Luke 4:42-5:11; February 9, 2025, Fifth Sunday after Epiphany
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I don’t know how to fish. I really don’t.
Well, to be fair, I’ve never actually done it. I’ve never even tried.
But I have a curiosity for it, and I also have a friend from Chestnut Hill who knows how to fish. He got into it later in life – in fact, while we were on a mission trip in Montana.
I got coffee with him the other month and I asked if he was still fishing, and he was like, “yeah man, there’s nothing better…” And I thought, really? Nothing better? But he continued saying, “…there’s something special about that catch. The patience that goes into it; the work of the reel; the trust you put in your line and your rod that they won’t break…”
“The best part though…” he said, “isn’t even the catch. It’s setting it free. Letting that fish go and then starting all over again.”
At first, that seemed oxymoronic, but when I thought about it, I imagined that that’s probably how it works for Jesus as well.
For we are told countless times, aren’t we, that there is much rejoicing in Heaven, not just from catching us but in setting us free. And more, that there is peace in starting that process all over again, with the same rod and line — the Word of God; the Gospel – where Christ patiently waits on his next catch, the next person, sinner, and group to liberate in his name.
“Once, while Jesus was standing beside the lake of Gennesaret, and the crowd was pressing in on him to hear the word of God…” – Luke 5:1.
The Greek word for “once” here is Ἐγένετο, which comes from the verb γινομαι meaning “to be; to come into existence.” It can also convey something like, “it came to pass” or perhaps more appropriately in our modern vernacular “once upon a time…”
So, once upon a time, the crowd was pressing in on Jesus to hear the next word and story from God… and boy, did they hear a whopper! A tale for all sea tales!
About these dudes, these professional fishermen, who hadn’t yet met Jesus and who were having just about the lousiest of all fishing days ever.
According to Peter, they had been out all day and night, fishing in this one spot, and they came away with nothing. Nothing at all. Squat. Squadoosh (Luke 5:5).
But then along came this guy named Jesus with a huge crowd in tow, who unprovoked got into one of their boats and began encouraging them to try again (Luke 5:3). …Can you imagine?
This guy Jesus just walks into their boats as these fishermen were submitting to sheer exhaustion. When they likely just wanted to go home and break the sad news to their wives that there wouldn’t be any money tonight for the wares tomorrow. And, it’s at this time, that this man Jesus just casually says, hey, how about you go out back to that same spot and cast your nets again (Luke 5:4b).
“LOL, like dude, what, are you kidding me? We’re tired. We’ve tried. And we know what we are doing here. We’re the professionals, after all, remember? And anyway, just who the heck are you?”
And yet there was something about who he was… something about the way he spoke to them, the way he looked at them… that made Peter their leader sort of begrudgingly start to trust him. Even enough to exhale and say… “alright, well, I guess if you say so…” Yet if you say so (Luke 5:5b).
Let’s pause for a second here and consider how this story might relate to us today.
It seems, to me at least, that so many of us in these past few years have been so desperate to catch anything in life… wealth, hope, light, meaning, whatever… that we’ll almost believe anything anyone is selling us. “Yeah, we’ve tried this before, and it didn’t work last time… but alright… I guess we’ll try it again…if you say so…”
If you say so… This sort of irrational desperation for anything that might produce a better day, a greater chance at prosperity, that we’ll really just go along with whoever, goose-stepping and mumbling to ourselves, “yet, if you say so…”
Yet, if you say so…. Crazy, right?
But returning to our text, do you remember what happens next? As soon as they begin to trust in him – this guy, Jesus — a great commotion begins out at sea!
Fish, by the hundreds, suddenly show up, and begin to fill their empty nets. So much so that they look at each other with surprise and amazement. They simply can’t believe it! Their luck! There’s a hundred-some fish in their once empty nets! And, what’s more, there’s another hundred or so in their boats! Wow!! But then… a sudden fear washes over them as they realize that there are too many of them – that there are so many darn fish that their nets soon begin to break, and that their boats start to sink (Luke 5:6-7)!
Can you blame Peter then that the first words out of his mouth are, “Go away from me Lord!” (Luke 5:8). “Go away from me!” For in an instant, this guy Jesus showed up basically out of nowhere and immediately started capsizing their business venture! In an ironic twist then, that by winning so greatly Peter and his cohort risked losing something even greater: their safety nets; their boats; their entire way of life, if not life itself.
But here’s the catch, my friends… that was precisely Jesus’ plan!
Jesus knew that they needed a refresh. A restart. And perhaps, some repentance too, such that they might all come away saying, as did Peter, “Go away from me Lord, for I am a sinful man.”
For I am sinful. For indeed, their old way of life, you see, was dead… sinful, leading not to life, but to literal emptiness/to no fish.
But through himself, Jesus the Christ, he was now offering them the greatest catch of all time. A chance, not to have their nets filled, but their very lives. With renewed purpose and meaning, freed from all the old trappings — their nets, vessels, and what-have-you.
Unlike say, an Antichrist sort of person (and yes, there is a thin line here), who would only be in it for himself, filling people with false hope and false promises to line his own pockets, Jesus the true Christ empties himself so to fill others. To fill their lives with hope; to fill our lives with substance, purpose, and meaning.
Jesus’ miracle then, my friends, is not in multiplying the fish — in capitalizing their fishing enterprise by maximizing their gains — but rather, in socializing the good news for all people! That all might be saved if they joined his movement by fishing for people.
On the heels of the biggest haul ever, where these fishermen could have sold it all and earned some real earthly money for themselves and their families, they instead leave it all behind and follow him; so that with him they might do something greater than anything they could have achieved alone or before… for now, instead of fish, they would be catching and releasing people; liberating countless of would-be-disciples in his name.
My friends, once upon a time, Jesus changed the lives of some fishermen.
And though we ourselves might not see the same sort of sea-changing miracles happening in our lives today, we must yet trust that he is still audaciously getting into our boats.
Getting into our boats and encouraging us, comforting us with his words and his ways. Saying to each of us… go just a little bit further out, into the deep, and cast your line again.
Even if you’ve never done it before, even if you’ve never tried.
For my rod won’t break.
Because with me there is strength; and in my gospel there is life.
Thanks be to God, and praise be to Christ!
Amen.
