In our first reading we have one of the characters and situations I was referring to last weekend, Elijah in the presence of God, the prophet hid his face so he did not see God, so in the Transfiguration which we celebrated last weekend, Elijah finally got to see God face to face.
This weekend we have another episode of seeing God, (known as a theophany,) this time it is all of the disciples who are on the boat, about four miles from the shore, and they think they see a ghost or a spirit, “and they cried out in fear. At once Jesus spoke to them, "Take courage, it is I; do not be afraid."”
This week I learned something new about this passage, this phrase “it is I” can be translated as “I AM,” which is the name of God. The phrase in the Greek (egō eimi) can be translated either way, so when God told Moses His name He said, “I AM” and here it is again, Jesus invoking the name of God for Himself.
So another way to translate Jesus’ response to the disciples’ cry of distress would be “Take heart, I AM, have no fear.” So get this, out of the place of their fear, I mean the wind is bad enough but now a ghost too, from the source of their fear actually comes the solution, to trust in God and be strengthened by Him.
Erasmo Leiva-Merikakas says, “For this is the chief feature of the Paschal Mystery, that new life should emanate from the place of death.” In other words, one of people’s greatest fears is death, but by Jesus’ death on the cross, we receive new life, abundant life in fact.
Now you might be thinking, I am not afraid to die, but death comes in other ways, right? There’s a type of social death, where something happens where we lose our friends and even our family. There’s a type of professional death, where we lose our job and our professional reputation. I am sure there are other types of death, but these are things that we truly fear.
This episode of Jesus walking on the water shows us how very mistaken our human perceptions frequently are. We often expect solutions to our worst problems to come from outside the problems themselves, not from the center. But here Jesus comes to comfort the disciples from the center of the storm, which should tell us that we too must look for Jesus at the center of our storms, our places of fear.
Jesus has come to shatter our fears from within, if we allow Him. This is something that is often done in Healing Prayer, we invite Jesus into the situations of pain in our lives and allow Him to heal us. We stop looking everywhere else and start looking to the Lord, who truly does want to show us His kindness, and grant us His salvation, as we sang in the Psalm.
One other aspect of Healing Prayer that often is forgotten about is this notion of worship or adoration, and that is why we offer Healing Prayer during Wednesday Adoration. Worship is a crucial piece, before and after, whether we received the healing we wanted or not, we worship God, we praise Him, we adore Him.
We find this in our Gospel as well, at the end it said, “After they got into the boat, the wind died down. Those who were in the boat did him homage, (proskyneō) saying, "Truly, you are the Son of God."” Jesus had saved them.
And “Those who were in the boat did him homage” - homage means to worship Him, kneeling or falling down on their faces. That word homage is the same word in the Greek when the devil tempted Jesus to worship Him and Jesus responded that worship belongs to God alone. And here in this episode Jesus is receiving their worship for saving them.
The Church is often described as a boat, and here we see the disciples worshiping in the boat, here we are at Mass, worshiping Jesus together as well, just like on Wednesday nights for Adoration. It’s interesting, maybe you remember last week I said there is a Hierarchy of Angels and Saints in Heaven, but there is also a Hierarchy of places we should worship God, and here in the Church is #1, the top on the list, as far as worshiping God.
Some people say that they find God in nature, which God is of course in nature since He is everywhere and in everything, but people don’t go out into nature and genuflect to every tree do they? No, although that might be a good leg lunge workout, we come into this Church and we genuflect to God in the tabernacle, then we kneel to pray, we worship Him with our body, there is "I AM." This is important to remember, God is here, truly present to us in the Church.
Yes God is everywhere, but this is the best place to worship, in the boat surrounded by our community, and we bring Him our fears, we ask Him for healing, and then we praise Him for His salvation. God loves us and will save us and strengthen our faith in the process when we cry out in faith. Don't let your fear overwhelm you, come here to worship and let “I AM” heal and save you.