Tossed about: it describes Jesus and the disciples. Jesus had already wanted to be by himself in prayer before the encounter with the great multitude of people who need “rescue” from hunger (Mt 13:12-21). Their need becomes the wind and waves that toss Jesus about as he responds in compassion. The disciples are directed to go ahead by boat – and they will be tossed about on the seas.

²² Then he made the disciples get into the boat and precede him to the other side, while he dismissed the crowds. ²³ After doing so, he went up on the mountain by himself to pray. When it was evening he was there alone. This is the only place after the initial period in the wilderness (4:1–11) where Matthew specifically mentions that Jesus chose to be truly alone, sending his disciples away. This pericope (scholar language for “story”) is the first time in the Gospel according to Matthew that Jesus is pictured as praying. Even in Gethsemane he will keep three of the disciples with him (26:37). Matthew does not elsewhere mention Jesus’ habit of praying alone, as in Mark 1:35; Luke 5:16; 6:12; 9:18, though he has of course recorded his instruction to his disciples to pray in this way, 6:5–6. It would be possible therefore to read this unusual note as indicating a particular crisis at this point in Jesus’ ministry. But that would be an argument from silence, and Matthew gives us no indication of the subject of Jesus’ prayer. In the narrative context the solitary prayer in the hills serves rather to explain how Jesus comes to be so far away from his disciples on this occasion when they find themselves in difficulties. (France, 569) Continue reading →