We saw earlier that Jesus made time for the crowd, despite His own need to be alone with the Father. Now we see that he dismisses the crowds, and sends the disciples on ahead so that He can have that time. So we see a great balance in Jesus. We so easily make the mistake of either letting people walk all over us, or neglecting people's needs.
Jesus had gone up a mountain, while the disciples went across the lake. They were encountering fairly rough weather.
"Jesus went out to them". This is said so casually! What He is actually doing is walking on the water. The disciples were terrified, they knew full well that such things do not normally happen!
Jesus told them not to be afraid. Peter, as always, goes one step ahead and wants to join Jesus on the water. Jesus calls him and Peter starts to walk on the water. Then he sees the wind and waves and starts to sink. Jesus gently rebukes him. Before we start joining in with the rebuking we should remember that none of the others had got out of the boat.
This illustrates that we can do the things that Jesus did, it is lack of faith that stops us. We should also note that Peter never walked on water again (as far as we know). So he did not take this as a sign that he should develop a ministry of water walking!
The disciples worshipped Jesus, and then the crowds came again with many healings.
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