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I am. Do not be afraid.

When the people saw the sign that he had done, they said, “This is indeed the Prophet who is to come into the world!” (John’s first century eyewitness biography of Jesus Chapter 6: 14-21)
 
What “sign” had Jesus done? He had multiplied five small barley loaves and two fish (the packed meal of a boy in the crowd) into more than enough to feed over 5,000 people who had followed him to the other side of the Sea of Galilee. John the biographer had also recorded several occasions when Jesus showed his love towards individual needy people. 

Perceiving then that they were about to come and take him by force to make him king, Jesus withdrew again to the mountain by himself. 

Why not become “king”? Why not indeed? Is anything more important to Jesus than becoming “king”? Yes, indeed, there is. But what?

When evening came, his disciples went down to the sea, got into a boat, and started across the sea to Capernaum. It was now dark, and Jesus had not yet come to them.

The disciples were based in Capernaum on the west of the Sea of Galilee. In the absence of Jesus, and having waited for him all day, they set off to Capernaum. At night. It was dark – without him.

The sea became rough because a strong wind was blowing. 
 
Yes, the sea is rough – for these disciples as well as everybody else. And the winds are the same for them as for everyone else.
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When they had rowed about three or four miles, they saw Jesus walking on the sea and coming near the boat, and they were frightened. 

Three or four miles from shore, at night, on a rough sea, with a strong wind blowing, Jesus is walking on the sea and coming closer and closer to the boat.

This is an extraordinary dilemma. This man is frighteningly other. They know him as the one who, the day before, had fed the huge crowd from a boy’s lunch box of barley loaves and fish. 

But now, what will become of them?

But he said to them, “I am; do not be afraid.” 

“I am.” “Do not be afraid.” 

“I am.” In the original Greek, John the biographer, who was present in the boat, records that Jesus used only two words: ego meaning “I myself” and eimi being the present active indicative first-person singular of the verb “to be”.

“Do not be afraid.” Do you sometimes wish that you could hear those words – addressed to you personally – by someone who truthfully says “I am.”
 
Then they were willing to take him into the boat, and immediately the boat was at the land to which they were departing. 
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Yes, having heard those two statements, “they were willing to take him into the boat”. The Almighty, with his deep desire to feed all with the bread of life, had assured them that they had nothing to fear from him.

And they did just that – they took him into their boat.

What do you make of John the biographer’s eye witness report that “immediately the boat was at the land to which they were going”?

There is a double meaning to “the land to which they were departing”. An old hymn expresses one meaning very well: 

There’s a land that is fairer than day,
And by faith we can see it afar;
For the Father waits over the way
To prepare us a dwelling place there.
 
Sinner Syvret
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