There is something painfully familiar about the scene that opens today's Gospel. Evening has fallen. The disciples of Jesus climb into a boat and push off from shore toward Capernaum. The One they love is not with them. Darkness comes on. The wind rises. The sea, never entirely tame, begins to heave. They are alone — or so it feels — pulling at oars against a storm, somewhere between where they started and where they hope to arrive.
We have all been in that boat.
Saint John tells us, almost matter-of-factly, that the disciples had rowed about twenty-five or thirty stadia — something like three to four miles — into the crossing when they saw him. Jesus, walking on the water, drawing near to the ship. And they were afraid. The Greek word John uses, ephobēthēsan, is the same word used throughout Scripture when human beings encounter the genuinely holy, the utterly unexpected, the presence of God breaking into ordinary life. Fear is the natural first response. It is the honest response. They have been struggling against the wind and the dark, and suddenly something stranger than either confronts them.
What Jesus says next is one of the most theologically rich utterances in the entire Gospel of John: Egō eimi — "It is I." In Greek, this is not merely an identification. It is a divine declaration. "I AM." The same words spoken to Moses from the burning bush. The same formula by which Jesus, throughout John's Gospel, reveals his identity as the eternal Son of God. "Before Abraham was, I AM." "I AM the resurrection and the life." "I AM the bread of life." Here, in the middle of a storm on the Sea of Galilee, he says it again. I AM. And then, immediately: "Be not afraid."
This pairing — the divine presence and the command not to fear — is the heartbeat of the Easter season we are living through. The Risen Christ, appearing repeatedly to his bewildered and grieving disciples, says the same thing again and again: Do not be afraid. Peace be with you. It is I. The Resurrection does not eliminate the storms of life. The disciples are still in a boat, still on a heaving sea, still far from shore. What changes is the presence of the One who governs wind and wave. What changes is everything.
It is worth pausing on what the disciples do when they recognize Jesus. John tells us they were willing to take him into the ship. That small phrase conceals a profound act of faith and surrender. In the wildness of the moment — frightened, exhausted, soaked by spray — they open the boat to him. They stop rowing against the storm by their own strength alone and receive the One who is more powerful than the storm. And immediately, John says, the ship was at the land to which they were going.
Commentators across the centuries have read this arrival as more than geography. Augustine saw the whole passage as an image of the Church's journey through history: the boat tossed on the waters of time and suffering, the Lord seemingly absent, the disciples laboring in the dark. But he is never truly absent. He comes to us across the waters. He speaks his name. And when we receive him, we find ourselves — sometimes startlingly, suddenly — closer to the destination than we ever imagined.
In the first reading today, the early Church is dealing with its own kind of rough water. The community in Jerusalem is growing rapidly, and that growth has brought friction. The Hellenist widows feel overlooked in the daily distribution of food. There is grumbling, a sense of unfairness, the ordinary human messiness that accompanies any community trying to live together. The Twelve do not pretend the problem does not exist, but neither do they abandon their primary mission to fix it alone. They call the community together, name the problem honestly, and appoint seven Spirit-filled men to take responsibility for this ministry of service.
The result is remarkable: "The word of God continued to increase, and the number of the disciples multiplied greatly in Jerusalem, and a great many of the priests became obedient to the faith." The storm of community conflict, handled with wisdom and trust in the Spirit, does not sink the boat. It passes, and the Church finds itself further along than before.
Taken together, today's readings offer a vision of Christian life that is neither naive nor despairing. They do not promise smooth sailing. The wind will rise. The sea will heave. There will be darkness, and distance, and the exhausting work of rowing. There will be misunderstanding within our communities, and the temptation to fix everything by our own effort or abandon the mission entirely. Neither extreme is the Gospel path.
The Gospel path is to keep rowing, to stay in the boat, and to remain open to the One who comes to us in the darkness. He always comes. He came on Easter morning to a tomb sealed with stone and guarded by soldiers. He comes to disciples locked in rooms behind closed doors. He comes walking across the water toward a boat full of frightened, struggling people who are far from shore. He comes, and he says the words that are both his identity and our liberation: It is I. Be not afraid.
What does this mean for us today? It means that the storms we are navigating — in our families, our work, our Church, our interior lives — are not beyond his reach. It means that when we feel we have been rowing for hours against a headwind and making no progress, we are not abandoned. It means that the moment we become willing to receive him — not merely to acknowledge him at a distance, but to open the boat and let him in — something shifts. We do not always arrive instantly. But we find ourselves moving, and the destination, somehow, draws near.
There is also an invitation here to examine how we wait during the dark crossings. The disciples did not anchor in place when Jesus failed to appear on the shore. They set out across the water toward where they were called to go, trusting that whatever came next, they would face it. Christian faithfulness is not passive. It rows. It works. It does the ordinary, sometimes grinding labor of love and duty. But it rows with open hands, not clenched fists — ready, at any moment, for the one who walks on water to draw near.
This Easter season, may we learn to hear his voice in the darkness. May we recognize the divine I AM beneath all the noise of our storms. And may we be willing, truly willing, to take him into the ship — and find ourselves, sooner than we dared hope, at the land to which we are going.
Gospel: John 6:16-21 | Saturday of the Second Week of Easter | Lectionary 272