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The Fourth Watch: Jesus, the Storm, Injustice & Drowning

The Fourth Watch: Jesus, the Storm, Injustice & Drowning

Last updated on: August 8, 2026 at 12:44 pm by Jeff Hood

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The Fourth Watch: Jesus, the Storm, Injustice & Drowning 2026-08-08T12:44:12-06:00 Jeff Hood

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Drowning

Drowning in the Fourth Watch

He fed everybody on the hillside. Then he put his friends in a boat and sent them across the lake without him. He went up the mountain alone to pray. Night came. The boat got out into open water where the wind turned against it and the waves began throwing it around. Just before dawn he came out to them, walking on top of the sea. They saw him and screamed. A ghost. He said, take courage. It is me. Do not be afraid. Peter answered him. If it is you, tell me to come out there. He said, come. Peter climbed over the side and walked. Then he felt how hard the wind was blowing. He got scared. He went under. Lord, save me. The hand was there before the sentence was finished. He caught him and said, you of little faith, why did you doubt. They climbed into the boat. The wind quit. Everybody in that boat bowed down. You really are the Son of God.

Matthew 14:22-33

He Sent Them to Drown

He made them get into the boat.

Not invited. Made. He had just fed thousands of people out of nothing on a hillside. Then he pushed his closest friends out onto water he knew was going to turn on them. Read it again if you need to. He knew. That is the part we hurry past because it is unpleasant. He saw the wind coming. He sent them anyway.

Which means the storm is not evidence that you took a wrong turn. Sometimes the storm is the address. Everyone who has ever told the truth in a room that did not want it knows this. You did the right thing. The wind came up. Both are true.

Then he went up the mountain by himself to pray. Alone with what he knew was happening to them. He held them at a distance while the waves worked them over. There is a kind of prayer that stops there. It is not fake. It is just not finished. Prayer that stays on the mountain while people are drowning is a spiritual practice with no arms. He came down off that mountain. That descent is the whole gospel in a single motion.

But look at when he came. The fourth watch. Three in the morning until dawn. The hour of the worst phone calls. Anybody who has sat up with a dying person knows that hour. Anybody who has stood outside a death house knows that hour… the killing gets done while the country sleeps. He did not come in the first watch. He did not come in the second. He let the night be long.

I do not know why. I have stopped pretending to. What I know is that he came… walking on top of the very thing that was trying to kill them. He does not calm the sea from the shore. He does not stop the storm before he arrives. He crosses the surface of the danger then steps into the middle of it.

It Is a Ghost

And they screamed. Their first response to being saved was terror. “It is a ghost.”

Sit with that. People who have been tossed long enough lose the ability to tell rescue from threat. Ask anybody who has lived under a system that only ever shows up to take something. The knock is never help. So when love finally walks toward you at three in the morning, you assume it has come to collect. Learn this before you go to anybody in trouble. They may scream when they see you. It is not about you. Say what he said. It is I. Do not be afraid.

Peter has the nerve to answer. “Lord, if it is you, command me to come to you on the water.” He does not ask for calm. He asks to be sent. And the answer is one word.

Come.

Let’s start drowning!

Getting Out of the Boat to Start Drowning

So what does it mean to walk on water in our age? It is not levitation. Walking on water means getting out of the vessel that has been keeping you dry. The boat is not evil. The boat is the institution. The boat is the salary, the respectability, the reasonable position, the tenure, the good name. The boat is every arrangement that lets us be near the suffering without being in it. We have become extraordinarily skilled at hovering next to catastrophe in a well-appointed boat. We write about the water. We fundraise off the water. We hold conferences about the water.

The impossible part was never the surface tension. The impossible part is the first leg over the side. Everybody still in the boat will tell you it is unwise. They will be correct. It is unwise. But wisdom is the undoing of most.

Who are we walking toward? Notice where he is standing. He is not in the boat. He is out in the deep, in the dark, in the part of the water where nobody can touch bottom. He is always out there, with the people who cannot get into anybody’s boat. He is in the detention center with a woman who has not been told where her children were taken. He is in the encampment that gets swept on Tuesday morning. He is in the hospital corridor with somebody doing arithmetic on their own insulin. He is with the worker who got hurt on a shift that was never going to be safe. He is with the kid whose existence has been turned into a legislative agenda. He is in the rubble of a neighborhood in a war we have all learned to scroll past. He is in the room where they strap a man down at midnight. If you want to be near him you are going to have to leave the dry place. That is not a metaphor I invented to move you. It is simply where he is standing.

And who do we meet out there? Ourselves, mostly, without the equipment. Then the frightened. Then the one we were certain was a ghost. Out on the water you discover that most of the people you were trained to fear are just other people getting thrown by the same wind. The man with the record. The family that crossed. The addict on the corner you speed past. The teenager the whole town has already sentenced. Deep water dissolves categories. I have sat across from men the world has agreed to call monsters. They were not monsters. They were people in a fourth watch that would not end.

A Little Faith Was Enough to Keep from Drowning

What does it mean to begin to drown? Look closely at why he sinks. Peter does not go under because he is faithless. He goes under because he is accurate. He saw how strong the wind was. He was right. The wind was strong. The water was bottomless. Drowning begins the moment the conditions get the last word. It begins when the analysis gets so good that it eats the call.

I have started to drown more than once. You look up from the work and the machinery is enormous, funded, patient, older than you. It is going to outlast you. The public defender knows this feeling. So does the nurse on her third double this week. So does the organizer watching the same bill come back for the fourth year running. Everybody I know who does anything real has gone under at some point… some did not come back up. That is not weakness. That is what happens to a person who stares at the wind long enough.

Then comes the shortest prayer in the book. Lord, save me. Three words. No theology in it. It is the prayer of somebody with water in their mouth. It is the only prayer some people will ever manage. It works.

Immediately he stretched out his hand and caught him.

Immediately. Not a lecture shouted across the gap. The hand comes first. Only then does he say “O you of little faith, why did you doubt.” That sentence is not delivered from a safe distance. It is said with a grip on the man’s wrist. All real correction happens inside a hold. If you are not holding somebody, you have not earned the right to correct them. The church has had that backwards for a long time.

Notice also that little faith was enough. Little faith got him over the side. Little faith carried him most of the way there. We keep preaching a great faith that almost nobody has. He works with little.

So how do we get to the other side? Read it carefully. Nobody walks to the other side. They climb back into the boat together and the wind dies down. The walking was never transportation. It was encounter. The crossing is common work. It gets done in a boat, with people who screamed when they saw you coming.

They did him homage only afterward. Truly, you are the Son of God. The confession came after somebody got wet…started drowning

Get out of the boat. He is already out there. He has been out there since the fourth watch began.

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About The Rev. Dr. Jeff Hood

The Rev. Dr. Jeff Hood is a Catholic priest (Old Catholic), theologian, and nationally recognized activist based in North Little Rock, Arkansas. A spiritual advisor to death row inmates across the country, Dr. Hood has accompanied more people to their executions than any other advisor in the U.S., including the first-ever nitrogen hypoxia execution in 2024. His work sits at the intersection of justice, radical compassion, and public theology. Dr. Hood holds advanced degrees from Auburn, Emory, Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, University of Alabama, Creighton, and Brite Divinity School, among others. He also earned a PhD in metaphysical theology and founded The New Theology School, where he serves as Dean and Professor of Prophetic Theology. Author of over 100 books—including the award-winning The Courage to Be Queer—Dr. Hood’s writings and activism have been featured in The New York Times, Rolling Stone, NPR, CNN, and more. A frequent collaborator with men on death row, he sees theology as a shared, liberative act. Dr. Hood has served on the leadership teams of organizations like the Texas Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty and the Fellowship of Reconciliation. His activism has earned multiple awards, including recognition from PFLAG and the Next Generation Action Network. On July 7, 2016, Dr. Hood led the Dallas protest against police brutality that ended in tragedy. His actions that night saved lives, and his story is now archived in the Dallas Public Library. A father of five, husband to Emily, and friend to the incarcerated, Dr. Hood rejects institutionalism in favor of a theology rooted in people, presence, and prophetic witness. You can read more about the author here.

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