Psalm 72:2
walking on water is kind of a slippery thing
But my feet were almost moved; my steps had well nigh slipped. (Psalm 72:2 DR)
In the Gospels is one of the most peculiar stories of Jesus walking on water. On one level it’s not peculiar; after all, His is God Incarnate and thus such an act is as nothing to Him. But there are interesting details that emerge when taken in the three narrative presented in Matthew, Mark and John.
The miraculous feeding of the multitudes has just taken place. In Matthew and Mark Jesus has the disciples go ahead of him into the boat while he stays to dismiss the people and later on to pray in solitude. It is only in John’s Gospel that we learn the reason for this sequence, which is that He knows the people would try and make Him king by force. But why dismiss the disciples? It is not mentioned here, but we see elsewhere in the Gospels where the disciples inquire about when He will restore the kingdom of David and ask for positions in that kingdom. The implication, I would argue, is that He not only knows the people will make Him king by force, but also that the disciples will join in the madness of the crowds. How this dismissal takes place is not mentioned, but John mentions that Jesus fled to the mountain to pray, the implication being that they still wanted to do so.
The narrative then shifts to the disciples on the sea. What is common to all the Gospel narratives is that Jesus is not with them at this moment, and as the storm arises they are tossed in their boat. Now, it is to be remembered that most of them are seasoned fishermen and have no doubt seen their share of storms and sticky situations. They are—to some extent—prepared for that, as it fts their expectations. However, they are not prepared for what is next—Jesus walks out to them on the water.
Matthew and Mark mention that they cry out in fear, thinking they are seeing a ghost or some form of apparition. John is more subdued and simply mentions their fear. Each of these Gospels has Jesus telling them to not be afraid, but only Matthew’s has the incident of Peter walking out to Jesus. In each account the disciples do not immediately realize it is Jesus; either they are so overcome by fear that they don’t recognize him or think it’s his spirit or something to that effect. Thus, Peter says:
Lord, if it be thou, bid me come to thee upon the waters. (Matthew 14:28 DR)
This is of course remarkable, but even more so that when receiving an affirmative reply he actually does it. For all of Peter’s foibles, he was always willing to believe in his Master, even if he was weak and failed. He was able to overcome his doubts and lack of knowledge and trust, even if his faith was not yet perfect.
Mark is the only one who notes that after the storm dies down and Jesus gets into the boat He rebukes them for their lack of faith for a particular reason:
For they understood not concerning the loaves; for their heart was blinded. (Mark 6:52 DR)
He doesn’t rebuke them for being afraid of His coming to them on the waters. Rather, the reason for their lack of faith is that they didn’t understand concerning the loaves. The import of this is that they had just witnessed Jesus do the impossible, and themselves had participated in it. They didn’t just see it or hear about it; they took the loaves and fishes themselves and saw them multiplied before their own eyes. Yet they took the wrong lesson from that. Instead of seeing Jesus for who He truly was, they saw Him (at least in some respect) as the fulfillment of their dreams, ideas still chained to the earth.
This is why he had to send them away ahead of Him, so that they wouldn’t fall into the same mindset as the crowds who only wanted a King, or at least someone to give them goodies. Jesus knew their hearts and how fickle they would be; the same crowds hailing Him as Messiah would later clamor for him to be crucified.
The doubts of the disciples come to the fore and their lack of faith and earthly-mindedness are revealed in the face of adversity. A storm they could handle, but not a ghost asking for a boat ride. It is finally in this moment that they get their first glimpse behind the veil of who Jesus is, as they witness His power over the wind and the waves. Matthew notes that as the waves and wind subside:
They that were in the boat came and adored him, saying: Indeed thou art the Son of God. (Matthew 14:33 DR)
The Psalmist almost prophetically anticipates this narrative, as the faith he has proclaimed in the opening verse is now shaken. Like Peter he is out on the water, full of faith, but as the waves and the winds of adversity rage, as he sees the flourishing of the wicked he begins to doubt. By taking his eyes of of his Lord, he like Peter begins to slip, his feet begin to be moved. What was solid ground before now becomes like trying to walk on water.
A faith that is strong is fixed on a person, our Lord Jesus Christ, irrespective of the circumstances that surround it. Like the Psalmist our feet can start to slip when we compare what our circumstances are to what we think they should be because of our faith; we can believe the equivalent of the prosperity gospel even if we aren’t so blatant about it. Faith is easy when loaves are being multiplied, but much more difficult when you feel like you are about to drown.
Faith maintains a solid hope in God’s justice and righteousness even when things seem the contrary. To suffer doubts is the not the end of faith or necessarily a falling from it, but each foot that slips is one step closer. To wonder at why injustice seems to go unpunished or why the wicked prosper is not to fall from faith, but is is a weakness which must be overcome, which comes as it did for the apostles in seeing Jesus for who He is rather than who they wanted Him to be:
When were the feet moved, except when the heart was not right? Whence was the heart not right? Hear: “My steps were well near overthrown.” What he has meant by “almost,” the same he has meant by “well near:” and what he has meant by “my feet were almost moved,” the same he has meant by “my steps were overthrown.” Almost my feet were moved, almost my steps were overthrown. Moved were the feet: but whence were the feet moved and the steps overthrown? Moved were the feet to going astray, overthrown were the steps to falling: not entirely, but “almost.” But what is this? Already I was going to stray, I had not gone: already I was falling, I had not fallen. (St. Augustine, Expositions on the Psalms, 72, 7.)
The temptation to doubt will no doubt come, and while Jesus didn’t tempt His disciples, He allowed them to be tempted so that their faith could be proved and ultimately solidified by seeing Him as He was. In our own lives are feet may feel like they are falling and to have well nigh slipped, but those temptations are opportunities to walk out onto the water, believing He is who He says is.
This animation was a pretty simple concept. I found a few shoes and cut them out in Photoshop and then precomped each one into a separate yet similarly sized precomp. This made it pretty easy to apply the Motion Tile effect and then just animate the position parameter for each shoe column. I also went back and rotated the shoes within each precomp for the rotation, which is a nice feature of using precomps, rather than trying to do each instance individually.
It’s kind of funny—when I started out in motion design I was using Apple’s Motion application, which doesn’t have precomps. It does (or did, I haven’t used it in a long time) have groups which have their uses, but no real way to create multiple dependent instances of something (at least in ways like precomps). Whenever I tried to use After Effects I hated that it didn’t have groups and used preocmps, which I thought were useless.
However, after years of using it I now couldn’t live without them, although I wouldn’t mind some kind of Groups feature, which I doubt will ever see the light of day.
Enjoy.
But my feet were almost moved; my steps had well nigh slipped.
(Psalm 72:2 DR)
View a higher quality version of this gif here: