Jesus is back from the wilderness, tested, steeled with the Spirit, with purpose, devotion, zeal, focus.  People notice.  People gather.  So many bump through life wishy-washy, pale, bruised.  Oh, why don’t they fight?!  So we say, shaking our heads in sorrow and sympathy.  Christ is calling out, “Oh, why don’t you follow?”

It always amazes me how, when Jesus speaks, crowds press in to listen.  I wish Jesus were here speaking now, in all his churches and outside the doors of his churches.  Then I could just sit back and listen and wonder and be changed and praise the Lord.  Beside the Sea of Galilee, Jesus draws a crowd.  They’re drawing in even nearer, so they can hear; they want to hear.  What Jesus says is worth hearing.  As they all press forward, Jesus is left with nowhere to go except into the lake.  It isn’t time for him to walk on the water, so he does the most practical thing and gets into one of the fishing boats.  It was Peter’s (5:3).  You might think Peter would tell him to get out, ask him what he thought he was doing, but he doesn’t.  Peter and the others noticed what was going on.  They caught some of what Jesus was saying.  They understood something unusual, something important was happening.  Jesus, clambering aboard, “asked him to put out a little distance from the land”; Peter agreed.  Maybe he was inclined to listen, too.  Maybe he wanted to understand what was happening.

No one—including any of us here now—quite understands what is happening when Jesus arrives.  No one quite understands, when he or she begins to hear Jesus, hear and really starts to listen, take it in, weigh and consider it.  That was as true for each of the apostles as it is for us and everyone.  What’s encouraging for us (and, the more we reflect upon it, also becomes a little frightening) is that Jesus wants us to understand, and will help us to understand, not only what is being said but who is saying it.  Jesus isn’t only some especially wonderfully wise teacher or some simply heavenly man.  Jesus isn’t speaking godly wisdom; Jesus is God speaking.  This blew people away and made them go all rigid with resentment, huffy with rejection.

“[W]hen He had finished speaking, He said to Simon, ‘Put out into the deep water and let down your nets for a catch’” (5:4).  The deep water—is that like where the fish were usually most plentiful, or where no one ever caught any fish and never bothered to try?  Which would show the power more plainly?  And not just the power in this world of power-mad minds, but also the grace, glory, and presence.  “Master, we worked hard all night and caught nothing, but I will do as You say and let down the nets” (5:5).  Peter calls him “Master”; that’s respectful.  He wasn’t merely being polite.  He got that someone who mattered was there with them.  Peter is also thinking to himself: this guy clearly has no idea.  But he seems nice, probably means well.  Or, scratch that: maybe Peter hasn’t been impressed by what he’s heard.  Maybe he is thinking that doing what this man of platitudes says is just the way to prove it’s all hot air, all nonsense, childish silliness that had no place in a man’s world.  You want me to let down the nets?  You know this lake better than me?  You know fish better than me?  R-i-i-i-i-g-h-t.

The men had “worked hard all night” for nothing.  Maybe you know what that’s like.  Fruitless labor, meaningless work.  No change, no difference, no getting ahead.  It wouldn’t be so hard, if it were just the men themselves who had nothing to show for their time and effort, but each had a family to support, feed.  It’s hard bringing home nothing; frankly, it’s shameful.  So, there was really no time for foolishness, for what wasn’t going to profit.  People do work hard, and never so hard as when they work against God’s Word, resisting, rejecting, holding it off, holding out.  It can be exhausting, warding off the Word.  And for what?  Independence?  Hard-headed realism?  Stoic indifference?  So as to be beholden to no one and particularly not to any supposed, so-called God?  It’s not only pride and writhing at the possibility that we might be wrong.  It’s also fear of the unknown.

And what is the fruit of all that labor against the Word, apart from the Word?  Some seem to have built mighty lives for themselves: they sure have enough stuff crowding garages and storage units to show for all the hours they put in, all sorts of big-ticket toys.  We’re also told that consumer debt is astronomical.  A recent article on nasdaq.com reports that, on average, Americans owe more than $6,000 in credit card debt.[1]  I suspect many of us couldn’t just cough that up at a moment’s notice.  What happens when the work dries up and jobs just aren’t there?  Where does the money for that lifestyle, those choices and habits, those bills, come from, then?  If you’ve expended your life building an empire of toys, what do you have to fall back on when they’re repossessed and foreclosed?

People need a better foundation.  Certainly—but do they want that?  And just who shall tell them what that is?  And, being told, how will they ever believe it?  It’s when we stop resisting Christ, stop resisting the Spirit, and start doing as Jesus says that he lays the true foundation for building what is truly good, lasting, blessed.  But when do we stop resisting?  How do we stop?

Peter wasn’t thinking about any of that.  Why would he?  He was worn out from another long round of laboring in the darkness that earned him nothing.  Something had to change.  Peter sensed that, but he didn’t know how that could happen, wasn’t sure it could.  He knew it was up to him; he had to do something, but it didn’t seem like he could make anything change or do anything differently in a way that would matter.

“Put out into the deep water and let down your nets for a catch.”  Jesus wasn’t talking only about the dark, cold depths of the lake.  In the depths of the heart there’s also a catch to be made: a life-altering, Word-confirming catch.  If we never let down the net, if we never do as Jesus tells us, we’ll never see, never know.  “And when they had done this, they caught a great quantity of fish, and their nets began to tear” (5:6).  Oh, the blessing comes, but it’s not sunshine and butterflies: it’s huge, unexpected, and scary.  “[S]o they signaled to their partners in the other boat to come and help them.  And they came and filled both of the boats, to the point that they were sinking” (5:7).  Especially if you’ve been on one, you know a sinking boat is not good.  What sort of blessing is this?  It’s what blessing is meant to do: cause us to wonder, even to get a little panicky, about what’s happening.  Why is this happening?  What does it mean?  What have I gotten myself into?

Have you ever had something so good happen to you that you got scared?  Scared it wasn’t really true, scared it wouldn’t last, couldn’t last?  Scared that, knowing you the way you do, you’d just end up ruining it all?  Remember, beloved, Paul writes of this clearly: to follow Christ is to die to self.  We’d rather live for ourselves than be reborn for Christ.  I mean, it’s okay to, you know, add Christ on, of course.  Even if it isn’t much, we know what we have.  What following Christ means, living for Christ—this is the unknown; we sense it will mean all our former hopes and precious plans being turned on their head; it will mean being compelled to confess that we are wrong and God is right.  We just hate that!  Life then will have to be God’s way in practice, not only in principle.

Has it occurred to you how often Jesus overwhelms people with abundance: barrels of wine, bread and fish to feed thousands, nets bursting, boats sinking under their load of fish.  Eternity, infinity, glory, grace . . . love—the divine breaking through.  When he heals, does Jesus address only the specific malady: the leprosy is cured, but not the arthritis?  The deafness is removed, but not the blindness?  You know Christ is at work when you’re left wondering what’s happening.

God provided what His people needed in their wilderness wandering.  They complained.  They wanted more, or different, or better; they preferred what they knew in servitude to what they did not know in freedom.  They didn’t know God was offering them freedom, and they didn’t care.  On a few occasions, God obliged them, gave them what they asked for, and more.  It was always a disaster.  When we get what we ask for, it’s a disaster.  When we receive what God offers, it’s blessing.

Peter and Andrew, James and John were in the business of catching and selling fish.  Supply increased, supply decreased.  Prices rose, prices fell.  People bought or people did not buy.  All their skill and knowledge didn’t matter much, when people weren’t buying.  And when people wanted fish, all their labor didn’t amount to much if there were few fish to be caught.  There was always something more, beyond them, apart from them, over which they had no control, something which was somehow in control.  It frustrated them, left them feeling bitter because it left them feeling helpless, vulnerable, dependent, small.

The man who came to the lakeshore and said nice, harmless things told them to do something.  Knowing the man was out of his element, Peter humored him.  But what could Peter and the rest say, now?  The man who said nice, harmless things was right.  He knew something Peter and the others didn’t know, had always wanted to know without knowing the name of what they wanted to know.  And what was Peter going to do with all the fish!?  He had just witnessed the fulfillment of his wildest dreams, and he was ruined!  Have you ever had something so good happen to you that you got scared?  Scared that, knowing you the way you do, you’d just end up ruining it all?  “[W]hen Simon Peter saw this, he fell down at Jesus’ knees, saying, ‘Go away from me, Lord, for I am a sinful man!’” (5:8).  It wasn’t the piles of fish that cracked open Peter’s heart and soul with dread and wonder.  It was the presence there with Peter in the boat, standing there, looking at him, awaiting what Peter would say, do.

Peter had called Jesus Master.  The Greek term has to do with the authority a person exercises.  There on the shore, Peter had heard Jesus speaking as if he had authority.  Many people marveled at the authority with which Jesus spoke: they marveled at how the man spoke, marveled at what felt to many of them—though not all—like the presumption of superiority.  Now, why did they hear presumption and arrogance in what Jesus said, while others hears grace, love, and wisdom for salvation?

We could take Peter using the term master respectfully.  We could also take it just a little sarcastically.  However we take the term, seeing, hearing, feeling the fish flopping around him, Peter doesn’t then address Jesus as master but Lord.  That’s a title reserved for the highest, the greatest.  Peter knew what had just happened because of this man’s word was the power of God.  Peter was standing in the presence of the power of God, and Peter’s tone has changed, dramatically.  His world has changed dramatically.

“Go away from me, Lord, for I am a sinful man!”  Amen!  It’s unbearable to be in Your presence!  It’s no casual thing, to be in the presence, of Purity, Truth, Light, Knowledge, Power, Holiness.  To be addressed, directly, by God, to be touched, directly, by God?  In the Old Testament, this was regarded as dreadful, because we talk about cleanness, and we aren’t, we talk about goodness and we aren’t.  We talk as if we had knowledge and wisdom, and then God speaks.  The sudden contrast is more than mortifying.  Oh, people have spiritual experiences, experiences that don’t particularly require any response except maybe a little feeling of gratitude, gratitude to the universe.  The rest of the time, we just do our thing and have other things on our minds: plans, worries, routines, work, play.  We don’t want a god who wants something from us, which is another way of saying we’re not all that keen on a real relationship.

I have the impression that Peter had not exactly been a devout man.  Oh, his brother Andrew had an interest in God and all, but Peter . . . that just wasn’t where his passions and commitments focused.  He took pride and had pleasure in his work, his family, the life he had built for himself.  That was enough for him: my world, my life.

It wasn’t enough for God.  Bear with me for a roundabout moment more.  I recently read an article on the subject of why people don’t go to church.  The reasons aren’t so surprising, just sort of depressing.  Some don’t see or feel the necessity of being with any congregation.  Doesn’t add any value to their life.  Kind of boring.  Don’t need those people.  Can do it myself.  Others, along the way, just fell out of the habit and find that they’re okay with that, though they make occasional comments about missing everybody and planning to come again soon, one of these Sundays.  Still others don’t go because they have different beliefs from what they have heard or think they’ll hear in a church.  That’s a sort of neutral way of saying they don’t want their beliefs challenged, don’t want to hear anything contrary to their beliefs, and we get that.  As for the rest who don’t go, Jesus-faith just isn’t a main element in their composition, or else they’re always already spoken for every Sunday at eleven a.m.

Then God shows up.  When Peter tells Jesus to go away, these are words of despair: oh, why did You have to show up?!  What do You want with me, God?  God can no longer be ignored, put off again.  God wants something from us and will have our answer.  The Crisis has come: decision time!  “And Jesus said to Simon, ‘Do not fear; from now on you will be catching people’” (5:10).  Jesus, you see, was confident as to Peter’s decision.  Peter was still too stunned to have any notion of what Jesus meant.  Whatever Jesus meant, Peter knew, felt, it meant a new purpose.  Jesus was saying “I have a purpose for you; you have a purpose, with me.”  There is a God.  God takes an active interest in us, wants a real relationship with us.  God has a purpose for us, work for us to do.  God calls us into this work, tells us we need not be afraid about the scope or nature of the work—all the unknowns—because God will be with us, at work with us, in us, and through us, fulfilling His purpose for us.  Trust.  Follow.  Because we trust, we follow.  As we follow, we learn to trust.  As we learn to follow, learn to trust, we also begin to let go of our self-exalting need to be right.  We learn, many times in many ways, that God is right; we learn how to accept that God is right.

“When they had brought their boats to land, they left everything and followed Him” (5:11).  Let’s not pass over that quickly, casually.  They left—of course, why wouldn’t they?  This was going to be the adventure of a lifetime!  They left everything.  Well, what’s everything?  Like, every-thing?  Was this leaving sudden, all at once, or lingering, lengthy?  They left everything.  Beloved, everything is a lot: everything that used to matter to them, in which they had invested themselves, all in which they formerly found value and pleasure, reward and fulfillment.  All by which they had formerly known and defined themselves: what they had regarded as the vital core of their existence and value.  All to which they had formerly been devoted—including themselves.  If they don’t leave that behind, they haven’t left everything.  We know how self clings, and no, self isn’t entirely abandoned all in a moment.  Peter and the rest will discover this, too.

How do we take what matters most and put it, and keep it, firmly in second place?  Oh, but we do it all the time, whenever we put God next.  Jesus came and called, to show them—and to show us—how to keep God first.

[1] https://www.nasdaq.com/articles/3-warning-signs-you-have-too-much-credit-card-debt