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§15 Jesus Walks on the Water (John 6:16–25)

Jesus’ solitary escape from those who would make him king provides an additional reason for a detail in the synoptic Gospels that is only partially explained. After the feeding “Jesus made his disciples get into the boat and go on ahead of him to Bethsaida, while he dismissed the crowd. After leaving them, he went up on a mountainside to pray” (Mark 6:45–46; cf. Matt. 14:22–23). John’s Gospel suggests that he also “he went up on a mountainside” to prevent a kidnap attempt!

In similar fashion, Mark and Matthew supply a reason for something John leaves unexplained. Why did Jesus’ disciples (v. 16) abruptly return to Capernaum in the boat without him? The synoptic answer is that they embarked because Jesus made them do so. Behind both accounts is the assumption that Jesus was in control of the situation and planned his moves carefully. The action is divided into two days, the evening of the (indefinite) day on which the miracle took place (v. 16) and the next day (v. 22). The reference to the next day is not intended to begin another sequence like that of 1:19–2:11 but is simply necessitated by the mention of evening (it was dark, v. 17).

The approach of night lends a dramatic note to the readers’ awareness that Jesus had not yet joined them (v. 17). The narrator and the readers both know the story of Jesus rejoining his disciples by walking on the water, but the participants in the drama do not. When he appears, they are surprised and terrified (v. 19). Their perspective and the literary perspective of the author and his readers merge into one. The readers share the terror of the disciples in the boat in verse 19, but already in verse 17 the disciples have been made dramatic sharers in the readers’ anticipation of Jesus’ appearance on the lake. In the actual incident, it is doubtful that the disciples were expecting to meet Jesus, whether miraculously walking on the water or at some prearranged point on the shore.

Far from calming anxieties they may have had about the rising storm (v. 18), the visitation itself produced among the disciples immediate fear (v. 19). The synoptic account explains that they thought they had seen a ghost (Gr.: phantasma: Mark 6:49; Matt. 14:26). When Jesus assures them, It is I; don’t be afraid (Gr.: egō eimi, v. 20; cf. Mark 6:50; Matt. 14:27), his intent is simply self-identification. He is not a ghost, but the one who that very day had fed the crowd, escaped to the hill, and sent them back across the lake to Capernaum. Here is where the disciples and the readers part company. To the disciples, Jesus reveals himself as a human being, their teacher and friend. But to the readers his use of the formula egō eimi suggests something more. He is nothing less than God himself, the I Am, the self-revealing God of the Hebrew Scriptures (cf., e.g., Isa. 43:25; 45:18; 51:12; 52:6) who existed before Abraham (cf. 8:58) and whose power was displayed over the waters (e.g., Ps. 77:16–20) as well as the dry land. In Psalm 107, after reflecting on God’s care for his people “in the trackless desert” and how he satisfied their hunger and thirst and set them free (107:4–22), the psalmist writes:

Others went out on the sea in ships;

they were merchants on the mighty waters.

They saw the works of the LORD,

his wonderful deeds in the deep.

For he spoke and stirred up a tempest

that lifted high the waves.

They mounted up to the heavens and went down to the depths;

in their peril their courage melted away.

They reeled and staggered like drunken men;

they were at their wits’ end.

Then they cried out to the LORD in their trouble,

and he brought them out of their distress.

He stilled the storm to a whisper;

the waves of the sea were hushed.

They were glad when it grew calm,

and he guided them to their desired haven.

(Ps. 107:23–30)

The last lines in particular are dramatized in the strange statement of verse 21 that when the disciples tried to take Jesus aboard, immediately the boat reached the shore where they were heading. The whole scene has a supernatural quality about it, like a resurrection appearance (more even than chap. 21). Jesus assures the disciples that he really is the person they have known all along, yet his presence—and, for a moment, theirs—is elusive, transcending time and space. He does not so much enter their world—the boat and the storm on the lake—as give them a glimpse and a taste, however fleeting, of his world. The disciples’ reaction is not expressed (contrast Mark 6:51–52; Matt. 14:32–33). As soon as they reach shore, they drop out of the story until at least verse 60 (possibly, vv. 66 or 67). It is left to the reader to sense the mystery of what has happened and to wait for the explanation that only Jesus’ words (and they only in part) will later provide.

The next day’s events are told from the standpoint of the crowd left behind at the place of the miraculous feeding, still looking for Jesus (cf. v. 15). When they saw no boats, they realized that there had been only one to begin with, and that Jesus’ disciples (whose departure they apparently had witnessed) had taken it (vv. 22, 24). They knew Jesus had not left with his disciples in the boat, but having looked for him in vain in the hill country, they could only conclude that somehow he was on his way to rejoin the disciples at Capernaum. Not only had they failed to find their prophet-king, but they were stranded on the opposite shore. Other boats from Tiberias, however, arrived just in time to allow them to resume their search (vv. 23–25). The purpose of the abrupt mention of these other boats is simply to explain how the crowd (or rather that portion of the crowd that was pursuing Jesus) got across the lake, and thus to set the stage for the long discourse of 6:26–59. The theme of this section is the search for Jesus. Those who searched found him on the other side of the lake, but how he got there remained a mystery to them. If his comings and goings are beyond the understanding even of his true disciples (vv. 16–21), how much more are they beyond the reach of those who seek him for their own purposes? Those who pursue him in unbelief will never find him (cf. 7:34; 8:21). There is a right way and a wrong way to come to Jesus or to follow him, and the purpose of the ensuing discourse will be to set forth the right way.

Verse 25 is more appropriately included with this section than with the discourse that follows, because it allows the crowd to give voice to the question implicit in the section as a whole: How did Jesus get across the lake? (i.e., Where did he come from? Where does he go?).