Lord Save Me

Give Peter credit. Sometimes he puts his foot in his mouth, but in the end his heart is in the right place.

Take the famous story of Jesus’ sea crossing on foot in today’s Gospel from Matthew. “Take heart,” Jesus calls to the disciples across the waves, “It is I; do not be afraid.” But Peter doesn’t take Jesus at his word. “Lord, if it is you, command me to come to you on the water.” I can’t fault him. Who among us hasn’t put God to the test with similar words? God, if you’re real, give me a sign I can’t miss; God, if you love me, let me feel it; God, if you really mean to care for me, when I go out on a limb, keep me safe.

Of course, Peter’s test fails because it’s administered on his terms and according to his shaky faith. He trusts the sea to swallow him more than he trusts Jesus to buoy him, so he begins to sink. “Lord, save me!” he cries out, echoing every desperate prayer over the ages, every plea for rescue, every last hope.

Despite all our self-assurance, human beings have discovered again and again that we are not the masters of our destiny. We’re at the mercy of the sea, so to speak, beset by chaos– both the kind we create for ourselves and that which is beyond our control. And if we can’t save ourselves, then we need a savior, one to speak peace and embrace us with steadfast love, one to extend a hand and pull us up when we’re sinking. “Save us from the time of trial,”^[1] Jesus teaches us to pray, so we pray like Peter, and trust that “everyone who calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved.”

But how? What of those prayers for salvation that go unanswered in this life? What are we to make of a world where the sea overtakes many who are sinking, often by no fault of their own?

In his famous meditation on suffering and faith, When Bad Things Happen to Good People, Rabbi Harold Kushner addresses this most difficult of all theological questions:

[Excerpt from pp. 43-4]

“Lord, save me!”

If Christ is Emmanuel, God with us, then we look for him to meet us in the worst of our storms. “I don’t know what it means for God to suffer,” writes Rabbi Kushner. “But I would like to think that the anguish I feel when I read of the sufferings of innocent people reflects God’s [own] anguish and God’s [own] compassion….”[2]

Friends, we proclaim Christ crucified,[3] one who knows what it is to suffer, to be forsaken, and to die. Of course, the God of the cross is also the God of resurrection. And, to quote Frederick Buechner, “Resurrection means that the worst thing is never the last thing.”

Save us from the time of trial, Jesus teaches us to pray, so let’s pray like Peter, and trust that “everyone who calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved,” if not from death, then through it.

[1] Matthew 6:13.

[2] When Bad Things Happen to Good People, 85.

[3] 1 Corinthians 1:23.