The vision on the lake.
I. THE FRAILTY OF FAITH.
1. In loneliness. Jesus had gone away. The disciples were in the middle of the lake, amidst a stormy sea. It is a picture of a life-experience. In loneliness we sink into weakness and cowardice, having been brave in the fellowship and under the contagious influence of superiors.
2. In the withdrawal of its Object from the field of vision. They could not see Christ. We want to see, when the whole need is that we should trust. we want to unite incompatible things; willing to trust so soon as we see a good prospect of safety; cast down with apprehension when the inner sight, kept clear, would open its vista of cheering hope. Those men were yet to learn, in the language of one of them, to "believe in the Saviour, though now we see him not."
II. TERROR AT THE SUPERNATURAL. They saw Jesus passing, and were terrified, for they thought it was a ghost. Involuntary fear in the presence of the supernatural is the symptom of our weak and dependent nature. When Jesus appeared as Jesus, he drove all fear away; when he passed into the chiaro-oscuro of perception, standing as it were in a region intermediate between earth and heaven, as here on the lake, as on the Mount of Transfiguration, terror fell upon their souls. Fear in the mind reflects the presence of God. Modified by intelligence, purified from superstition, fear passes into that reverence which is the ground-tone of religious feeling.
III. THE TERRORS OF GOD CONCEAL, HIS LOVE. Behind the tempest is his "smiling face." The voice of the Comforter and Saviour of man speaks from the dread apparition of the lake. So from out the mystic scenes of nature, the Alpine tempest and avalanche, the mountainous swelling of the Sea, and all human changes and turbulences of history, speaks a voice, clear, calm, and still, if we will but hearken, like that which greeted Elijah: "Have courage; it is I. Child of man, I love thee; rest on me and be at peace." It is when we realize that we are members of the kingdom of spirit and under the protection of its Head, that we can defy the "wild deluge of cares." It is not because God is not near to us, or that help! is not available, that we tremble and feel forlorn; it is because, like the disciples, our "minds have become dull."—J.