In next Sunday’s gospel lesson[1]
we hear how the disciples were rowing across Lake Galilee at night. Jesus had made them go on ahead, while he
stayed on the far side of the lake, alone, in prayer. But a storm blew up and they were in
danger. In the fourth watch of the
night, it says… Both Romans and Jews
divided the night into four watches, each three hours long. This was the fourth watch, roughly between 3
am and 6 am. So they had already been
rowing quite a while. Perhaps in the
storm and the dark they didn’t know where they were. It was in the fourth watch that they saw
Jesus coming to them, walking on the waves… I should mention here that the
fourth watch was also, in the ancient mind, the time when the demons of the
night start to stream back to where they belong, before daylight. The disciples assumed they were seeing a phantom,
says Matthew.
Well, let’s say something about
the fourth watch. I think we know it quite
well. It is when you have to report at
the airport at 7 am, or you have a 3-hour written exam at 9 am, and you haven’t
slept since midnight. In a refugee camp
in Syria or South Sudan it might be the time when it seems nothing will ever be
good again. For any of us it may be the
time when we are unaccountably wide awake for no reason whatever except to
annoy us. Or it is the blessed moment
when the fractious toddler finally goes to sleep, or a wandering adolescent
finally gets home via a downstairs window.
Anything that happens seems magnified in the fourth watch... and the
storm doesn’t have to be a storm on the lake.
...and in the fourth watch
of the night he came to them, walking on the sea. Now, do not treat this as some official
narrative of events – if we do, we trivialise it and miss the point. It is the early church’s way of telling their
experience of the risen and present Jesus, in the storms they were
encountering. What they are saying here
is no surprise to anyone who practises a discipline of contemplative prayer. In the
turmoil, whatever it may be, or in the anxiety, or the loss, he is
present. Somehow he is above the
storm. That is where Peter would like to
be too, and he calls to Jesus. If Peter also
can walk on the waves, then all his troubles will be over. But of course he can’t, he sinks, Jesus rescues
him from drowning. They are depicting
how they found faith in the midst of persecution and daily insecurity.
In many ways it seems to be
the fourth watch of the night now, in human events… if we list only world-wide intractable
viral disease, the resurgence of racism, warfare and the displacement of
millions, the rule of tyrants and bullies, and the menace of climate change… It is a true kairos. If we have found how to be still and silent,
how to lay aside fear, including the fear of death, and the clamant demands of
self… then the eye of the heart, as Paul calls it[2],
may indeed see him bringing hope and peace and a way forward each day, in faith
and helpfulness. As Peter found, we get
a clearer view of what we can and what we cannot do to save the world. We learn the importance of being, and of
being true.
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