The Wind

I've talked about this before, but in case you didn't know, me and my dad like to ride bikes. The path that we ride on is 9 miles each way, and it runs along the beautiful Alameda Creek, which starts in Niles Canyon (where I live) and runs out into the southern portion of San Francisco Bay. The first 7 miles are shaded with tall trees and colorful shrubs of all kinds, but the last two miles are practically bare. It's flat, for the most part, with Coyote Hills in the background and the salt flats beyond. If you were just to take a look at the trail, it wouldn't strike you as appearing to be too particularly difficult; It's definitely not one of those grueling mountain stages that those monstrous dudes kick to the curb in the Tour de France. No, the hardest part about it is what you can't see: the wind.

Wind is powerful. When I'm out on my bike rides with my dad, The wind blows so hard that it's almost impossible to go forward in a straight line. For those last 2 miles, me and my pops are riding straight into the wind that's blowing in off of the bay, which is all the more maddening because the trail looks deceptively calm, but at the same time the wind is roaring in my ears and I feel like I'm going to start rolling backwards. I can't see the wind, but I most definitely feel it. You would think that since the wind is blowing so hard at me the way out, that it would be a nice tailwind on the way home, but this isn't the case; half the time, the wind buffets me like crazy on the way back home, too. (I was going to write a post on how easy it is to come home and use the tailwind as an illustration, but nature wasn't very cooperative. I got a good laugh out of that one.) The wind out on the trail doesn't just blow in from one direction, it comes in from all over the place: a violent, invisible maelstrom of angry air particles.

This last weekend, I was sitting around with some friends, we watched the video from Rob Bell's "Nooma" series called "Dust," and afterwards we were discussing the passage in Matthew where Peter gets out of the boat to walk on the water with Jesus. At first, Peter calls out boldly to Jesus to bid him to get out of the boat. Rob explained that disciples of Rabbis in Jesus' time followed their Rabbi because they wanted to be just like them, hence Peter's desire to emulate Jesus' miracle. And after Jesus bids Peter to join him, he calls on Jesus once again, not in expectation, but in desperation because he started sinking like a stone. I guess rocks don't float very well. (Cheesy church joke. I crack myself up.) The interesting thing about this is that the Scripture says that the reason for his fear and subsequent sinking were due to this fact: he saw the wind. Holy Moses. The word for wind in the greek is pneuma (where Rob Bell gets the name for his video series) has a few other meanings: it also means spirit, or breath according to people who are way smarter and loving than me.

I can only imagine what I was that Peter saw: he saw the storm and he saw Jesus standing out on the water, but when he got out of that boat, he stepped into a whole new world, a new understanding, an experience with the invisible becoming visible. He thought he was just going to be walking on water, but all of the sudden, the swirling eddies of the wind became visible, and he was so overwhelmed that he started to flail and sink. Dude, I can't even imagine what that would be like, to see plainly what I had before only just felt like Peter did in that moment of faith in his beautiful master, Jesus. To be in the shoes of Peter, who experienced a divine moment with Christ in flesh that none of the other disciples shared. Sure, the other disciples bowed down to Jesus after he got back in the boat, but none of the saw what Peter saw. My boy Tony C. says that believers are people who give intellectual assent to propositional statements, but disciples are people who are submitted to the will of the master. Peter submitted to the will of the master, and got way more that he ever could have imagined. He saw the wind. John Ortberg has written this book called "If you want to walk on water, you need to get out of the boat." My buddy Dusty was like, "I don't even need to read the book. The title's enough." Amen to that.

GOD, thanks for the way that your word comes alive in our hands. I almost feel like the invisible presence of your son, Jesus, sits alongside me as your stories flow off out of the pages. I may not be able to see you, but I know that as I step out of the boat, I will see your glory. See you soon.

"Immediately Jesus made the disciples get into the boat and go on ahead of him to the other side, while he dismissed the crowd. After he had dismissed them, he went up on a mountainside by himself to pray. When evening came, he was there alone, but the boat was already a considerable distance[a] from land, buffeted by the waves because the wind was against it. During the fourth watch of the night Jesus went out to them, walking on the lake. When the disciples saw him walking on the lake, they were terrified. "It's a ghost," they said, and cried out in fear. But Jesus immediately said to them: "Take courage! It is I. Don't be afraid." "Lord, if it's you," Peter replied, "tell me to come to you on the water." "Come," he said. Then Peter got down out of the boat, walked on the water and came toward Jesus. But when he saw the wind, he was afraid and, beginning to sink, cried out, "Lord, save me!" Immediately Jesus reached out his hand and caught him. "You of little faith," he said, "why did you doubt?" And when they climbed into the boat, the wind died down. Then those who were in the boat worshiped him, saying, "Truly you are the Son of God." (Matthew 14:22-32)

P.S. - This blog is a place for me to convey my thoughts and feelings as I walk with Christ, and it's the times when I pretend that I'm an experienced Bible expositor that I miss the mark. The things that I write here are far from infallible, so if I write something that sounds fishy or unbiblical, huck it. But I hope we can still be friends. Haha. See you soon.