Faithful Presence within the Abyss

My son lives on a boat. He says that a storm at sea—the world pitch-black, the rudder a plaything, crashing waves tossing the boat at will—can drive him below deck balled up and crying out for relief.

Biblical scholars understand Matthew’s story as a word of encouragement for the early church. As it was written in the years after Jesus’ death and ascension into heaven, the earliest hearers would certainly have recognized the themes. Jesus sends the disciples out into the waters of the world without him. After all the transformative teaching, the miraculous healings, the inspired proclamation of the reign of God, Jesus is no longer with them. He has sent them, commissioned them, but he has stayed back. The church—the disciples in the boat—are out at sea alone.

They know what it is like to be battered by the waves, to lose one’s bearings far from land, to have headwinds constantly against them. They must feel terrified. They must feel abandoned. Perhaps they feel abandoned by Jesus himself.

But Jesus has not abandoned them. Amid the soul-numbing tempest, defying all odds, Jesus walks into the storm to be with them. He echoes the self-authenticating words of Yahweh to Moses. “It is I,” Jesus says. “Be not afraid.”

We too are in the boat with the disciples. We seek to be faithful followers; we strive to live the gospel; we give ourselves to love and good works. Sometimes the storm batters us as well. But Jesus is in the center of the storm. No matter how thrashing the waves, how ferocious the winds, Jesus walks through them. He meets us, even if we are cowering in the cabin below deck. “Take heart,” he says. “I am with you.”