After the people saw the miraculous sign that Jesus did, they began to say, “Surely this is the Prophet who is to come into the world.” Jesus, knowing that they intended to come and make him king by force, withdrew again to a mountain by himself.
When evening came, his disciples went down to the lake, where they got into a boat and set off across the lake for Capernaum. By now it was dark, and Jesus had not yet joined them. A strong wind was blowing and the waters grew rough. When they had rowed three or three and a half miles, they saw Jesus approaching the boat, walking on the water; and they were terrified. But he said to them, “It is I; don’t be afraid.” Then they were willing to take him into the boat, and immediately the boat reached the shore where they were heading.
John 6:14-21 (NIV)
It is always interesting to me how perfectly good people, when looking at things using purely human logic, can be precisely wrong in how they analyze a person or situation. And even followers of Jesus are not immune to this kind of misanalysis due to invalid assumptions or inaccurate worldviews.
Take, for example, the huge group of people who received the bread and fish from Jesus at the feeding of the 5000. They understood that they had just experienced a HUGE miracle: Jesus multiplying 5 loaves of bread and two small fish so that, not only did everyone there have enough to eat, but there were even 12 baskets full of leftovers for His disciples. Nothing of this magnitude had been heard of since the manna in the wilderness. It was no wonder that the people could see in Jesus and in His actions reflections of the great Prophet that was supposed to come to herald the coming of the Messiah.
Some of the people apparently were having a conference in which they determined that a man that could do this kind of huge miracle could probably throw out Herod and the Romans and take over the government. He could be an amazing King, and with Him in charge, they would be sure that the supply of food never failed, no matter what! This went right along with the popular theology that indicated that the Messiah would be a new, ultra-powerful king, who would restore the independence and greatness of Israel, surpassing even that which they had experienced during the time of Solomon. They apparently decided that, even if this was just the Prophet, He obviously had enough power to pull off the kingship, at least until the real Messiah got there. And so they decide that they would grab Him, take Him to Jerusalem, and show Him the logic of their plan for Him.
The problem was, they had misjudged both Jesus and His mission. He was not the Prophet that was to precede the Messiah; He was the Messiah Himself. And, as the Messiah, His job was not to re-inaugurate the kingdom of Israel, but to inaugurate the kingdom of God as a here-and-now reality. Jesus was powerful enough to multiply bread and fish, and He was also powerful enough to sidestep their plans for Him, no matter how well-intentioned they might have been.
But Jesus’ disciples didn’t do that much better. They had witnessed the same miracle, as well as others too numerous to mention, including stilling a storm with a word. But they still didn’t really understand who Jesus was. Matthew 14:25-26 tells us that when Jesus came out to the boat, walking on the surface of the sea, as the wind blew and the waves crashed around them, the disciples were terrified because they thought He was a ghost. They could never entertain the idea that a real human being could walk on top of the water like that! He must be a spirit of some kind. But Jesus called out to them and, after they were sure it really was Him, they were willing to take Him into the boat.
You know, I don’t think that even seeing Jesus walk on water convinced them that Jesus was in fact the Messiah. They already knew He could do amazing things, and I have a feeling that, at this point in their relationship with Jesus, they just figured that this was one more amazing thing that He could do. Despite the fact that shortly after this Peter declared Jesus to be the Messiah, I don’t think that His followers really understood who He was or what He had come for until that Sunday morning when Jesus rose from the dead and brought the life-giving gospel to life in the hearts and minds of His disciples.
When we have a flawed idea of who and what Jesus is, His words and His actions startle and amaze us. We try to use Him and His power to our advantage, only to be disappointed, or even disillusioned, when it doesn’t work out the way that we had planned. But when we receive Jesus for Who He is, and what He is, and what He came to do, we start to get in line with His agenda, and we get to walk in His presence, and be part of the miraculous work that He is still doing in our world today.