I gave this sermon on August 9, 2026, at Christ Presbyterian Church in Milford, Ohio.
The lectionary text is Matthew 14:22-33, Jesus Walks on the Water.
The fourth watch is a strange time.
It isn’t just late.
It’s the point where you’ve been awake all night…
your strength is gone…
your emotions are unreliable…
everything looks different in the dark…
dawn is near…
but you can’t see it yet. That’s the fourth watch.
I appreciate the King James Version of this passage. Instead of saying “early in the morning,” it says Jesus came during “the fourth watch.” My Bible’s footnotes say it’s the period between 3:00 AM and 6:00 AM, and, the famous proverb mentions, it’s always darkest before the dawn.
If you aren’t used to it, you change during the fourth watch. You think differently, you act differently.
Anyone who’s
· cared for a newborn,
· sat beside a dying parent,
· stayed awake in an emergency room,
· worried through the night,
Already understands the fourth watch. How many of us have done one, two, three, or all four of those examples? Those experiences will form a person.
Our first grandchild was born just three weeks ago. Proud G-pa here. Her parents are living through that tough sleep-deprived period with the accompanying brain fog.
The fourth watch – it’s that time just before dawn when you’ve used up everything you had yesterday, but haven’t yet received the strength for today.
In this passage, the disciples had been pulling on their oars for hours. The wind and waves were battering their boat. The disciples were exhausted, perhaps a bit miffed that Jesus had sent them ahead without Him.
They had been through a similar harrowing experience a couple months earlier when a storm hit their boat while at sea. Afraid for their lives, they woke Jesus, who told his disciples, “You of little faith,” before calming the wind and the waves. Didn’t we just hear that? The disciples certainly would have remembered it. BTW, how was Jesus sleeping in the back of the boat DURING a storm?
Matthew wants us to notice not only what Jesus did…but when He did it. The disciples were exhausted. They were frightened. They were at the end of themselves.
So why the fourth watch? Because Matthew wants us to notice something about the timing of God.
Jesus may seem late. But He is never absent.
Every parent knows the sound of a baby crying at three in the morning. You can’t ignore it because you care. But sometimes you wait a moment before going in. You wait, hoping your baby settles back to sleep. The waiting isn’t absence. You never left the baby. You never stopped caring. You’re a loving parent. You simply waited a moment.
Jesus may seem late. But He is never absent. That’s the timing of God. “Never will I leave you; never will I forsake you.” – Hebrews 13:5.
Michael Brewer asked a couple weeks ago, “Are you ready for an embarrassing preacher story?” As he was asking you that question, I was finishing my ultramarathon.
After running many ultramarathons, I thought there wasn’t much left that could surprise me. Experience has a way of making us think we’re ready for anything. I’ve worked through all kinds of obstacles: extreme heat, bitter cold, summer thunderstorms, winter blizzards, broken bones, failed flashlights, blisters, dehydration. I’ve thrown up more times than I would care to count. I’ve passed out, been knocked out, had Acute Mountain Sickness from running at altitude – I thought I’d been through it all. I was wrong.
That race was two weeks ago. I had been running the trails all night, alone through Cuyahoga National Park—into the fourth watch, into a different state of mind. I was exhausted, but still moving forward just fine.
Suddenly something slammed into my head. Talons scraped my scalp. I never heard it. I never saw it. I only felt this heavy object hit my head. Before I could even process what happened, the owl attacked again.
I was waving my arms like one of those inflatable tube men outside a car dealership while screaming into the darkness.
At that moment I wasn’t sure whether I needed first aid…or an exorcism! Two runners hurriedly caught up to me within a minute, summoned by my screams, and stayed with me until we popped out of the woods. Later, I was accused teasingly and lovingly of hallucinating the whole thing.
Hallucinations aren’t unusual during overnight races. Sleep deprivation changes the way your brain works. My sister-in-law still insists that she saw a giraffe during the Arkansas Traveler 100m! Things that aren’t real suddenly seem real. Like when an armadillo paced beside me hiking up a hill. Well, that one was actually real.
When you’re running an ultramarathon overnight, your world gets much smaller. You stop thinking about the finish line. You’re just trying to reach the next aid station. You’re watching for the next trail marker. If you go too long without seeing one, panic starts creeping in. Did I miss a turn? In the darkness, it’s easy to think you’ve lost the trail.
Which makes me a little more sympathetic to the disciples in the boat.
After rowing through wind and darkness for hours, how confident would you be that what you were seeing was real?
Can you really blame them for thinking Jesus was a ghost during the storm?
John the Baptist had just been beheaded. The disciples had just watched Jesus feed thousands until everyone had enough. They had just gathered twelve baskets of leftovers. Now they were about to discover that Jesus gathers frightened disciples, too.
He lets them row.
He lets the wind blow.
He lets the night grow.
Then He comes.
Not because He forgot them.
But because He was forming them.
And this wasn’t the last lesson Jesus had for them.
What lessons have shaped who you are, how you behave, how you live in the world? Have you learned these lessons during a time of ease? Or did you experience these lessons during times of turbulence, in your own fourth watch? Those are often the lessons we never forget. Jesus knows this.
Jesus could have stepped into the boat before they ever pushed off. He could have come out at sunset, or perhaps at midnight before the wind and the waves picked up.
Instead, he walked on water when the disciples were at their most vulnerable, most malleable. In their frightened state, Jesus showed them who he was, and this time they understood. The first time Jesus calmed the storm, they said, “What kind of man is this?” This time they exclaimed, “Truly you are the Son of God.”
Think of when you stayed up all night in an ER under those humming florescent lights with a sick or injured loved one. Coffee doesn’t cut it after the fourth cup. Emotions have been running high for hours, and you are just looking for answers, for support, for relief, hoping for that light at the end of the tunnel.
The fourth watch… No matter what time it is, the fourth watch is when Jesus forms us. We would prefer the easy way. We’d rather learn without discomfort. But the lessons that really shape how you move through the world… those usually come during the fourth watch.
Eventually…
the baby sleeps.
The hospital room grows quiet.
The race finally ends.
The sun begins to rise.
And somewhere between the darkness and the dawn…you realize Jesus has been forming you all along.
You come through the experience with a faith you didn’t have before. You grow, you discover more about yourself, find out that you can do more than you ever thought you could.
That’s how Jesus forms us.
· I (reed) read this story and can be amazed at Jesus and Peter being the only two recorded humans in history to walk on water.
· I read this story and see another example of Jesus being in control of everything, including the wind and the waves.
· I read this story and wonder what Peter was thinking when Jesus told him, “Come.”
But I think Matthew wants us to notice what happens in the fourth watch. That’s when Jesus was forming His disciples, including Peter, until they could finally say, “Truly you are the Son of God.”
This week, if you’re waiting for test results, sitting in another hospital room, worrying about your children—even something as basic as whether they have a bed to sleep in—maybe waiting for that job offer, or wondering why God hasn’t answered yet…, remember the disciples. Keep rowing. Jesus has not forgotten you. You may not see the next trail marker yet. But Jesus still knows the way.
The disciples didn’t discover who Jesus was once the storm was over. They discovered Him while the wind was still blowing.
When your own fourth watch comes—and sooner or later it will—trust the Master. Jesus may seem late. But He is never absent. And before long… dawn will come.
To the Lord our God, Alpha and Omega, beginning and end, be all glory and honor forever.
