When the Emperor Renames the Waters (John 6:1-21)
The Dissidents Guide to John, Part 10
Trampling Upon the Seas
In the book of Job, the oldest text in the Bible, we can find one of the first—and most powerful—declarations of God’s authority over the entire cosmos. In Job 9:4–8, we read:
“His wisdom is profound, his power is vast. Who has resisted him and come out unscathed?… He alone stretches out the heavens and treads on the waves of the sea.”
That last image—God trampling upon the sea—would’ve meant something very specific to ancient readers. Because in Hebrew theology, the sea wasn’t just water, it represented evil, chaos, and the abyss. It was the home of sea monsters, demons, and darkness. It was everything that stood opposed to the created order.
And yet—God walks on it. Like it’s nothing. That is the picture that John 6 is rooted in. That is what the early audience would have thought of when they hear about Jesus “walking on top of the water.”
The Sea as a Symbol of Evil
Throughout Scripture, the sea is portrayed as a threat to peace, a stand-in for all that is wild, dark, and dangerous:
• Job 7:12: “Am I the sea, or the monster of the deep, that you put me under guard?”
• Psalm 74:13–14: “You split open the sea by your power; you broke the heads of the monster in the waters.”
• Isaiah 27:1: “He will slay the monster of the sea.”
Even Jesus’ own disciples saw this imagery come to life in the Gospels. In Matthew 8, Mark 4, and Luke 8, Jesus calms a raging storm with just a word. To the Jewish reader, this wasn’t just about weather. This was Jesus silencing chaos itself.
In Revelation 13, the beast—the embodiment of oppressive empire—rises from the sea. And in Revelation 21:1, when God finally remakes the world, the first thing to go is the sea. Not literally—this is theological language. It’s a way of saying: evil, chaos, darkness… gone.
The Sea of Galilee… or the Sea of Tiberias?
In John 6, we get a seemingly small detail that unlocks a deeper meaning. Verse 1 says:
“Jesus crossed to the far shore of the Sea of Galilee (that is, the Sea of Tiberias).”
It’s the only place in the Bible that this body of water is called “The Sea of Tiberias.” Why?
Throughout history when a new authoritarian figure comes into power, one of the first things they do is rename cities, landmarks, and bodies of water after themselves or their people. It has always been a way of asserting dominance over the people, making their mark on history, and erasing parts of the history of those who came before them.
When Tiberias came to power in 14CE and on of his first acts was to rename the city of Rakkath (referenced as early as Joshua 19:35) and the Sea of Galilee, which he called “The Sea of Tiberius.”
The Jewish people, especially in the first century, were dissidents. They refused to call it the “sea of Tiberias,” and instead, throughout the gospels, they will refer to it as the “Sea of Galilee.” But John includes this Roman name intentionally, situating the story in the middle of political turbulence. His readers weren’t just dealing with personal spiritual struggles—they were navigating the chaos of Roman occupation, violence, exploitation, and forced assimilation. John’s readers knew what it meant to live in a world run by emperors and systems that tried to erase their faith and culture.
So Jesus walking across Tiberias’s Sea isn’t meant to be a cool trick. This is a bold, political, and indeed, cosmic claim:
Jesus is Lord—not Tiberias. Not Caesar. Not Rome. Not chaos.
When Jesus walks atop the sea of Tiberius, Johns audience would have heard Isaiah ringing in their ears:
”Who has resisted him and come out unscathed?… He alone stretches out the heavens and treads on the waves of the sea.”
They knew what John was saying, and the political dissidence that came along with it.
“They Were Frightened”
When the disciples saw Jesus walking on the water, they were terrified. Sure, part of it was literal—they thought they were going to drown. The Sea of Galilee was notoriously dangerous (even the historian Josephus wrote about its sudden, deadly storms). But there’s more going on here.
John’s Gospel often operates on layers. And this moment is a loaded metaphor for what it’s like to live in a world that feels like it’s collapsing—spiritually, socially, politically.
The world of the disciples—like ours—was marked by:
• Spiritual darkness: despair, confusion, the absence of clarity and hope.
• Social oppression: violence against the poor and marginalized.
• Political fear: Rome’s military might and economic dominance crushing everything in its path.
They were rowing into the heart of it. Alone. And they had left Jesus behind.
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“By Now It Was Dark, and Jesus Had Not Yet Joined Them.”
That line from John 6:17 is chilling. The storm rises, and the disciples realize they’ve set out without Jesus.
It’s a parallel image of what we might call nominal Christianity—a form of faith that wears Jesus as a label but leaves him out of the actual journey. It refers to a Christian life that is obsessed with what is “biblical,” without ever intending to become “Christlike.” Its what happens when Jesus becomes a mascot instead of a model.
The church of John’s day was starting to blend in with empire. They were drifting into Roman culture, thinking perhaps Jesus was just another king like Caesar. But then…
“They saw Jesus approaching the boat, walking on the water; and they were frightened. But he said to them, ‘It is I; don’t be afraid.’” (John 6:19–20)
He walks on TOP of Tiberias’s sea— as Lord over it all.
The Invitation
John says that once they were willing to take Jesus into the boat, they immediately reached the shore. (Jn 6:21)
There’s something about the life of faith that requires our participation. Jesus doesn’t force himself into the boat, for Jesus is not coercive. We must choose to let him in. Not just as a figurehead, but as Lord.
In Matthews version of the story, Peter steps out of the boat to meet Jesus. He actually walks on water, and as long as he is able to recognize that Jesus is Lord over what Tiberius claims as his own — as long as Jesus is his focus, he is able to rise above the chaos.
But when he allows the wind and the waves, the chaos and power of his surroundings, to grab his attention, he starts to get pulled under. When he fears the storm, he begins to slip below the surface and become a part of it.
This is what happens to all of us when we allow the chaos of the nations capture our attention and when we start to think that perhaps there are other leaders and kings that we should be focused on, that “perhaps they might have some power to keep us safe.” This is where we lose it, this is where we sink beneath.
Fear, more than anything else, will pull you under.
But the moment he cries out, Jesus reaches out and grabs him. “You of little faith, why did you doubt?” (Matt 14:31).
When we let the fear and chaos of the world determine our steps—we sink. Into anger. Into anxiety. Into assimilation. Into apathy. But when we keep our hearts on Christ—on his radical love, his upside-down kingdom, his rejection of power and embrace of the cross—we can walk above it.