in Jesus, all things are possible.

Whose Grip Saves Us?

Many Christians have been taught to imagine faith chiefly as the strength of our grip upon God: “Hold on. Don’t let go. Don’t doubt. Don’t falter.:

But Peter’s story says something much better.

We are not finally saved by the strength of our grip upon Christ.

We are saved by the strength of Christ’s grip upon us.

Peter’s hand is frightened. Peter’s hand is slipping.

Christ’s hand is not.

Faith matters. Faith gets Peter over the side of the boat. Faith teaches him whose Name to cry. Faith receives the hand that reaches him. But faith is not an achievement that makes grace possible.

Christ’s call comes first. Christ’s approach comes first. Christ’s hand comes first. Grace comes first.

I know why this story speaks to me. Because I know something about Peter. I hear the call of Christ. I take a step.

And then I immediately discover seventeen very sensible reasons why what I am doing cannot possibly work.

Perhaps you know something about that too.

Perhaps Christ has called you to forgive someone.

To begin again after disappointment.

To tell a difficult truth lovingly.

To care for someone you never expected to care for.

To enter a new season of life without knowing precisely where it leads.

To welcome somebody you have been taught to fear.

Or simply to take the next faithful step.

And then—you notice the wind and the wave.

The Church in the Storm

Peter is also, I think, the Church in miniature.

The Church hears Christ’s call and steps forward.

Sometimes, astonishingly, she seems to walk on water.

Then she notices the wind. Declining attendance. Financial uncertainty. Cultural change. Political hostility. The failures of her leaders. The wounds she herself has inflicted. The trust she has squandered.

Those things are real. They require honesty. Repentance. Wisdom. Work. But they are not the Gospel.

The institutional survival of the Church is not the good news we have been sent to proclaim.

Christ is.

Our hope was never the seaworthiness of the boat. Our hope was never the size of the crew. Our hope was never our skill at predicting the weather.

Our hope is that Jesus comes to frightened disciples in the dark.

And the Church still needs to know how to pray Peter’s very short prayer: “Lord, save us.”

Then, having been caught, she must learn to become the hand that catches others.

Feed. Forgive. Welcome. Tell the truth. Stand beside the frightened. Raise up those who have been left lying at beautiful gates. Walk across boundaries that everybody else has declared uncrossable.

Because the bigger the Jesus we apprehend, the smaller the territory we can surrender to despair.

The Last Movement

Perhaps someone here needs this story today.

You may still be in the storm.

The wind may still be blowing.

The waves may still be high.

Your faith may feel very small.

Your Jesus may still be smaller in your imagination than the Jesus who is actually coming toward you.

You may believe and be frightened at the same time.

You may have answered Christ’s call and now wonder whether you misunderstood everything.

You may be sinking in grief.

Or uncertainty.

Or shame.

Or weariness.

And perhaps the only prayer you can manage is three words:

“Lord, save me.”

And that is enough.

Because Matthew tells us what Jesus does next.

Not eventually.

Not after Peter earns it.

Not after Peter becomes spiritually impressive.

Not after Peter conquers his fear.

Not after Peter develops a better theology of water.

Immediately.

Jesus reaches.

The rescue comes before the lesson.

The correction comes from inside the embrace.

The storm is still real.

But Peter is already held.

Our Jesus is always larger than the abyss we fear he cannot cross.

There is no water he cannot walk upon.

No storm through which he cannot come.

No terrified boat he cannot find in the dark.

No frightened, impulsive disciple sinking too quickly for his hand.

The abyss is fast.

But Christ is faster.

The abyss acts quickly.

But Christ acts immediately.

The hand of Christ is quicker than the abyss.

Amen.