Is Jesus In Your Heart?

Is Jesus in Your Heart?

Luke 5:1-11

Rabbi Rev. Dr. Michael H. Koplitz

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; 2 and He saw two boats lying at the edge of the lake; but the fishermen had gotten 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 1people from the boat. 4 When He had finished speaking, He said to Simon, “Put out into the deep water and let down your nets for a catch.” 5 Simon answered and said, “Master, we worked hard all night and caught nothing, but I will do as You say and let down the nets.” 6 When they had done this, they enclosed a great quantity of fish, and their nets began to break; 7 so they signaled 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 began to sink. 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!” 9 For amazement had seized him and all his companions because of the catch of fish which they had taken; 10 and so also were James and John, sons of Zebedee, who were partners with Simon. And Jesus said to Simon, “Do not fear, from now on you will be catching men.” 11 When they had brought their boats to land, they left everything and followed Him.

Unfortunately, if you were baptized as an infant, you lost the opportunity to feel Jesus come into your heart through the sacrament of baptism. However, if you went through the sacrament of confirmation in the church, then you got to declare to the church into the world your love for Jesus. If you haven’t been baptized or confirmed, you can always do this in the church if you love Jesus.

Thinking about this narrative in Luke’s gospel, chapter 5 verses 1 to 11, we see Jesus called his first three disciples to come follow him. There’s a lot of dialogue that’s missing from the narrative and it’s the author’s intention to allow that dialogue to be missing. In doing this, he allows Jesus to come into your life in several ways. The miracle Jesus performed amazed Simon, James, and John. They caught so many fish that their nets almost tore. Earlier that evening, they couldn't catch anything at all.

Fishers would engage in fishing during the very early mornings, usually before dawn. After that, it was very difficult to catch any fish in the sea of Galilee. In the narrative, morning came, and the men caught nothing. Jesus walked up to the shoreline, stepped into the boat and taught not only the men that were on the boat but also the people that followed him and that were at the shoreline. There are several examples of where Jesus liked to preach from a boat just off the sea.

After he finished teaching, he instructed Simon to take the boat out to the usual fishing areas and told him to cast out his nets. Simon said to Jesus, but we’ve already tried fishing in this area and there’s nothing here to be caught. Jesus told him to do it, anyway. And when they brought the nets in, they caught a tremendous number of fish. This was the miracle, or perhaps you want to call it a sign that Peter James and John needed to experience for them to come to understand who Jesus was. It’s going to take a little while in the gospel of Luke for them to fully understand that Jesus was the divine Messiah sent by God.

Jesus was to give the three men a new vocation, and that was to become fishers of men. The Dead Sea Scrolls actually contain information about the metaphor of being a fisher of people. The Dead Sea Scrolls were of the Bible and commentary that was created by a group called the Essenes back in Jesus' day. The scrolls were discovered in 1948 and are now available in just about every language on the planet. In the Dead Sea Scrolls, it says that fishing for people was a metaphor that was used to gather people for judgment in the Hebrew Scripture and this idea of gathering people for judgment fits into John the Baptist’s mission. The idea was to collect people and give them the opportunity to ask for forgiveness for their sins before it was too late. If one dies before repenting for one’s sins, the chances are the final judgment from God will not be in their favor.