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Thursday, September 16, 2004
Psalm 121, with its theme of each individual can trust God as the keeper of their very own soul on the journey, leads us to our approach of trusting in another type of very real journey.
Read Luke 5: 1--11 a couple of times. Get the feel of the story.
There's a multitude trying to get close to this revolutionary they've been hearing about. The text describes that crowd as pressing in on him...which would make things difficult as he's already on the shore of Lake Gennesaret.
There's a solution to the situation very close by. A couple of boats. A couple of fishermen cleaning their nets at the end of a lousy night of fishing (we'll see that later in the story, actually. Hope I didn't spoil anything for you). The teacher can get in the boat, push out a little way from shore and alleviate some of the crowding problem.
The Rabbi sits down. Lets the crowd know that teaching will commence. He teaches. Scripture doesn't tell us what He said...must not be important to this story. Obviously, the emphasis is on what happens next, although, if there's a DVD collection in The Kingdom I'd be interested in seeing/hearing whatever the lesson was.
After the sermon we get an odd occurrence: A known carpenter says to experienced, professional fishermen, "Go deep. That's where the fish are right now. Go fishing again."
If we read verse 5, we can almost read a lot into Simon's fatigued answer. It probably was something like this: "Master (an interesting choice of address, don't you think?), us PROFESSIONAL FISHERMEN worked ALL NIGHT LONG. We fish this lake all night, every night, and last night, there wasn't a fish to be caught. But, if YOU say so, we'll load up all our clean nets and go out during the DAYTIME in the DEEP WATER...and I don't even want to get started on cleaning it all again before we go to bed."
They obeyed. They fished.
And they got unprecedented results. So full of fish the nets were breaking. Get help. Help arrives. Fish are caught and put on boats. Boats begin to sink.
Simon Peter gets the big picture. This professional fisherman, who worked all night long on the lake he fishes all night every night and caught nothing, no has a daytime catch like he's never seen in all his days. This is obviously not normal. Nope, this must be supernatural. That can be the only conclusion. God is at work here.
The fisherman reacts the way we all would react when it dawns on all of us who are unholy when we encounter the Holy: "Please get away from me. Please. You are God and I'm not and I don't think we should be in the same place."
The whole team is amazed. Look it up. It'll mean more than what you think it does.
Jesus tells Simon, "Don't be afraid. You'll still be fishing...but for men. And men don't live in water. They're land dwellers. We've got to go do that, which will mean getting a bit further from this lake."
They leave everything they've ever known to go land/man fishing. Their jobs. Their identities. Their money. Their family.
The adventure begins. A very real journey...in which God will be the keeper of their souls. And Psalm 121 echoes: Their feet won't slip...the sun won't get them, or nightfall...no evil will overcome them.
Trust. Follow. Fish for mankind.
What does this look like in a moment-by-moment life for you?
Brent 4:39 AM
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