Before Fishing For Jesus, We Will Be Afraid? Very Afraid?

    This is how I know Luke 5:11.  It was a song I was raised on.  It has hand motions that I was never quite able to master, but I tried.  "I will make you fishers of men."  

    This verse, as translated in the NRSV (our pew bibles), is Jesus' mission challenge to his first disciples, "From now on, you will be catching people."  

    For me, the power of this passage is not in this mission challenge.  Yes, it is powerful, Jesus is telling them they are going out to be 'mini-me's' of Jesus.  And they will.  It is a blessing that rolls forward through history, down to us.  

    But...how?  These are fishermen, not evangelists.  What inspired them to follow Jesus?  The song, and what I have quoted, is only half the mission for the disciples.  Peter, James and John have two parts to their mission challenges.  First, "DO NOT BE AFRAID", and secondly "from now on, you will be fishing/catching..."

    To be "Not Afraid" means that first we must be afraid.  But not "ghost clowns with pointy sticks in an abandoned haunted insane asylum" afraid.  I mean in an "inbreaking into our lives and defying how we thought things ought to be" kind of afraid.  Not a fear of something killing us.  But a fear of something that can let us know once and for all that WE are not in control.

    Back to the gospel account.  Its the middle of the day.  Nobody in their right mind fishes in the middle of the day.  Not only that, its the middle of the day following a night of failure.  No fish, none on the overnight shift.  They are not there.  They are somewhere else.  Its a big lake.  The men are tired and hungry.  Check out yesterday about Peter backtalking Jesus.  Maybe worst of all, they have been captive audience to the pastor's sermon.  Lord have mercy!!  (Can I get an LOL?)

    Their experience to the moment they let down the nets at Jesus' command was "It is not going to work."  It was impossible.  Except it wasn't.  Because, Jesus, and not Loving Jesus but Scary Jesus.

    Ever thought about this?  Nobody new ever comes to church.  What if ten newbees were in the pews on Sunday?  Faces we have never seen or maybe faces we thought we'd never see again?  Mind blowing.  Scary even, how did that happen?  Hasn't been like that since...ever?

    Maybe that's what we are missing.  When was the last time we were truly fearful of Jesus' awesomeness?  That our consideration of the miraculous was not simply some abstract thought process of 'what could be'?  Rather, a moment where the stuff got real?  Nothing so dull as 'seeing is believing' but 'shaken to my socks believing'?  

    Maybe before we can 'be still and know that our God is God', we need the moment of absolute, explosive clarity that yah, God's got the power.

Peace,

Pastor Peter