After feeding the 5000, Jesus sent his disciples away to travel by boat to the land of Gennesaret. Instead of traveling with them, he stayed in the mountain alone and prayed. Later, he came to them walking on the water, while they were still rowing through a terrible storm. After entering the ship, they immediately arrived at the shore.
As we study this miracle when Jesus walks on water, we will see that it typifies the second coming of Jesus Christ. Below we have listed the verse numbers in Matt 14 where each type appears and the cross references that reveal the associations for each type.
14:23 – he went up into a mountain – the mountain pictures mount Zion in heaven up to which Jesus ascended after his resurrection [Acts 1:11; Is 14:13-14].
14:23 – he went up to pray – his prayer pictures the interceding that he does for us while he is in heaven [Heb 7:25].
14:23 – he was there in the evening [night] – when Jesus was here on the earth, the time was day and the condition was light; but now that he is in heaven, it is night time here [Jn 9:4-5; 1 Thes 5:1-2].
14:23 – he was there alone – truly there is only one God pictured by Jesus being alone in the mountain [Is 45:5-6, 22].
14:24 – the ship was in the midst of the sea – our location in the universe is in a firmament created in Gen 1:6-8, which is in the midst of a sea of water that surrounds us [Ps 148:4].
14:24 – tossed with waves – men here are literally tossed with waves in the sea when they sail, Ps 107:24-31 [in our lesson, when Jesus came on board the winds ceased v. 32, and immediately they arrived at their haven Jn 6:21, showing them that he had to be God]. Spiritually this tossing in the waves pictures Jas 1:6; Heb 11:6; Lk 18:8. The question is, “When the Lord returns, will he find faith in the earth?”
14:24 – the wind was contrary – this type refers to the winds of false doctrine that batter Christians [Eph 4:14; Ecc 11:4].
14:25 – fourth watch of the night – the night is broken down into four watches: evening 6-9; midnight 9-12; cock crowing 12-3; and morning 3-6, which is the fourth watch of the night [Mk 13:34-35]. We know that Jesus comes in the morning [Ps 30:5; Joel 2:1-2].
14:25 – Jesus went unto them – a perfect picture of the Lord returning to the earth [Acts 1:11; Heb 9:28].
14:25 – walking on the sea – this picture may be a little hard to grasp, initially. When Jesus returns, he’s going to come down through that great body of water that’s above the universe. Habakkuk describes this scene in Hab 3:15.
So, you see, that a simple late night prayer meeting during a storm means a lot more to us personally when it was placed in the context of the second coming of Jesus.