In Jesus Holy Name February 6, 2022
Luke 5:1-11 Redeemer
“Fishermen: Jesus Gives Them a Do Over”
Do over days. Have you ever had one? You would be a most unusual person if you didn't have a few do over days in your history. Think back. Come on. Be honest. I'm talking about those days when things did not go as you had planned.
How about things you never should have said. That's a do over. But so are some of the things you should have said and didn't.
Here's an unusual ultimate do over. A man was listening to his city's road report when he heard about a car that was going the wrong direction on the freeway. Knowing his wife was on that freeway, the man became concerned and called her on her cell phone. She answered and he said, "Dear, be careful there's one car going in the wrong direction on the freeway." She exclaimed, "One car! There's hundreds of them!" All of us have things we wish we could do over. (From a sermon by Rev. Ken Klaus)
In our bible story today Jesus is going to ask Peter and his fellow business partners in the fishing business to have a “Do Over.”
After Jesus was baptized, He was on a constant road trip. He was moving all through Galilee. Jesus had moved from His hometown of Nazareth to the city to Capernaum. Capernaum was a fishing center on the shores of Lake Galilee. It was also a tax collection station containing a Roman garrison of one hundred soldiers. The population was estimated to be between 600 and 1500 people.
Before Jesus picked His disciples “He went up on a mountain to pray.” The ones He chose were known as “The Twelve”. Why “twelve”? Why not 15 or 20? Jesus was symbolically reconstituting the kingdom of Israel. Jesus was the “new Israel”. As the Gospel of John would later point out… Jesus was the “replacement” for all things Jewish. The “Law”. “The Sacrificial Lamb.” “The Temple.” Jesus was establishing the new Israel, restoring the people of God. It surprised many for it included “Jews and Gentiles.” (from “Jesus A Theography” L Sweet p.132)
In my online bible study this past week I gave you various bible verses to help you understand the background of all of the 12 disciples. These were ordinary men with no special training in the scriptures. They were blue collar, hard working men. None were priests, rabbis, or scholars, yet they would become the foundation stones for the “new Israel”. They were all observant Jews but had opposite views on how salvation would be restored to Israel. Tax collectors worked hand in glove with Romans. Zealots wanted Romans killed. It was in interesting mix of men.
I find it fascinating to consider the men Jesus chose as his first disciples. It’s clear that he didn’t go to an executive search firm or visit the placement office at the local college. He started by calling men with dirt under their fingernails, blue-collar types, men without a higher education, men who knew about hard work and the value of perseverance. Fishermen. Jesus chose fishermen as his first followers.
Our Gospel lesson is the story of how Christ called Peter to be His disciple. These fishermen knew Jesus. When Jesus asks Peter if he can use his boat, Peter immediately agrees. He knows Jesus and admires him greatly. They had heard Him speak in their local synagogue. Jesus had healed Peter’s mother – in- law. Peter and his fellow fishermen had been fishing all night and were now on the shore cleaning and repairing their nets.
The preaching and teaching of Jesus had attracted great crowds, and on this particular day, by the Sea of Galilee, those crowds had become so large, and so eager to be close to Him, they actually pressed Him near to the water's edge. Deciding to use the gentle slope of the hillside as a natural amphitheater, Jesus got into the boat, and asked the owner to push out a bit.
In the beginning of the story Peter had been fishing for fish; by the end of the story he is fishing for men. I wonder why he started with fishermen? I think I know the answer. Fishermen understand this story very well. To be a fisherman you need patience above everything else. Sometimes wives will ask their husbands, “How can you stand there by the bank or in the boat or in the water for hours on end, waiting for a fish to bite?” The answer is, “It’s easy.” That’s what fishing is all about. And if you can’t handle getting “skunked” occasionally, then you probably would be better off not fishing at all. (ibid Klaus)
It all begins with a frustrated fisherman cleaning his nets after a long, hard night. Fishing is hard work. It’s one thing to fish on the weekends. It’s something else to fish every day for a living. Peter, Andrew, James and John fished on the Sea of Galilee year round. They either sold their fish locally or the fish were salt-cured and sold as far away as Spain. You wouldn’t get rich that way, but a hardworking man could take care of his family.
Nothing in this story happens by chance. Peter was the fishing pro. Peter probably had been raised on the Sea of Galilee. He knew those waters as well as any man. He knew fish. He knew their habits, their feeding places and where they could be caught. Peter knew that you don't catch fish out in the middle of the lake. Your best chances of bringing in a haul are going to be found near shore.
Jesus said to Simon, “Put out into deep water, and let down the nets for a catch.” Experts don't generally like to take advice from carpenters, do they? But because Simon knew Jesus he answered, “Master, we’ve worked hard all night and haven’t caught anything. But because you say so, I will let down the nets” (Luke 5:4-5).
The words of Jesus contain both a command and a promise. It’s not as if Jesus is saying, “Let’s go out into the deep water, put down the nets, and we’ll see what happens.” Jesus is promising that if Peter will obey, he will catch fish. I’m sure that after a long night of fruitless fishing, this must have been hard to believe.
I love the way Peter puts it, “Because you say so.” So many fish came into the nets that they begin to break. The men end up filling both boats with so many fish that they began to sink. Think about that. Two overloaded boats with fish flopping everywhere slowly coming to shore. This is the biggest catch ever—and it happened in the middle of the day.
Please note that the fish were there all along. It’s not as if Jesus created the fish on the spur of the moment. Those fish were in the water the night before; Peter just couldn’t find them. But when Jesus is in the boat, everything changes.
Now Jesus is going to give Peter a new occupation. Before this day he had fished for fish. Jesus knows that in the future He will ask Peter to will fish for men. When we respond to Christ’s call, He changes us and then He changes our personal agenda. If we decide to take Christ seriously, we may end up doing something we never thought possible.
Accessing his life, Peter might well have felt small as he recalled his threefold denial of his Savior in the high priest's courtyard; his oath in which he swore he didn't know Jesus. Do overs. All of us have them. Fishermen, disciples, apostles, you and me. At the end of the Gospel of John, Jesus as a conversation with Peter. Three times Jesus gave Peter his new assignment. “Feed my sheep.” “Feed my lambs.” Jesus was saying: “Peter, it’s OK. You have a “do over” for me.
Jesus makes people different. To make people different is why Jesus was born into this world. Jesus came and lived a perfect life so that sinners like you and I, people who could never keep God's commandments, might have a Divine heaven-sent Substitute. He lived so our lives might be different, not filled with do overs that give Him glory. Jesus resisted all the temptations that trip us up, so that God might declare us holy. Jesus carried every broken commandment we have committed, every wrong we have done, every ungodly do over and took them to the cross.
For three years these disciples learned to live with “God in human form.” The Jesus they saw with their eyes, touched with their hands, and heard with their ears would on day take up residence inside of them, just as the Spirit lived in Jesus from His conception, His Spirit would dwell within them after the day of Pentecost.
(L. Sweet “A Theography”)
How is your list of do overs?” The color that looked so fashionable and fantastic in the paint store doesn't look so hot in the hallway. That kind of do over is no big deal. When you're stuck in traffic you might wish you could go back and take an alternate route. That's the kind of do over you have to live with. But there are other do overs that are serious, and have lasting, even eternal consequences.
You don't want, when your time on earth is ended and you find yourself standing before God's judgment seat to reluctantly saying, “God, can I have a do over.” It's not going to happen. Judgment Day is too late for a do over.
During the month of January Ron Reagan’s non profit organization: “Freedom from Religion” ran the following commercial on “60 Minutes”
“Hi, I’m Ron Reagan, an unabashed atheist. And I’m alarmed by the intrusions of religion into our secular government,” he says, as the organization’s phone number and website appear below his chin. “That’s why I’m asking you to support the Freedom From Religion Foundation, the nation’s largest and most effective association of atheists and agnostics working to keep state and church separate, just like our Founding Fathers intended.” (Which of course is a debatable issue.)
Reagan concludes by asking viewers once again to support the FFRF. Signed, “Ron Reagan, lifelong atheist not afraid of burning in hell.” The point he was making was that he did not believe in the Bible and that Christianity should not have influence in governmental affairs.
Well, when the end of his life arrives, and it will. He will not be given a “do over.”
Every day in the Jewish temple there were two sacrifices of a lamb. When the blood of the Lamb was sacrificed in the Old Testament God promised that heaven would be open and sins forgiven. It was a constant “do over”. The book of Hebrews reminds us that Jesus was the “perfect high priest, who is holy and blameless….He does not need to offer sacrifices day after day for the sins of the people. He offered Himself as the perfect sacrifice” on the cross once. (Heb. 7:26)
Ron Reagan, like may others has rejected by his own volition the words of God. “Just as man is destined to die once and after that face judgment so Jesus Christ was sacrificed once to take away the sins of many people and He will appear a second time not to bear sin, but to bring salvation to those who are waiting for His return.” (Hebrews 9:27ff)
Jesus is the “replacement” for the “temple”. Jesus is the “replacement for our failed “do overs.” His forgiveness is now offered in the “bread and wine” of the sacrament.
Conclusion
