I can’t walk on water, unless you count skating and careening about on frozen ponds with my skates strapped on—and even then I once ended up flat on my back and my head went CRACK. It stayed intact but my dignity did not.
The biblical gospel of Matthew records that Jesus walked on the water, then beckoned Peter to follow him in faith. Peter headed out and started to sink. He called out in fright, and Jesus, rather than laugh at Peter’s bravura, simply reached out his hand for Peter to grab. Then he pulled the sopping and perhaps sobbing Peter out of the water to safety—and from fear to faith.
I probably would not try to walk on water, but I can wade in it and play with it and occasionally swim through it. There is a Spiritual called “Wade In The Water” Come on children, wade in the water. It was a signal song to assist black slaves running to escape from enslavement—running toward freedom. They knew that the song wasn’t innocent. It meant much more than playful wading. It was a signal to head for the water and wade right on in, because the hounds of their enslavers who were chasing them would lose the scent as soon as the runaways hit the water.
Perhaps that old Spiritual is today a signal that we all should “wade in the water” to follow the faith of Jesus to freedom, whatever that may look like to you. The faith OF Jesus is not a call to become a Christian. It is an invitation to wade in the waters of Jesus’s own faith. To do what he did, to simply love yourself, God, and your neighbor whoever that might be, no matter how scared and hesitant you might be, no matter your swimming skills, no matter whether you go against the grain of traditional teachings. Just GO. Just WADE ON IN.
Sometimes what you imagine will “drown” you, or devour you, might not be as fierce as you have imagined. Fear not.
1 comment:
This is wonderful. My connection to "Wade in the Water" is the movie Harriet. I also wonder if tigers were the first big cat to wade in I know the love water. This is surely where I am today but I am trying very hard to stay focused on my life and what I need to save it. I of course have looked at the positive things that might happen when Sam actually takes hold of his life but that is in God's hands.
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