Week 18 Tuesday (Year 1)

Readings: Numbers 12:1-13; Psalm 50; Matthew 14:22-36

We are told that Pharaoh's daughter gave Moses that name because she drew him out of the water. Peter is the rock who tries to walk on water and in his turn needs to be pulled out of it. Each of them is in a special friendship with the Lord, the God of Israel, but we see from their lives that the closer their relationship became, the deeper also became their dependence on God.

Moses is the meekest man on earth, we are told, and is defended by God against the criticisms of Miriam and Aaron, defended in a way that strikes terror into our hearts even today as we read about it. What kind of God is this, a terrible and fascinating mystery, who turns Miriam leprous and who alone knows what he had in mind for Aaron until Moses intervened on their behalf, and Miriam was healed and Aaron spared.

Peter is cowardly and wavering, ironically called 'the rock', and, with characteristic impetuosity, wants to be a rock that walks across the waters to Jesus. The fear of the disciples at the calming of the storm is more about the power working in Jesus than it is about wind and waves. Once again the question comes: who is this, what kind of lord, that such terrible and fascinating power should work in him? 'It is I, do not fear', says Jesus. Literally what he says is 'I am', calling himself by the name God revealed to Moses all those centuries before.

Mysterium tremendum et fascinans is a phrase used in philosophy to refer to a general sense of divine mystery, that the divine reality is at once terrifying and fascinating. The God of Israel, master of the waters, creator of all, combines this power with friendship towards the meekest man in the world and towards the most unreliable one. Powerful on one side, attracting to faith and love on the other. To be kept at a distance, and to be embraced.

So it will be for all who seek to walk on the waters towards him. We want to see his power at work in our lives. What will he ask of us, since he asked everything of his friends Moses and Peter? We want to experience the friendship with him which he holds out to us. What will it mean for us, to stay with our Friend all the way, even to Calvary?

We are drawn out of the waters of baptism to a new life with Christ, and this is a profoundly comforting and awe-inspiring reality. Today's readings remind us that the one with whom we wish to live in intimacy, is, in the words of the American poet Mary Oliver, 'tender and luminous and demanding / as he always was - / a thousand times more frightening / than the killer sea'.