Matthew 14:23

“After he dismissed them, he went up on a mountain side by himself.”

Jesus did not tell Matthew the reason he did not enter the boat with the disciples. Instead, Jesus told the disciples to push off and sail to the other side of the lake. Then he climbed a mountain in the dark of night, alone, where he opened his heart to his Father.

We can only speculate on what Jesus might have prayed.  Was he concerned that the unprecedented  miracle of the feeding of the 5,000+ might cause such a stir that the authorities might apprehend him at once, “before his time had come?”  Maybe.  Or was he most concerned about how the disciples were responding to what happened? Probably both if we read carefully what transpired because we read that their boat was “buffeted by the waves because the wind was against it.” V. 24  Their plight had become serious. If the fisherman aboard knew anything, it was how to keep a boat afloat when wind and waves conspired to sink it. But that night they could not do  what they had done many times before, they could not save the boat from sinking.

My mind takes me back twelve or so hours before this, to when their hands broke and distributed wonder bread and fish. They were then caught up in a mighty work of God. The Lord of Creation was using their hands to feed hungry people.  Note the turn of events.

Now what? From the exalted heights of being “the hands of God,” those hands that had that very day distributed the miraculous meal failed to do what those fishermen aboard were trained to do, keep the vessel afloat. Their hands were helpless. Is this perhaps the heart of the story?

In my own life and ministry I have found that oftentimes, after an exhilarating display of God’s power on a mountain top, so to speak, there follows an experience that sends one into the valley of distress and fear. I often wondered why this occurred time and time again in my own life. What do you think?