John 6:16-21
"Now when evening came, His disciples went down to the sea, got into the boat, and went over the sea toward Capernaum. And it was already dark, and Jesus had not come to them.
Then the sea arose because a great wind was blowing. So when they had rowed about three or four miles, they saw Jesus walking on the sea and drawing near the boat; and they were afraid.
But He said to them, "It is I; do not be afraid." Then they willingly received Him into the boat, and immediately the boat was at the land where they were going."

Mark's record of the event adds further detail:
Mark 6:45-52
"Immediately He made His disciples get into the boat and go before Him to the other side, to Bethsaida, while He sent the multitude away.
And when He had sent them away, He departed to the mountain to pray.
Now when evening came, the boat was in the middle of the sea; and He was alone on the land.
Then He saw them straining at rowing, for the wind was against them. Now about the fourth watch of the night He came to them, walking on the sea, and would have passed them by.
And when they saw Him walking on the sea, they supposed it was a ghost, and cried out; for they all saw Him and were troubled. But immediately He talked with them and said to them, "Be of good cheer! It is I; do not be afraid."
Then He went up into the boat to them, and the wind ceased. And they were greatly amazed in themselves beyond measure, and marveled. For they had not understood about the loaves, because their heart was hardened."

Message:
Verse 15 of John 6 introduces the event we have just read about..."Therefore when Jesus perceived that they were about to come and take Him by force to make Him king, He departed again to the mountain by Himself alone."

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After the feeding of the five thousand, these Jews had owned Him (with their lips) as PROPHET, and they were ready to crown Him as their KING, but there is another office that comes in between these. Christ could not be their KING until He had first officiated as PRIEST, offering Himself as a Sacrifice for sin! But there was also a moral and dispensational reason why Christ "departed" when these Jews would use force to make Him a King. He needed not to be MADE ‘a king,’ for He was BORN such (Matt. 2:2); nor would He receive the kingdom at their hands. The Lord would not take the kingdom from zeal like this. This could not be the source of the kingdom of the Son of Man.
After the hunger of the crowd had been satisfied Jesus immediately sent His disciples away before He dismissed the crowd. Why should He do that? Mark does not tell us, but most probably we have the explanation in John's account of this incident. John tells us that after the crowd had been fed there was this effort by the throng to make Him king as we have just noted...and that was the last thing Jesus wanted. It was that very way of power that once, finally, and for all, He had rejected at the time of His temptations. He could see it coming. He did not want His disciples to be infected and caught up in this nationalistic outburst.
Galilee was the hotbed of revolution. If this movement was not checked there might well emerge amongst the excitable people a rebellion which would wreck everything, and which could only lead to disaster for all concerned.
So Jesus sent away His disciples, lest they too should become inflamed by this movement, and then He could calm the crowds and bid them farewell.
The crowds have dispersed, the disciples have gotten into their boat and started their journey to the other side of the lake, and Jesus went up into the mountain to pray. Thick and fast the problems were descending upon Him. There was the hostility of the orthodox people; there was the frightened suspicion of Herod Antipas, the ruler of Galilee; there were the political hotbeds who would make Him a nationalistic Messiah against His will. At this particular time there was many a problem on Jesus' mind and many a burden on His heart.

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"Now when evening came, His disciples went down to the sea, got into the boat, and went over the sea toward Capernaum. And it was already dark, and Jesus had not come to them."
John's account is highly compressed. We do not learn from him, as we do from Matthew and Mark, that Jesus had sent the disciples away. Clearly He preferred to deal with the would-be king-makers without the presence of His own close followers. But this has to be inferred, a position we have earlier expressed.
John says nothing of the reason for the embarkation. He simply tells of the journey. He mentions the coming darkness, which is understandable. But it is not easy to see why he tells us that "Jesus had not yet come to them." They hardly expected Him to come walking on the sea, as their subsequent terror shows. Probably, with Westcott, we should take the meaning to be: "Jesus had directed the apostles to wait for Him, at some point on the eastern shore on their way to Capernaum, but not beyond a certain time." The statement of Mark 6:45, that Jesus sent them "before Him unto the other side to Bethsaida, while He Himself sendeth the multitude away" is not irreconcilable with this view. The disciples were sent away by ship, but Jesus might well have rejoined them at some point further along the shore. His delaying is related to the dismissal of the crowd. The disciples knew this and may have expected Christ accordingly.
Our text says that the disciples got into their boat and started across the water to go to Capernaum.
The sea of Galilee is not a large body of water, and there are some considerable mountains close by, which can cause strong wind squalls. It is possible for storms to arise suddenly and evidently that was what happened on this occasion. With a strong wind blowing and a rising sea, the voyage came to be a difficult one. Mark tells us the wind was contrary and that would have made their rowing a hard task. The disciples started their journey at dusk and rowed until approximately 3:00 a.m. or dawn!
John tells us that they saw Jesus when they had rowed about twenty-five or thirty stadia (v.19; Mark simply locates the boat "in the middle of the sea," which is not precise but shows that they were still a long way from the land).

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This event has had many interesting, and many false, interpretations as theologians have attempted to explain away the miracle. One theory claims there were stones in the water and since Jesus was walking close to the shore, He was walking on the stones! Question! Why did Peter begin to sink?
Another explanation translates the word "on" (Matt. 14:25; John 6:19) as "around" claiming Jesus walked around the lake. Let me quote from the theologian who suggests this idea. "We must remember two facts. At the north end of the lake was no more than four miles across; and John tells us that the disciples had rowed between three and four miles; that is to say, they were very nearly at their journey’s end. It is natural to suppose that in the wind they hugged the shore of the lake, seeking what shelter they might find. That is the first fact and now we come to the second. They saw Jesus as the Authorized Version and Revised Standard Version have it, walking on the sea. The Greek is EPI TES THALASSES which is precisely the phrase used in John 21:1, where it means--it has never been questioned--that Jesus was walking on the seashore. That is what the phrase means in our passage, too. (This quote comes from Barclay's Bible Study series and his implied interpretation is that Jesus was not walking on the water, but on the seashore...therefore there really is no miracle intended in the presentation of this event in the life of Jesus.
NEITHER THE ORIGINAL TEXT NOR THE OBVIOUS INTENT OF THE AUTHOR SUPPORTS THIS VIEW!
What happened was presented in the Gospels as a miracle and it is meant to be treated as such! Jesus intended for this miracle to teach the disciples deeper spiritual realities, and it can do the same for us. Note also that it is called "a sign" and whenever John speaks of a "sign" he is pointing us to deep spiritual truths. That night of struggle on the stormy sea is a picture of those who follow Christ through the storms of life.
Let me take just a moment to give an answer to the position of Mr. Barclay which we have just noted above.
We noted that Mr. Barclay gives us the Greek translation...EPI TES THALASSES. The Greek preposition EPI is rather like the English "on." The basic meaning refers to one thing being on top of another, though it is not impossible to use it of "being close by." Thus if you say, "I live on Fourth Avenue," you really mean

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that your house is beside Fourth Avenue;" you do not mean that it is in the middle of the avenue. But the fact that "on" may have more than one meaning does not bother us. The context shows us which one is meant; and we cheerfully use the word in whichever way the need of the moment dictates. So the fact that in John 21:1 the expression means "by the sea" does not give its meaning here. We must take the context into account. It is relevant also to see what the other accounts say, and we find that Matthew has exactly the same expression as John. In his case the subsequent request of Peter that he be bidden to come to Jesus "on the waters" (Matt. 14:28) employs the same preposition EPI, "on," which makes it very plain that in this story the meaning is "on the sea" and not "on the seashore."
There is one interesting aspect of this story which Matthew states: "Immediately Jesus made the disciples get into the boat and go on ahead of him to the other side..." The word "MADE" could also be translated "COMPELLED"——"to compel by force or persuasion or to constrain." The picture Scripture paints is one of disciples who did not want to go to the other side but who were persuaded, even compelled, by our Lord. He deliberately sent them out into the lake. The observation that I want to make here is that the disciples were doing exactly what Jesus told them to do...they were out in the middle of the lake in the darkness, fighting the storm...all because Jesus told them to do so!
The great preacher Clarence Edward Macartney described it like this:
"Peter, no doubt, took command; (and I am sure that he did) and you can see him there holding the tiller with his stalwart arm, and his beard anointed with the foam of the sea, as in stentorian tones he commands the disciples to trim the ship, lower the sails, and take to the oars. Where all was calm a little while ago, now all is tumult and confusion. As the tempest rages over the lake, the ship tosses like a cork up and down in the great waves, the white foam of the great rollers gleaming in the blackness of the night like the teeth of some monster of the sea."
Please know...that just because life takes on some storms does not suggest that we are out of the will of God!

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The disciples were in trouble because they had steered their boat into contrary winds....at the direction of and in obedience to Christ! Those of us who have decided to follow Jesus are going to be sailing our vessel into the winds of life. We are going to have our troubles and trials. But obey anyway! Moses would never have felt rejected by a complaining people if at the burning bush he had decided not to obey Jehovah. Daniel would never have had to face a lion's den if he had not decided to be faithful to God. Just think of how much persecution Paul would have avoided if he had just stayed in Tarsus. But then these great men would have never known the refreshing winds of the Holy Spirit flowing through their lives. Yes, following Christ will take us into some fierce storms, but the rewards are even greater!
There is also the fact that the disciples were afraid. Some of them were skilled fishermen; their trade was to catch fish on that very lake. They knew it intimately and must have been familiar with its storms. There is no indication that their fear was due to the wind and the waves. It was the sight of Jesus getting near the boat when they were well out from the land that scared them. Men do not approach ships in the middle of the sea, so it did not occur to them that this was their well-known and well-loved Master; they thought they were seeing a ghost (Mark 6:49). There is no reason at all for associating their fear with the storm; it was the sight of Jesus on the water that made them afraid! What those weary, frustrated rowers did not know was that Jesus, in His prayer retreat on the mountain slope, saw them in the darkest hour of their extremity. In His solitude, the Eternal Being was watching the little specks of boats and was cognizant of the sore trouble of their toil. Buffeted by those contrary winds, the disciples were to learn of the Master's divine sympathy and of His willingness to enter the struggle. Thus it was that Jesus came to the distressed rowers in an unexpected way--walking on the sea, as if it had been a soft, smooth carpet. Here was a mode of progression unknown to the disciples. Every new experience of Jesus was an awe-filled surprise to them. He had seemed to neglect them, leaving them hour after hour wrestling with the storm, until they were almost exhausted. Once He calmed a storm for them, why not now? But the One who had been praying for them and watching them now was at hand, yet they knew Him not!

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Jesus seemed to pass the disciples by. Alarmed, they cried, "It is a spirit." Because of the black night, the distressing storm, the somewhat frayed nerves, and the unexpectedness of Christ's presence, they deemed the One they saw to be some apparition come to welcome them to the abode of death. Among the Jews, there was a popular belief that the spirits of the dead visited their relatives long after death. Perhaps these men thought a spirit of some departed one had come to them. But they were to know that he who seemed to be a specter, terrible phantom of the night, was a Savior!
With infinite ease as Jesus moved naturally and majestically over the troubled waters, He sought to calm the cry of the fear of His own by the cheering call, "It is I--THE GREAT I AM--be not afraid." How assuring such an inspiring voice must have been!
In Psalms 107, there is a beautiful passage that describes such a scene:
"Those who go down to the sea in ships, who do business on great waters, they see the works of the Lord, and His wonders in the deep. For He commands and raises the stormy wind, which lifts up the waves of the sea. They mount up to the heavens, they go down again to the depths; their soul melts because of trouble. They reel to and fro, and stagger like a drunken man, and are at their wits' end.
Then they cry out to the Lord in their trouble, and He brings them out of their distresses. He calms the storm , so that its waves are still. Then they are glad because they are quiet; so He guides them to their desired haven. Oh, that men would give thanks to the Lord, for His goodness, and for His wonderful works to the children of men!" (Psalm 107:23-31)
As the heart of the miracle was that of Jesus walking on the sea, we must give some consideration to such a direct act of control over natural law. How are we to explain this seeming contradiction of the known law of gravity? Actually, there was no contradiction nor suspension of the universal law of gravity, but the exercise of a stronger power.
The law of gravity is not set aside when the magnet collects the iron filings; it is only that the superior force of magnetism has overcome gravitation. So what happened that stormy night was the exercise of Christ's

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omnipotence, as He, the Creator of seas and winds, revealed His authority over them, and they being His, He could use them as He desired. Such a supernatural feat was further evidence of His sovereignty, and also a fore gleam of the time when, in His spiritual and glorified human body. He would be able to counteract ordinary natural laws, like that of passing through closed doors.
There is another observation that John makes in our text which I would like to comment on. "And it was already dark, and Jesus had not come to them." (v.l7) Sometimes Christ withholds the light of His countenance even from His own. Job cried, "when I waited for light, there came darkness" (30:26). But, thank God, it is recorded "Unto the upright there ariseth light in the darkness" (Psalm 112:4). Let us remember that the darkness is not created by Satan, but by God (Isaiah 45:7) And He has a wise and good reason for it. Sometimes He withholds the light from His people that they may discover "the treasures of darkness" (Isaiah 45:3)
"I will go before you and make the crooked places straight; I will break in pieces the gates of bronze and cut the bars of iron. I will give you the treasures of darkness and hidden riches of secret places. That you may know that I, the Lord, who call you by your name, am the God of Israel." (Isaiah 45:2-3) Some of the greatest spiritual truths that I have learned were learned in the darkest spiritual nights of my life. When I have felt the harsh winds of life, when the night was too dark even to hope, when it seemed that His absence was evidence of His unconcern...then His dealings with me have been the most precious experiences of my life. Oh! the treasures of spiritual truth learned in the dark moments of life!
"For our light, momentary affliction (this slight distress of the passing hour) is ever more and more abundantly preparing and producing and achieving for us an everlasting weight of glory--beyond all measure, excessively surpassing all comparisons and all calculations, a vast and transcendent glory and blessedness never to cease! Since we consider and look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen; for the things that are visible are temporal (brief and fleeting), but the things that are invisible are deathless and everlasting" (2 Corinthians 4:17, Amplified Bible).

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