罗伯特·科尔布 (博士, University of Wisconsin) is mission professor of systematic theology emeritus at Concordia Seminary in St. 路易. He is the author or coauthor of numerous books and articles.
We usually call the incident “Peter Walked on the Water.” The real story gives the report with a different subject: Jesus rescued Peter, a fellow too dumb to recognize the limits of his own abilities, too enthusiastic about pursuing his own plans to properly estimate the perimeters of his own potential. 彼得和我们大家一样. Peter thought he was heading toward the Lord, but on his own he could not reach Jesus.
Many of us actually decide to head in the opposite direction, 错误估计我们自己的力量, or often to underestimate what the Lord might do with us, 我们的创造者为我们所做的. Some drift away from him; some run from him; some simply stumble and stagger their way through life, 总是有点不平衡, 总是没有安全感. Some pause to look around and fall down a rabbit hole without really noticing. But all of us find ourselves for one reason or another, 走一条路或另一条路, 封闭的与呼吸源隔绝的. We sooner or later discover that we are floating away from the fountain of life, 我们的主耶稣基督. We just naturally get in over our heads, and suddenly it seems too much. 心如石沉. We panic, but often in the midst of life’s dark, stormy seas, we have no clue as to where to turn. 灯光渐渐暗淡，熄灭了, and there seems as if there is no place to go and certainly nothing to grab hold of.
The story should be called “Jesus stretches out his hand as the waves of life bowl us over.“当那些海浪向我们提出要求时, 耶稣伸手去抓, 举起来, 稳定, 用他的圣灵给我们呼吸. In the midst of the turbulence of life’s wicked waves, 耶稣来牵我们的手, 把我们的生命掌握在他手中, and to pour over us the water of baptism that transport us into his death and into his resurrection. For he remakes his people into people whom he has reclaimed from our own willful, 骄傲地追求我们自己的方式. His outstretched hand has pulled us out of our own arrogant refashioning of the rules of life that he put in place to protect us and prosper our lives.
彼得在水上小跑. 他沉. 耶稣扶起了他的跌倒, 没有朋友, and he lifts up all his people day in and day out as he comes and comes back to rescue us.
Jesus descended into the troubled waters into which we have wandered, 他经受住了风浪的冲击. 他经历过扼杀生命的风暴. He has felt the winds that wind us up tight as they toss us back and forth between human systems trying to teach us how to negotiate the waves in ways doomed to failure. With subtle cunning and sneaky craftiness such systems of guidance point us inevitably in the wrong direction as they try to assure us that we belong to them and they possess us.
In the midst of such turbulence Jesus appears. His outstretched hand may come through the flesh and blood hand of a friend or neighbor in casual conversation. It may be stretched out in our direction by a stranger or casual acquaintance in a chance meeting and chat. His outstretched hand may come while we surf the internet or tune into a new source for news and notes on the screen. His outstretched hand may come through a Gideon Bible in a motel room or a poem on Christ’s resurrection by John Updike.
The hand with which he pulls me out and up has a hole in it. For that hand was once outstretched on a cross, where it bled and turned stone cold. But after his three-day detour under the waves, 那只手从浑水里爬了出来, and he now walks atop them in search of his people who are going down. 他呼喊着他人民的名字, and he leaves their old identities under the waves because he has a new identity, 新生活, 为他们, walking on the waters all the way into new life with him.
We who are singing “Rescue” know what Jesus’s rescue really means. There are days when we think that we are back in the midst of the wicked waves as we recognize that once again we have chosen our own ways and left his rules behind. We recognize that we thought we were floating when we actually were sinking and drowning. 然后, there he was—for the how manyth time—with hand outstretched, 把我们拉出乱流, 把我们紧紧抓住.
Jesus came into the devastating and destructive waters as the rescue squad that liberates us from bondage to Satan and releases us from our own silly desires to live life according to our own rules and to act on the basis of our own insufficient planning. He then calls in the triage team led by the Holy Spirit and staffed by Christians who are buoyed up by God’s Word. They model the liberated way of life Jesus gives through the Spirit as he helps us enjoy the presence of Jesus and live in the company of his people.
That is where we belong; with him at our side, 在他的怀抱中, 我们也可以在水上行走, on the water in which he has drowned our old way of living, 我们作为撒旦王国居民的身份. His grasping us and steadying our feet sets us upright, 我们可以和他一起走, 风吹在我们脸上, 下面的海浪, 不用担心. 彼得在水面上小跑着. 他沉. 耶稣扶起了他的跌倒, 没有朋友, and he lifts up all his people day in and day out as he comes and comes back to rescue us."