The Lord’s Lessons in Our Failures
Luke tells a story in the fifth chapter of his Gospel. Jesus was in Galilee teaching, the crowds pressing in to the point of overwhelming him. Peter (then called Simon) had been fishing all night and was nearby washing his nets. His boat sat empty on the shoreline, and Jesus asked if he’d take him out a little way on the water so his voice would carry as he taught. Simon did as he was told. When Jesus was done teaching, he told him to go out further and cast his nets. Peter was tired. He’d fished all night and had just cleaned his nets; he’d have to repeat the whole exercise and as an experienced fisherman, he knew that the effort was pointless. Fishing had been fruitless the night before; it was the wrong time of day to be casting nets anyway. But he did as he was told and cast the nets again. The nets almost tore with the weight of the fish, and his partners had to come to help them bring in the catch.
Three years later John saw the mysterious figure on the shoreline and the overflowing nets after a hapless night. He turned to Peter and said, “It’s the Lord” (v. 7).
Peter dove right into the water and swam to shore.
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I’ll admit that this may well be overreading the text, but I can’t help but obsess with one detail in this account: Peter leaping into the water.
Maybe it’s a superfluous detail, maybe it shows Peter’s impulsiveness once again. But when I read it, I can’t help but think of yet a third moment between Jesus and Peter on the Sea of Galilee—one recounted in Matthew 14.
Jesus had performed the miracle of feeding the five thousand but had done so with grief in his heart. He’d just gotten word that his cousin, John the Baptist, had been beheaded. As Jesus dismissed the crowds, he sent the disciples ahead of him across the sea while he retreated into the mountains to pray. Late in the evening he watched their boat on the water, moving slowly because the waves and winds were against them. Jesus set out after them, walking across the waves.
The disciples were terrified when he came into view, certain that he was a ghost. Jesus calmed them down, assuring them it was him. Peter said, “If it’s really you, tell me to come to you, walking on the water” (v. 28).
“Come,” Jesus said.
Moments later, Peter stepped out of the boat, took a few steps, and then, seeing the waves and wind, grew afraid and began to sink. Jesus grabbed him by the hand. “You of little faith,” he said. “Why did you doubt?” (v. 31). They walked to the boat and continued the journey across the Sea of Galilee.
The standard sermon on this passage goes something like this: Do you have the courage to step out of the boat? Peter did, but he sank when he took his eyes off Jesus and saw the waves. Can you keep your eyes on Jesus? Can you ignore the winds and waves of this life? If so, you too can walk on water! You can do great things for the Lord!
I’m not sure that’s quite right.
There’s a hazard in audacity. I believe Jesus knew Peter would sink and that the sinking was an essential part of Peter’s story—and part of ours.
We spend an awful lot of time telling Christians to expect extraordinary things from their lives, and that’s not entirely without reason. Jesus makes big promises about what faith can do and how we’ll often receive what we ask for in faith. I’m just not sure that Peter walking on water is an example of that kind of faith.
Instead, it strikes me as an exercise in grandiosity followed quickly by a lesson in failure. Peter tells himself a story in which he is one of the heroes. He carries a sword, after all, and wouldn’t hesitate to use it to defend his Lord. He belongs on top of the waves with Jesus. But notice that Jesus didn’t ask him to get out of the boat; Peter asked him, and I think Jesus, knowing what would happen and maybe even a little amused by it, said, “Sure Peter, get out of the boat.” Peter was audacious enough to dare great things, and he ran headlong into his frailty.
That’s why I’m captivated by this moment on the Sea of Galilee in John 21. Whether intentional or not, I love the image of Peter diving into the water. He’s still audacious, but he’s not grandiose. He does not attempt to run across the water or make a leap of faith or stand proudly at the bow. He knows he is a mere swimmer. He dives into the water with the unrestrained joy of a child. He just wants to be with Jesus.
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The cross means participation in future glory, for sure, but too often we gloss over the gritty reality of whips and nails. Hanging upside down, Peter would have not only suffered the normal suffocation that came with crucifixion, he’d have drowned in his own blood.
The fact that suffering is worth it—that we endure it for a promised future—should never be spoken glibly. That truth is costly, and it can lack credibility when it comes from those who haven’t suffered deep loss yet. I’m not saying suffering isn’t worth the glory that comes from participation in Jesus’s death and resurrection. I’m saying we should never rush to that future fact without weighing the agonizing reality of present suffering, whether it’s the physical punishment of persecution, the burdens of chronic disease or cancer, the sting of death, or the trauma of spiritual and physical abuse. Suffering carries people into deserts. It robs us of sleep. It creates gaps of incomprehensibility between us and those we love. Suffering leaves body and soul weary, restless, searching desperately for home.
Dante saw it rightly in his Inferno; the only way out of that suffering and darkness in this lifetime is to pass through it. The famous problem of pain is keeping the hope alive that you’ll find God with you on the other side of that darkness even while going through hell. I know I have been in places where I couldn’t keep hope alive myself. Sometimes a friend would have the right word at the right time to lift my spirits. Other times I just had to sit in the silence. In those times I can’t say I’m sure how hope came back. It seemed out of my control. It may well have been.
However we make it through, the hope and prayer of going through suffering are that what we find on the other side of a shattered dream or an irreversible loss is a new resilience. Less ideological. Less certain. Less grandiose for sure. But assured, with feet on solid ground, that we had never been alone and never will be. Maybe the true gift of suffering is tuning our ears to hear God’s whisper even when pain is shouting.
Taken from Land of My Sojourn by Mike Cosper. ©2024 by Mikael D. Copser. Used by permission of InterVarsity Press. www.ivpress.com.
Mike Cosper is a writer and podcaster for Christians in a post-Christian world. He's the director of podcasting for Christianity Today, where he hosts The Rise and Fall of Mars Hill and Cultivated: A Podcast about Faith and Work. Mike also served as one of the founding pastors at Sojourn Church in Louisville, Kentucky, from which he launched Sojourn Music—a collective of musicians writing songs for the church. He is the author of Recapturing the Wonder, Faith Among the Faithless, The Stories We Tell, and Rhythms of Grace. He lives in Louisville, Kentucky, with his wife, Sarah, and their two daughters.