Sunday, February 9, 2025, Fifth Sunday after Epiphany
“The Catch”
Psalm 8:1-9; Isaiah 6:1-9; 1 Corinthians 14:12-19; Luke 5:1-11
Hymns: #396 “Arise and Shine in Splendor”; #507 “Holy, Holy, Holy”; #831 “How Shall They Hear Who Have Not Heard”; #722 “Lord, Take My Hand and Lead Me”
Dear Friends in Christ,
Grace, mercy, and peace to you, from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior Jesus. Amen.
“You will be fishers of men” is an amazing metaphor. Jesus, talking to fisherman, compares what they’ve been doing all their lives, to what they will be doing once they answer His call to follow Him. Who are God’s fishermen? Who are the fish? And what’s the catch?
In order to get this amazing passage of Scripture clear, there are two kinds of fishing going on here. There’s ordinary fishing, like Peter and Andrew and the rest were engaged in. There the fish are caught, gutted out, and eaten; baked, fried, broiled, dried, or turned into soup or stew. The fishermen of Galilee would catch them and take them to market and sell them. That was their living, what they did every day; a noble profession, to be sure. Then there’s “Jesus fishing”, the kind of fishing Jesus was doing, and the kind He would have us do. That’s where the fish (the people!) are captured alive - and captured to live!
Our Gospel begins, “One day as Jesus was standing by the Lake of Gennesaret, with the people crowding around Him and listening to the word of God.” Jesus, standing by a lake among all the fishermen and fishing boats, was doing fishing of His own. His “net”, what He used to draw people to Himself, was the Word of God. Never one to miss a poignant metaphor, Jesus saw two boats by the water’s edge and put them to use. The fisherman had been out all night, and now it was morning; time to clean the nets, stow the gear, and go home to get some sleep. Jesus’ “fishing sermon” was for the crowds gathered there, but it was also for the fishermen, Peter, Andrew, James, and John, who were listening to Jesus while going about their work.
Now, this wasn’t the first time these fisherman had met Jesus. In John’s Gospel, John the Baptist pointed at Jesus as He was walking by and said, “Look, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!” And two of the Baptist’s disciples, Andrew and John, turned to follow Jesus; and they stayed with Him that evening and listened to Him, and Andrew went and found his brother Simon Peter, and brought him to meet Jesus. But they didn’t stay with Him at that time; they got up in the morning and went back to doing what they did. Back to work, back to the fishing boats, back to making a living. Jesus is a patient fisherman, though, willing to call, and wait a bit, and call again, for as long as it takes to bring the fish aboard.
So Jesus showed up at the shore one morning, where His new friends were working, and took another step to integrate Himself into their lives. He got into one of the boats – Simon’s boat – and asked Him to put out a little bit from shore, and turned Peter’s fishing boat into a pulpit. A good arrangement; the people can’t crowd Him, and the water and the hills behind create a sort of natural amphitheater. So Jesus casts the Gospel net, His wonderful Word; and the people were listening, and the fisherman were listening as they went about their work.
When Jesus had finished His sermon, He proceeded to take Simon Peter and His friends to the next level, reeling them in a step at a time. He said to Simon, "Put out into deep water, and let down the nets for a catch." There’s a little thing going on with the Greek words in the text that isn’t quite as clear in English, that I’d like to show you. When Jesus tells Peter, “Let down the nets for a catch,” the Greek word for “catch” is agra. That’s the word for catching an actual scaly, swimming fish, the kind of fishing where you catch the fish and fry them up for dinner. Later on, when Jesus says, “From now on you will catch men,” the word there for “catch” is different; it’s zógreó, which is used in the New Testament to describe the act of capturing or taking something alive. It carries the idea of not just capturing something for destruction, but for the preservation and continuation of its life. Agra is just about catching fish; zogreo is about winning souls and capturing hearts and minds.
And there’s one more word switch in this Gospel that might help us understand what’s going on here. When Simon Peter calls Jesus “Master,” the word there in the Greek is epistata. That word means a supervisor, foreman, boss, or overseer. It’s a word that recognizes human authority or leadership. Peter is simply acknowledging Jesus as a person of authority. That’s a good start, but still sort of picking around the edges of the net, as far as where Jesus wants to take him. But that’s about to change. By the time the miracle happens that we’re about to hear about next, Peter will be calling Him Kyrie – Lord!
Simon says to Jesus, “Master – epistata - we've worked hard all night and haven't caught anything. But because You say so, I will let down the nets." In the eyes of these fishermen, an audacious and maybe a silly thing for Jesus to ask. They’re professional fisherman, after all, and they know how to go about their business. They’ve been out all night, and they’ve had a bad night, at that; in fact, they’ve gotten skunked. Now they’ve got their nets stretched out to clean them (maintenance is part of the job), and they’re tired and hungry and they want to go home. But Peter says, “Jesus, because You say so, I’ll let down the nets.” Peter, bit by bit, is being reeled in. He’s willing, at least, to step out of His comfort zone, at least for a little while, and to break the pattern of his ordinary and familiar life to see what Jesus might have in mind. Master, if you say so… Master, if you say so…
So they take out the boats, and they put out their nets – and the result is the catch of a lifetime, a bonanza, the best day on the water they’d ever had, and then some. One boat filled with fish and about to sink, then another boat filled and about to sink. Jesus the Fisherman, Lord of the fish, bringing them more fish than that lake could possibly hold, perhaps even creating more fish as He went along, literally drowning His new disciples in fish until He made His point and turned off the tap. All this to bring these new friends of His into His net.
Simon and his friends saw this – these improbable, impossible, incredible boatloads of fish - and that’s when Peter begins to change what his heart believes about Jesus, and where he graduates from simply calling Him Master, to confessing Him as Lord – Kyrie! Simon Peter has jumped into the net with both feet (or both fins!) What that involves, as it must, is Simon the fisherman recognizing his own sinfulness, and beginning to recognize – “Woe is me!” like prophet Isaiah - that he’s standing in the Presence of Heaven’s God. He’s afraid, and that’s not a bad thing; all of us should fear God in that way. We’re all called to bend our shaking knees before God and confess our sins - and then we find forgiveness at His feet. And then the Lord can lift us up again, and then He can use us.
Jesus says to Simon, “Don’t be afraid; from now on you will catch men.” You’ll catch them alive, and you’ll catch them to live; you’ll preach them the Word that can save them. “So they pulled their boats up on shore, left everything and followed Him.” No going back this time. Into the net, all the way, with Jesus forever, wherever He was taking them, and wherever they were going together. They were all in from that point on.
What would it look like for us, to be “all in for Jesus?” That’s what Jesus is looking for from us, you know. He wants all of us. Jesus went all in when it came to fishing for us, because He loves us more than we can know. To bring us into the net of God’s grace, He went way beyond filling a boat full of fish. He died for us, He hung on a cross for us, He gave all of Himself to us, and He was raised up on an Easter Sunday morning for us. And He says, “Come to Me – get in the net! - and I will give you life.” For many of us Christians – for most of us, I think - we’re content to hang around the periphery of the net. We like to listen to Jesus, we like to hear about Jesus - but we hesitate to jump in the net and give all of our lives to Him.
Being all in for Jesus, being “all His”, is so much more than Church on a Sunday morning. It’s letting Him have all the corners of your life (even the ones you’d rather not show Him). It’s taking Jesus with you when you leave this place - into the places you live, and the places you work, and the places you travel. What Jesus used to draw people into the net, He’s given to us as well. We have this precious Word of God that we can share. You’re casting a net for Jesus every time you put a good Word in someone’s ear. That’s what it means to “fish for men.”
This isn’t something we can confine to a Sunday morning, if we’re going to fulfill God’s purpose for us. Evangelism isn’t even meant to be a Sunday morning thing. Here in worship is where we gather to hear God’s Word and strengthen our souls and be fed. Here’s where we love and care for each other, and praise God for all the other fish that share this net with us. That’s a good and blessed thing, the best thing in the world, But evangelism – the work of “soul fishing” - that’s for the other six days of the week. Out there is a whole world full of people in need of grace that have yet to be fished for, and our hearts ought to be concerned for all of them as well. Do we even know who our neighbors are? I’ve asked before for all of you to come help me with the work of evangelism in this place, and now I’m you asking again. Pray about it. Talk to me, call me, send me an email; let’s get the good work started and see what the Lord will do.
God went fishing for good Prophet Isaiah, and the prophet answered, “Here I am, Lord! Send me!” Not “Oh, Lord, please send somebody else,” but “Lord, send me!” St. Paul says in 1 Corinthians 14, “Try to excel in gifts that build up the Church.” Jesus’ Gospel net brings in all kinds of fish. We’re all different, with different skills and talents; but all of us have gifts the Church can use and gifts the Church needs. We can continue to nibble and pick at the edges of the net, I guess, wasting our time while trying to make up our minds; or we can jump in with all we are and with everything we have. Those “gifts that build up the Church” are inside of us all, just waiting to be used. Come fish with me!
There’s a song I like by the Christian singer Matthew West, called “The Motions.” The chorus goes: “I don’t wanna go through the motions, I don’t wanna go one more day, without Your all-consuming passion inside of me. I don’t wanna spend my whole life asking, “What if I had given everything, instead of going through the motions?”
Let’s pray: Dear Father in Heaven, come fill us with Your holy fire. Lord, forgive us, for we hold back and we hesitate. We think somehow we can hold on to our old, comfortable, familiar way of doing things, while holding on to You as well; and our hearts are divided, You pulling us one way and the world pulling us another. Like Simon Peter and his fisherman friends on the shore, we like to listen, but we’re afraid to go all in. Lord Jesus, draw us not halfway, but all the way into Your Gospel net. Move us, Lord, to answer Your call and jump in, fins and gills and scales and all, with all our hearts and hands and feet. Lord, may our hearts burn with love for each other, and with love for the people in the world around us who have yet to know how much You love them. Lord, help us to be obedient to Your calling, that You may fill this boat of ours with miracles of grace. In Jesus’ name; Amen.