Why didn’t he fly?
May 13
John 6: 16When evening came, his disciples went down to the lake, 17 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. 18A strong wind was blowing and the waters grew rough. 19When they had rowed three or three and a half miles, they saw Jesus approaching the boat, walking on the water; and they were terrified. 20But he said to them, “It is I; don’t be afraid.” 21Then they were willing to take him into the boat, and immediately the boat reached the shore where they were heading.
I have often wondered why it was that Jesus never to do more miracles like the one he did when he was walking on the water. I mean why did Jesus not jump down from a cliff for example? Jesus could easily have walked right through walls and there are one or two occasions where he did this. We know the one occasion after he had already risen from the dead way he walked into the room which was locked.
But the only occasion that we really read of Jesus completely defying nature was where he walked on water like this. Walking on water is completely unnatural. There is no difference between walking on water and fly as far as I’m concerned. Both of them are defying the natural laws of nature. I think Jesus did this once or twice just to show that he was God that he was above the universe.
It is not surprising to see that the disciples natural reaction was that they were terrified. Even though they were not completely surprised that Jesus was able to do this, he had never performed such a miracle before and so they were astounded. I really love the last line of that passage, where it says that the moment that took him into the boat immediately the boat reached the shore where they were heading. I am not sure whether the implication was that that was another miracle with it just simply suddenly ended up on the shore, whether it meant that the wind stopped and therefore they were able to roll ashore immediately. In either case we serve a wonderful, risen God.