Luke 5
The King of Heaven, Creator of Space and Time, entered our broken, beautiful, calamitous planet as a baby borne to an extraordinary teenage girl and her remarkable husband, in the most unpretentious way. No one expected Him to be born in a stable. No one expected Him at 12 to stay behind in Jerusalem listening and asking Isreal’s teachers questions. No one expected Him to get up in His home Synagogue and read about the Messiah from Isaiah and then tell them that He was HIM. No one expected Him to cast out demons. Well, the demons probably did. They knew exactly who Jesus was and what to expect. No one expected Him to heal Simon Peter’s mother-in-law. No one expected Him to climb in his fishing boat to teach. And Simon Peter did not expect Jesus to tell him to keep fishing after he had spent all night failing at his job.
Jesus doesn’t do things like we think He should.
Simon was clocking out. Done with his shift. He was a fisherman who had caught zero fish. All night. Have you ever given your best effort and come up empty? Have you ever failed? Do you remember how you felt when you just wanted to get done and go home? That’s how Simon Peter felt that morning when Jesus asked him help. Tired. Disappointed. Done. But he did what Jesus asked. Because he had seen Jesus do something unexpected. Then, after teaching about the kingdom, Jesus teaches the fishermen how to fish. Jesus wasn’t a fisherman. He was a carpenter and a Rabbi. That’s what people expected. Build things and teach. But they had no idea who Jesus was.
Against all his experience, Simon obeys, and hauls in more fish than he can handle. Jesus brings him unparalleled success. And then Jesus tells him something we now take as normal but most likely made no sense to Peter, “Do not fear, from now on you will be catching men.” Their response: Leave everything and follow Jesus.
What kind of people did they catch? A leper, a paralyzed man, a tax collector and a bunch of sinners. Not kings or princes, not the powerful or the rich or the mighty, but the broken, the captives, the blind and the castaways, the poor and the annoying and the burdens of society. Would Jesus only catch those folks? Of course not. But He went to them first. So wonderfully unexpected.
How did Jesus prepare for this work? Did He make a big show of His quiet time and post it on social media like I have in the past? But Jesus Himself would often slip away to the wilderness and pray. That word for slip away is in a verb tense that means a habitual pattern of life and the word is used militarily to fall back or retreat before an enemy to better plan an attack. It’s a compound word “by or under” with “to leave space which may be filled or occupied by another”. So, Jesus would regularly slip away from people, get all by Himself, and make space, to yield to receive from His Father.
What kind of people does Jesus want us to catch? Conservatives or liberals? Rich or poor? People who fly the American flag on their house or people who burn the flag? Gay or straight? Which zip code should they live in? How should they smell? What language should they speak? How should they dress? Who does Jesus fish for? Those who are sick. Jesus tells us to throw our nets overboard and haul in the poor and the sick and the broken and the marginalized and the proud and the oppressed and the confused and the lost and the rich and the competent and the crazy and the mean. He calls us to the blue haired woman screaming on Instagram and the red MAGA hat wearing man screaming on X. He calls us to people.
How does Jesus want us to do it? By making time for solitude and silence and surrender. By slipping away to the wilderness, to the deserted places, and empty out the noise and the busy and the constant clatter and leave space in our lives for God to speak in a still, small voice. Jesus does that in 5:16. The very next verse Luke writes that, “the power of the Lord was present for Him for perform healing.” I think there’s a connection.
When was the last time you took an hour, 2 hours, 4 hours, 12 hours, to simply be still and quiet and to create space where God could fill the silence and prepare you to cast your net into the deep water where the broken people are? Would you let me encourage you to take a moment and just ask the Lord to show you when and how you could do that? I know it seems impossible. You’re too busy. But our Lord Jesus is able. He calls us when we are tired, when we have failed, while we are broken, when we are sick, and He calls us not to perfection but to Himself. He calls us to follow Him. To do as He did. To slip away. To cast our nets. To work with Him to draw people out of the depths of their lostness and into a new life. It starts with a quiet obedience to an unexpected request. It starts with saying yes to Jesus. It starts with making space for silence.
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