Third Pass at This Weekend's Bible Lesson: Luke 5:1-11

[For an explanation of what this is all about and to see the first pass at this weekend's lesson, go here. To see the second pass, go here.]

[Verse-by-Verse Comments continued]
8But when Simon Peter saw it, he fell down at Jesus’ knees, saying, “Go away from me, Lord, for I am a sinful man!” 9For he and all who were with him were amazed at the catch of fish that they had taken; 10and so also were James and John, sons of Zebedee, who were partners with Simon. Then Jesus said to Simon, “Do not be afraid; from now on you will be catching people.” 11When they had brought their boats to shore, they left everything and followed him.
(1) When Simon Peter sees the miraculous catch, an event this experienced fisherman knows to be "impossible," he falls to His knees. In the face of the evidence that in Jesus' presence, he's in the presence of God, Peter spontaneously renders worship.

(2) But something else happens in this moment. It's what theologians would call numinous awe. Peter recognizes that Jesus is perfectly holy. Peter stands before the righteous God Who knows the hearts and thoughts of humanity. He knows that the blazing light of Jesus' perfection sees his imperfections and sins. He feels unworthy to be in Jesus' presence. And so, Peter asks Jesus to go away.

The Bible often speaks of those with faith living in fear of God. Psalm 111:10 says, "The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom; all those who practice it have a good understanding." What does this mean?

To me, it means recognizing, as Peter did, that God is, in Lutheran theologian Paul Tillich's phrase, wholly other. God is my creator. God is infinitely greater in love, righteousness, morality. The closer we come to God, the more conscious we are of our imperfections and our need of forgiveness. Thankfully, that same closeness also allows us to see that the God Who died to set us free from sin and death is willing to forgive those who turn from sin and believe in Him.

When Peter saw Jesus in His glory, he saw himself in his sinfulness. Fear drove Peter to his knees and to beg Jesus to go away. Because He is gracious, Jesus wouldn't comply with that request.

(3) Notice that Jesus doesn't tell Peter to get up off his knees. Jesus accepts Peter's act of worship. If Jesus didn't regard Himself as God, allowing Peter to worship Him would have made both Jesus and Peter guilty of blasphemy. The charge that Jesus was guilty of blasphemy was one lodged by the Jewish religious authorities when they called for His crucifixion.

If you're skeptical about whether Jesus was accepting worship here, recall an incident in the second Biblical book written by Luke. Acts is the story of the early Church for about the first thirty years after Jesus' post-resurrection ascension into heaven. In Acts 14, we're told that in the city of Lystra, Paul and Barnabas, two early Christian preachers, brought healing to a man crippled since birth. The crowds were so impressed that they began saying that "The gods have come down to us in human form!" The two would have none of it though. Luke writes:

When the apostles Barnabas and Paul heard of it, they tore their clothes and rushed out into the crowd, shouting, “Friends, why are you doing this? We are mortals just like you, and we bring you good news, that you should turn from these worthless things to the living God, who made the heaven and the earth and the sea and all that is in them. In past generations he allowed all the nations to follow their own ways; yet he has not left himself without a witness in doing good—giving you rains from heaven and fruitful seasons, and filling you with food and your hearts with joy.” Even with these words, they scarcely restrained the crowds from offering sacrifice to them. (Acts 14:14-18)

Gestures and words of worship had unambiguous meanings in ancient times. Jesus accepted worship because He was (and is) God. Paul and Barnabas didn't accept worship because they were human beings just like us.

(4) It's interesting that Peter is the only disciple specifically addressed by Jesus in v.10. He's addressed with the singular "you" by Jesus.

(5) According to The New Interpreter's Bible (NIB):

In the O[ld] T[estament] and Dead Sea Scrolls fishing is used metaphorically for gathering people for judgment...[Amos 4:2; Habakkuk 1:14-15; Jeremiah 16:16]

Judgment does befall those who refuse to repent and believe, as John the Baptizer foretold.

But in the multiple cultures in which the conquered people of Judea lived, the first followers of Jesus would have been aware of another level of meaning in Jesus' words about being fishers of people. NIB points out that in the Greek-Roman overculture, prevalent throughout the Mediterranean basin, fishing, attracting adherents was "the activity of philosopher-teachers." In the Gospels, the call to fish is "a call to gather men and women for the kingdom." We see then that fishing is also an activity of God's grace.

(6) My professor and mentor Bruce Schein, a fine Biblical scholar with a doctorate from Yale, saw Old Testament imagery here. He pointed to the first creation account in Genesis 1. It begins before the beginning that God makes, with primordial chaos. In the Greek version of the Old Testament, the Septuagint, with which people of Jesus' first-century generation would have been familiar, the word for deep is bathos, a term denoting a roiling, dark, death-infested storm. Chaos.

Throughout the Bible, one finds evidence of the view of the sea held by most of the ancient Hebrews. To them, it was a fearsome place of danger and death, filled with great monsters called leviathan. One of the ironies of the Old Testament book of Jonah, which tells the story of a prophet who tried to escape the call of God, is that God saved him by having him swallowed by a ghastly sea creature, a "great fish."

Peter and the other fishermen probably used trammel nets to scoop large numbers of fish from the Sea of Galilee. When Jesus tells Peter that he will be a fisher of people, Jesus has in mind a rescue mission. Peter and all Christians have the same call, to venture into the chaos of the world and gently scoop people into God's net of first, judgment, the very kind of awareness of God's holiness that Peter experiences in this lesson, and then, of grace, which Peter also experiences.

(7) Notice what Jesus tells Simon, "From now on you will be catching people.” This is different from the phrasing found in Matthew 4:19. There, Jesus is quoted as saying, "Follow me and I will make you fish for people."

Which is more accurate? Who knows and who cares? But in Luke's version, Jesus gives a command. As Rick Warren points out, Jesus gives the Great Commission, the commandment to make disciples five different places in the New Testament. Christians are commanded to reach out and call others to faith in Jesus Christ. Luke's version of Jesus' words to the disciples about being fishers of people makes sense to me.

(8) The call to follow Jesus is a call to action. We're to enact a life of actively seeking others to experience a relationship with Christ. We're to venture into the deep and fish for people.