LUKE 5:1–11
There is a look that says, “It’s too late.” You’ve seen it. The rolling of the eyes, the shaking of the head, the pursing of the lips.
Your friend is a day from divorce. Over coffee you urge, “Can’t you try one more time?”
She shrugs. “Done that.”
Your father and brother don’t speak to one another. Haven’t for years. “Won’t you try again?” you ask your dad. He looks away, inhales deeply, and sighs.
Five years this side of retirement the economy Hindenburgs your husband’s retirement. You try to make the best of it. “You can go back to school. Learn a new trade.” You might as well have told him to swim to London. He shakes his head. “I’m too old . . . It’s too late.”
Too late to save a marriage.
Too late for a new career.
Too late to catch any fish. Or so Peter thinks. All night he fished. He witnessed both the setting and the rising of the sun but has nothing to show for it. While other fishermen cleaned their catch, he just cleaned his nets. But now Jesus wants him to try again.
“Now it happened that while the crowd was pressing around Him and listening to the word of God, [Jesus] was standing by the lake of Gennesaret” (Luke 5:1).
The Sea of Gennesaret, or Galilee, is a six-by-thirteen-mile body of water in northern Israel. These days her shore sleeps, attracting only a cluster of tour buses and a handful of fishermen. But in the days of Jesus the area bustled with people. Nine of the seacoast villages boasted populations of fifteen thousand plus. And you get the impression that a good portion of those people was present the morning Christ ministered on the beach. As more people arrived, more people pressed. With every press, Jesus took a step back. Soon he was stepping off the sand and into the water. That’s when he had an idea.
He saw two boats lying at the edge of the lake; but the fishermen had gotten out of them and were washing their nets. 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 people from the boat. When He had finished speaking, He said to Simon, “Put out into the deep water and let down your nets for a catch.” (vv. 2–4)
Jesus needs a boat; Peter provides one. Jesus preaches; Peter is content to listen. Jesus suggests a midmorning fishing trip, however, and Peter gives him a look. The it’s-too-late look. He runs his fingers through his hair and sighs, “Master, we worked hard all night and caught nothing” (v. 5). Can you feel Peter’s futility?
All night the boat floated fishless on the black sheet of the sea. Lanterns of distant vessels bounced like fireflies. The men swung their nets and filled the air with the percussion of their trade.
Swish, slap . . . silence.
Swish, slap . . . silence.
Midnight.
Excited voices from across the lake reached the men. Another boat had found a school. Peter considered moving but decided against it.
Swish, slap . . . silence.
Two o’clock in the morning. Peter rested while his brother fished. Then Andrew rested. James, floating nearby, suggested a move. The others agreed. Wind billowed the sails and blew the boats to a cove. The rhythm resumed.
Swish, slap . . . silence.
Every yank of the net was easy. Too easy. This night the lake was a proper lady. No matter how often the men winked and whistled, she offered nothing.
Golden shafts eventually reclaimed the sky. Most mornings the sunrise inspired the men. Today it only tired them. They didn’t want to see it. Who wants to dock an empty boat? Who wants to tie up and clean up, knowing the first question the wife is going to ask? And, most of all, who wants to hear a well-rested carpenter-turned-rabbi say, “Put out into the deep water and let down your nets for a catch” (v. 4)?
Oh, the thoughts Peter might have had. I’m tired. Bone tired. I want a meal and a bed, not a fishing trip. Am I his tour guide? Besides, half of Galilee is watching. I feel like a loser already. Now he wants to put on a midmorning fishing exhibition? You can’t catch fish in the morning. Count me out.
Whatever thoughts Peter had were distilled to one phrase: “We worked hard all night and caught nothing” (v. 5).
Do you have any worn, wet, empty nets? Do you know the feeling of a sleepless, fishless night? Of course you do. For what have you been casting?
Sobriety? “I’ve worked so hard to stay sober, but . . .”
Solvency? “My debt is an anvil around my neck . . .”
Faith? “I want to believe, but . . .”
Healing? “I’ve been sick so long . . .”
A happy marriage? “No matter what I do . . .”
I’ve worked hard all night and caught nothing.
You’ve felt what Peter felt. You’ve sat where Peter sat. And now Jesus is asking you to go fishing. He knows your nets are empty. He knows your heart is weary. He knows you’d like nothing more than to turn your back on the mess and call it a life.
But he urges, “It’s not too late to try again.”
See if Peter’s reply won’t help you formulate your own. “I will do as You say and let down the nets” (v. 5).
Not much passion in those words. You might hope for a tenthousand-candle smile and a fist pumping the air. “I got Jesus in my boat. Momma, warm up the oven!” But Peter shows no excitement. He feels none. Now he has to unfold the nets, pull out the oars, and convince James and John to postpone their rest. He has to work. If faith is measured in seeds, his is an angstrom. Inspired? No. But obedient? Admirably. And an angstrom of obedience is all Jesus wants.
“Put out into the deep water,” the God-man instructs.
Why the deep water? You suppose Jesus knew something Peter didn’t?
You suppose Jesus is doing with Peter what we parents do with our kids on Easter Sunday? They find most of the eggs on their own. But a couple of treasures inevitably survive the first harvest. “Look,” I’d whisper in the ears of my daughters, “behind the tree.” A quick search around the trunk, and, what do you know, Dad was right. Spotting treasures is easy for the one who hid them. Finding fish is simple for the God who made them. To Jesus, the Sea of Galilee is a dollar-store fishbowl on a kitchen cabinet.
Peter gives the net a swish, lets it slap, and watches it disappear. Luke doesn’t tell us what Peter did while he was waiting for the net to sink, so I will. (I’m glancing heavenward for lightning.)
I like to think that Peter, while holding the net, looks over his shoulder at Jesus. And I like to think that Jesus, knowing Peter is about to be half yanked into the water, starts to smile. A daddy-daughter-Easter-egg smile. Rising cheeks render his eyes half-moons. A dash of white flashes beneath his whiskers. Jesus tries to hold it back but can’t.
There is so much to smile about. It’s Easter Sunday, and the lawn is crawling with kids. Just wait till they look under the tree.
When they had done this, they enclosed a great quantity of fish, and their nets began to break; 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. (vv. 6–7)
Peter’s arm is yanked into the water. It’s all he can do to hang on until the other guys can help. Within moments the four fishermen and the carpenter are up to their knees in flopping silver.
Peter lifts his eyes off the catch and onto the face of Christ. In that moment, for the first time, he sees Jesus. Not Jesus the Fish Finder. Not Jesus the Multitude Magnet. Not Jesus the Rabbi. Peter sees Jesus the Lord.
Peter falls face-first among the fish. Their stink doesn’t bother him. It is his stink that he’s worried about. “Go away from me Lord, for I am a sinful man!” (v. 8).
Christ had no intention of honoring that request. He doesn’t abandon self-confessed schlemiels. Quite the contrary, he enlists them. “Do not fear, from now on you will be catching men” (v. 10).
Contrary to what you may have been told, Jesus doesn’t limit his recruiting to the stout-hearted. The beat up and worn out are prime prospects in his book, and he’s been known to climb into boats, bars, and brothels to tell them, “It’s not too late to start over.”
Peter learned the lesson. But wouldn’t you know it? Peter forgot the lesson. Two short years later this man who confessed Christ in the boat cursed Christ at a fire. The night before Jesus’ crucifixion, Peter told people that he’d never heard of Jesus.
He couldn’t have made a more tragic mistake. He knew it. The burly fisherman buried his bearded face in thick hands and spent Friday night in tears. All the feelings of that Galilean morning came back to him.
It’s too late.
But then Sunday came. Jesus came! Peter saw him. Peter was convinced that Christ had come back from the dead. But apparently Peter wasn’t convinced that Christ came back for him.
So he went back to the boat—to the same boat, the same beach, the same sea. He came out of retirement. He and his buddies washed the barnacles off the hull, unpacked the nets, and pushed out. They fished all night, and, honest to Pete, they caught nothing.
Poor Peter. Blew it as a disciple. Now he’s blowing it as a fisherman. About the time he wonders if it’s too late to take up carpentry, the sky turns orange, and they hear a voice from the coastline. “Had any luck?”
They yell back, “No.”
“Try the right side of the boat!”
With nothing to lose and no more pride to protect, they give it a go. “So they cast, and then they were not able to haul it in because of the great number of fish” (John 21:6). It takes a moment for the déjà vu to hit Peter. But when it does, he cannonballs into the water and swims as fast as he can to see the one who loved him enough to re-create a miracle. This time the message stuck.
Peter never again fished for fish. He spent the rest of his days telling anyone who would listen, “It’s not too late to try again.”
Is it too late for you? Before you say yes, before you fold up the nets and head for the house—two questions. Have you given Christ your boat? Your heartache? Your dead-end dilemma? Your struggle? Have you really turned it over to him? And have you gone deep? Have you bypassed the surface-water solutions you can see in search of the deep-channel provisions God can give? Try the other side of the boat. Go deeper than you’ve gone. You may find what Peter found. The payload of his second effort was not the fish he caught but the God he saw.
The God-man who spots weary fishermen, who cares enough to enter their boats, who will turn his back on the adoration of a crowd to solve the frustration of a friend. The next door Savior who whispers this word to the owners of empty nets, “Let’s try again—this time with me on board.”