LATEST: Occasions where people were amazed at Jesus – today we get into fishing from Luke 5:1-11
Print This Post
- Did you realise that Noah started building several arks for various parts of animal kingdom. One was a split level job for all the fish – a multi-storey carp ark
- What do you call a fish with no eyes?…Fsh
What was it that amazed the early disciples? Was it the fish? No. We’re going to discover that it was the person of Jesus
And in telling this story Luke wants us to see the glory of Christ in the miraculous catch of fish.
Jesus had become very popular
Luke 5:1 Now it happened that while the crowd was pressing around Him and listening to the word of God, He was standing by the lake of Gennesaret (or sea of Galilee); 2 and He saw two boats lying at the edge of the lake; but the fishermen had got out of them and were washing their nets. 3 And He got into one of the boats, which was Simon’s, and asked him to put out a little way from the land. And He sat down and began teaching the people from the boat.
I want to point out some of the details in these verses because they will help us understand why Peter was so amazed at the catch of fish – and amazed by Jesus himself.
The story of Jesus calling Simon Peter and Andrew is told in two other places in the Bible. In Matthew 4 and Mark 1
When we compare them we notice some distinct differences.
- Both Matthew and Mark tell us that Jesus’ call came to them while they were casting their nets – while they were actually fishing. But in Luke, they’d stopped fishing in disgust at a zero catch and were cleaning their nets ready for next time.
- In Matthew and Mark Jesus called them away from fishing, in Luke he told them to go fishing – in fact he went along with them!
- In Matthew and Mark Jesus is walking along the side of the lake when he calls them but in Luke he’s sitting prow as a rabbi teaching a large crowd and being so jostled by them that he has to get into a boat and push off the shore so he could be heard
So, we conclude from this, that although both incidents took place by the sea of Galilee (because that’s where Peter’s business was based) and on both occasions Simon Peter ended up following Jesus – they were actually separate events.
- Probably happening a few weeks apart
A few weeks previously, therefore, these men had been called by Jesus and they had left their nets, their boats, their family, their prospects and their security to follow where Jesus led. It was all very new and exciting
- But in Luke 5 they are back in the old business again!
- In fact, they don’t’ even seem to be part of the crowd listening – they’re washing their nets in the shallows while Jesus talks!
So …
- What we have here in Luke 5 is not Peter’s call to be a disciple, it’s his re-call
- it’s not Andrew and Peter’s commissioning to follow Christ, it’s their re-commissioning
Here is Jesus reaching them again – and reaching them in such an astonishing way that they will have no alternative but to follow Jesus or know they are for ever disobedient to God’s call.
These men had gone back to the boats they had left a few weeks before – and on this particular night they had been out fishing and caught absolutely nothing.
- It’s as if God is saying to them “You can, of course, go back to your way of life before I called you, but (unless I call you back to it) it will never have the attraction or the effectiveness that it once did!
Am I talking to any Peters here
you know you’ve been called by God to do something
- (whether in the church or out of it, whether with a bit of your time or all of your time) and you’ve drifted back to the old business.
- and you started out well, but you’ve gone back to fishing?
If that’s the case, hear from this passage Jesus Christ re-calling you!
4 When He had finished speaking, He said to Simon (he’s already in the boat) “Put out into the deep water and let down your nets for a catch.”
This is weird. Here is Jesus, the carpenter and teacher, telling Peter the fisherman what to do about his fishing!
- Jesus puts his finger on the one area of Peter’s life – his fishing career – where Peter is at his most compromised.
And I think that it’s at this moment that Peter begins to realise what’s going on because …
5 Simon answered and said, “Master, we worked hard all night and caught nothing,
That word ‘master’ (epistaths) doesn’t mean ‘teacher’ – it means ‘Captain’ and would be used of ship’s skipper.
5 … but I will do as You say and let down the nets.”
Over went the nets and it wasn’t long before they were so full they couldn’t cope and had to summon extra help – Listen carefully to how Luke describes it
6 When they had done this, they enclosed a great quantity of fish, and their nets began to break; 7 so they signalled to their partners in the other boat for them to come and help them. And they came and filled both of the boats, so that they both began to sink.
So the catch is so amazing that the nets are breaking and the boats are sinking.
Remember these are professional fishermen and they build their boats to accommodate a full catch – several times over – so they can keep the catch at take it to land.
But here are two whole boats being overwhelmed by a single catch!
- The point is this: here is an utterly unprecedented catch of fish in a location that previously seemed hopelessly unproductive.
- This is telling Peter that Jesus has a control over nature that leaves him speechless.
- These fish were caught at the powerful and authoritative word of Jesus Christ.
Now something unexpected takes place.
I wonder what would have happened if this miraculous sign had taken place today.
I think we’d get our mobile phones out, take a shot of it and compete with each other to be the first to get it up on Twitter or Facebook.
Instead, this happens
8 But when Simon Peter saw that, he fell down at Jesus’ feet, saying, “Go away from me Lord, for I am a sinful man, O Lord!” 9 For amazement had seized him and all his companions because of the catch of fish which they had taken.
Why this reaction? Because Peter is a devout Jew and he knew one thing from the Old Testament – Only God has complete control over nature.
- Who told the rain to start when Noah built his ark? God did
- Who got the rain to stop when Elijah was warning Ahab about God’s judgement? God did.
- Who made the sun stand still for a day? God did.
And here is Jesus doing the same sort of thing. – So who does that make Jesus?
- Simon is having the penny drop about the identity of Christ – he I God in human form!
And again from the OT Simon Peter would know that when you come face to face with God it can be a portent of utter disaster “No-one can see God’s face and live!”
- So Simon falls headlong in front of Jesus and blurts out “Go away from me Lord, for I am a sinful man, O Lord!”
That is what amazed them!
The word of Jesus had carried the same power in Peter’s boat as the word of God had in the OT scriptures
- The way the natural word responded to Jesus in same way that they expected it to respond to God’s word!
And Jesus said to Simon, “Do not fear, from now on you will be catching men.”
Literally ‘catching me alive’ – catching men in such a way as they will find new life because of you, Peter.
11 When they had brought their boats to land, they left everything and followed Him.
I believe that this passage speaks to three sorts of people
total recall
Firstly, it speaks to those of us who have been called by the Lord to do something and we haven’t got round to doing it yet
This is Peter’s recall
And I don’t detect the tiniest scrap of condemnation in Jesus actions towards Peter.
Jesus wasn’t making Peter feel guilty about not following up to this point, he was giving him the greatest reasons to follow!
- a fresh insight into who he is!
For us that might come through the word, it might happen as we open ourselves to the Lord in worship, it might happen in private when we spend time with the Lord
But it needs to come!
Jacob prayed “Lord I will not go until you bless me – maybe you need to say that!
Too familiar
Secondly this speaks to many of us who have become too familiar with God.
It was seeing Jesus for who he was – God in a body – that shook Peter out of is lethargy!
And maybe you need to pray “Lord show me yourself again!” I’ve become so familiar with you that the wonder of who you are is a distant memory!
The sharing heart
Thirdly it speaks to those of us who need to be more active in catching men alive!
I was reading this week about a man who was writing about Christian joy – about how it doesn’t grow on trees and we sometimes have to fight for it. (Piper “When I don’t desire God” p227).
This man’s father was very elderly and had been a preacher all his life. The author rang his dad:
“Daddy, I’m writing a book on how to fight for joy. What one thing comes to your mind from sixty years of ministry as to what Christians could do to increase their joy?”
Almost without hesitation he said “Share their faith!”
Joy in Christ thrives on being shared. That is the essence of Christian joy: it overflows or it dies.
Millions of Christians live with a low-grade level of guilt for not openly commending Christ by their words. They try to persuade themselves that keeping their noses morally clean is a witness to Christ.
The fallacy of that thinking is that there are millions of people who keep their noses morally clean and have nothing to do with Jesus!
Christ is the most glorious person in the world!
By His spirit he promises love, joy, peace and eternal security – and most thinking people would give their right arm for a dose of that!
It is one of the paradoxes of the Christian life that we only get to keep what we also give away – so let’s be active in giving away our faith and our joy in Christ!
<pray>
