John 6:21Meaning & Commentary from the Church Fathers

Since we have given a separate discussion of each interpreted text, let us now again form a spiritual contemplation. Let us bring the meaning contained here into coherent connection with what preceded.

We said, then, that Jesus went up to heaven as though to a mountain, clearly after being brought to life from the dead and ascending. But when this had taken place, the disciples crossed, alone and by themselves, as it were, the sea of the disturbances of the present life.

They were an image of all the teachers of the Church who would come after them in every age. They fall into frequent and great temptations and are exposed to no small dangers from the opponents of the faith and the enemies of the Gospel preaching.

But they will cease to be in fear and danger, and their grievous labors will end, when Christ again appears to them in power befitting God, having the whole universe under His feet.

This, I think, is what walking on the sea signifies. In the Holy Scriptures the sea is often taken as an image of the world, according to what is said in the Psalms: "This great and wide sea; there are creeping things without number, living things small and great," Ps 103:25.

Therefore, when Christ comes in the glory of His Father, as it is written, then the ship of the holy Apostles, that is, the Church, and those sailing in it, will reach land without care and without any labor.

These are those who, through faith and love for God, have become higher than worldly affairs. They will come to the land "to which they were going." For their aim was to arrive, as at a quiet harbor, at the Kingdom of Heaven.

The Savior confirms this thought in all these things when He says to His disciples: "A little while, and you will not behold Me; and again a little while, and you will see Me," Jn 16:16. Again He says: "In the world you will have tribulation; but take courage, I have overcome the world," Jn 16:33.

The Lord comes down from the mountain at night and comes to the disciples who are keeping watch. They look upon Him as He walks, not without trembling, for they are afraid. Through all this something necessary is revealed to our understanding.

He will come down from heaven as if by night, when the world, in a certain manner, is resting and sleeping in the deep sleep of sin. Therefore He also says to us in one place: "Watch therefore, for you do not know at what hour your Lord will come," Mt 24:42.

The parable of the virgins will teach us the same thing. Five, it says, were wise, and five foolish. But while the bridegroom delayed, they all became drowsy and slept. "At midnight there was a cry: Behold, the bridegroom; come out to meet him," Mt 25:1-6.

Do you see how the Bridegroom speaks to us at midnight? What this cry is, and what kind of meeting this is, the divine Paul will explain.

He says: "The Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a command, with the voice of an archangel, and with the trumpet of God," 1 Thess 4:16. Again, concerning the risen saints, he says that "we who are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air; and so we shall always be with the Lord," 1 Thess 4:17.

The disciples' falling into fear, though they saw Him walking and were overtaken while laboring and keeping watch, indicates that the dread Judge will come upon all. Even the righteous man must surely fear within himself, as one tested by fire.

He is one who always awaits Him who is to come, who is not slothful in the labors of virtue, and who practices sobriety and good watchfulness alike.

The Lord does not enter the boat with His disciples in order to sail with them. Rather, He brings the ship to land. This is because in the future life Christ will no longer appear to assist those who honor Him in the practice of virtue.

He will appear to appoint the awaited end for those already perfected in virtue.

When He knew this, He again went to the mountain with His disciples and withdrew there alone. That is, He alone rested there. In view of this, the disciples came down from there to the sea.

They entered the boat and set out for Capernaum. They thought that Jesus Christ would again walk over the sea on foot and come to them a little later.

For this reason this Evangelist said: “and it was already dark, and Jesus had not come to them.” Everything else happened as he wrote.

During that walking on the sea, the disciples cried out in fear. During this one, they were only afraid, since by habit their fear was less.

There, when Jesus Christ said, “It is I; do not be afraid,” the disciples still did not believe. Therefore Peter said, “Lord, if it is You, command me to come to You on the water,” Mt 14:27-28.

Here, however, they believed at once, because they had already become accustomed to it. Then the wind did not cease until Jesus Christ entered the boat.

Now, as soon as His voice was heard, calm came. He did not even enter the boat. While they wished to receive Him, suddenly the boat reached the shore, and He Himself was behind it.

As can be seen from Jn 6:17, Jesus Christ, having commanded the disciples to set out alone for the western side of the sea, promised to come to them in the boat at some point on the shore. From this one may conclude that the disciples first had to keep a coastal course toward the northern end of the sea.

But suddenly a north-eastern wind arose and began to drive the boat south-westward, into the depth of the sea. In such a situation they probably wished to reach quickly the place to which they were sailing by the Lord's command. Yet they struggled until the fourth watch and did not reach the shore.

At that time, when they were in the midst of the sea, according to Matthew and Mark, and had sailed about twenty-five or thirty stadia, according to John, they saw Jesus walking on the waters and directing His way past them, Mk 6:48. Exhausted by their struggle with the waves and by fear for their lives, they did not believe their eyes. They took Him for a phantom, and fear seized them still more. But Jesus Christ encouraged them with His voice.

Here follows the account found only in the Evangelist Matthew, concerning the Apostle Peter's walking on the waters, Mt 14:28-31.

The Evangelists end the story differently. First of all, the Evangelist John seems to contradict Matthew and Mark. According to the latter, the disciples received Jesus, and Peter according to Matthew, into the boat, and the wind ceased. But John says, "They wanted to receive Him into the boat, and immediately the boat reached the shore to which they were going."

It might seem that the meaning is this: the disciples only wished to receive Jesus into the boat, but this proved unnecessary, because the boat reached the shore. Yet it is not necessary to represent the matter in this way.

"They wanted" is set against their previous state, their fear that they saw not Jesus but a phantom. This fear had now passed, and they wanted to receive Him into the boat, whereas before they wanted to flee from Him.

"Immediately" is set against their previous, very prolonged, yet unsuccessful struggle with the waves. It is not necessary to understand this word to mean that Christ did not have to sail some distance with the disciples. Five to ten stadia still remained to the shore.

"Immediately" means only that the sailors, now with Jesus, reached the shore as quickly as before they had long and unsuccessfully labored to attain it. What the first Evangelists indicated with the words, "and the wind ceased," John expresses by continuing the same thought: "immediately the boat reached the shore."

Then Matthew and Mark seem to contradict one another. The former says that the disciples worshiped the Lord and confessed Him as the Son of God after they were assured by the miracle of Jesus Christ's walking on the waters. The latter says that the disciples' heart was hardened, that they had not understood the miracle of the loaves, and that now they only marveled and were amazed at the new miracle, Mk 6:51-52.

From this, however, it follows only that the disciples, struck by the greatness of the miracle, bowed before the Lord and confessed Him as the Messiah. Yet at the same time they wondered that Christ performed such extraordinary and unheard-of works.

The Apostle Peter, from whose words Mark speaks here, observed in the depths of the disciples' soul such a disposition and reflection. He regarded it as a defect, a hardening of heart. In his view, the miracle of the feeding was so great that after it there should have been no place for any questions about the power or possibility for Jesus Christ to perform even such a miracle as walking on the waters.

Since in the first three Evangelists it is said that evening had already come before the feeding, Mt 14:15, here a second evening must be understood. Among the Jews the first evening was from three to six o'clock, and the second from sunset until the onset of night darkness.

In the time of Christ, the Jews divided the night into four watches of three hours each. The fourth watch was from three to six o'clock in the morning.

The whole sea, from east to west, measured forty stadia. According to John, therefore, the disciples were in the middle of the sea. But Matthew and Mark, by the expression "in the midst of the sea," mean only that the disciples were far from shore and therefore, in the stormy sea, were in danger.

“They wished to receive Him into the boat, and immediately,” and so forth. John omits Matthew’s account of Peter walking on the water, which Mark also omits. He also omits further features of the event after the Lord entered the boat.

Yet John supplements their accounts by saying that the boat immediately reached the shore toward which they were going. This is a new miracle, which the first Evangelists do not mention in the general account of the miracle.

In this there seems to be a disagreement between John and the first Evangelists. To resolve it, Chrysostom supposed that these were different events.

Yet the time, the place, and the particular features of the Evangelists’ accounts show that they narrate one and the same event. John’s narrative is simply shorter and adds a new feature that supplements those accounts. For this reason it seems to disagree.

It seems that one need not bind oneself strictly to the literal meaning of the word “immediately,” εὐθέως; cf. the note on Mt 24:29.

John does not say that the Lord did not enter the boat. If he had wished to say this, the construction would have had to be different: they wished to receive Him into the boat, but the boat immediately reached the shore.

Only with such a “but” would the thought be that the Lord did not enter, or did not manage, so to speak, to enter the boat before it reached the shore. In John the construction is different.

Therefore, according to John’s thought, the Lord entered the boat, as also in Matthew’s narrative. Suddenly the wind ceased, and the boat reached the shore toward which they were going.

Meanwhile those in the boat were in extreme amazement, according to Mark, and confessed their faith in the Lord as the Messiah, according to Matthew.

Having crossed in this way, according to Matthew and Mark, the disciples came with the Lord into the land of Gennesaret. The discussion concerns the whole crossing, not only the end of the crossing. Afterward they came to Capernaum, according to John, which lay in that region.

The latter is closer to the letter of the original, διηγηρετο. The former is closer to the thought of the scene. The boat was beaten and tossed by the waves.

Jesus saw the distress of the disciples from the mountain of prayer. Around the “fourth watch,” that is, the morning watch, by our reckoning about four o’clock after midnight, Mk 6:48, 47; Mt 14:23-25, the disciples “see Jesus walking on the sea and drawing near to the boat, and they were afraid.” They “thought it was a phantom,” Mt 14:26.

“It is I; do not be afraid,” Jesus says to them. According to St. Matthew, Peter volunteered to go on the water to Jesus. But he became afraid and was saved from death by Jesus, 14:28-31.

Then Jesus entered the boat with the disciples, and the wind ceased, Mt 14:32. Or, as St. John says, “and immediately,” ευθειος, “the boat was at the land”; the boat reached the shore.

John writes: ηθελον ουν λαβειν αυτον εις το πλοιον. Chrysostom thinks that, although the disciples wished to receive Him, they did not receive Him into the boat.

This opinion does not agree with the narratives of St. Mark, Mk 6:51, and Matthew, Mt 14:31. Chrysostom was so carried away by it that he even supposed there were two different events in the Evangelists.

There is no need for this, if John’s words are understood in this way: they wished to receive Him. This would mean only that a circumstance known from the other accounts was not fully stated.

Meanwhile, in usage, as in Plato and Xenophon, ἦθελον λαβειν means that they were glad to receive Him.

Therefore, in a moment of popular excitement, the disciples could have been carried away by their very love for the Lord. They might have been drawn into actions not in accord with His teaching and His will. For this reason He temporarily removes them from the crowd.

That same night He reveals Himself to them, and to them alone, as Master of the world and of the powers of the earth. For a time they are subjected to temptation. Around them is darkness, “it was dark,” and the sea is troubled.

Yet the Lord, even from afar, speaking according to His humanity, “saw them distressed in rowing,” Mk 6:48, and preserved them. Compare Chrysostom on Jn 6 and homily 43 on Mt 14:23-24.

In Mk 6 it is said, “the boat was in the middle of the sea.” This agrees entirely with John the Evangelist, for the Sea of Tiberias is forty to fifty stadia wide, or about seven versts. A stadium equals 606 English feet.

Matthew the Evangelist recounts the miracle of walking on the waters in the greatest detail, Mt 14:25-34; cf. Mk 6:47-53. In him we find the account of the trial of the Apostle Peter’s faith.

Peter did not endure the test completely. Yet by the strength of his faith he had already become first among the Apostles. Peter’s denial was the same momentary wavering as that which he experienced while walking on the waters.

According to the Synoptic Gospels, the Lord entered the boat with the disciples. John the Evangelist supplements this narrative with verse 21, saying that when they wished to receive the Lord into the boat, the boat immediately reached the shore toward which they were going.

Thus the eyewitness of the events, himself a participant in them, lets us understand something. For human perception, only a moment passed between the Lord’s appearance near the boat and its arrival at its destination. The Lord was already among His disciples and went ashore with them.

The greatness of Him who had called them to Himself was gradually disclosed to the disciples. Their hearts had burned at His words, yet He had not yet revealed to them all His glory.

Here, on the Lake of Tiberias, the Lord prepares their understanding for the reception of higher mysteries. He reveals Himself as Lord and Master of the powers of the world, and discloses to them who He is.

Very soon after this, the three chief Apostles, Peter, James, and John, were counted worthy to behold with mortal eyes the Transfiguration of the Lord on Mount Tabor, Mt 17:1-9; Mk 9:1-9; Lk 9:28-36.

Tabor is a solitary mountain in the Valley of Jezreel, within Galilee. It lies not far from the southern end of the Lake of Tiberias, to the west of it.