Grace to you and peace from God the Father and our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.
Jesus gets into Simon’s boat and asked him to put out a little from the land so that He could preach to the multitude. Simon had known Jesus and followed Him as a disciple for some time by this time. Jesus called Peter in the first year of His public ministry, after His baptism in Jordan River. Simon’s brother, Andrew, told him, “We have found the Messiah” (Jn 1:41) and brings Simon to Jesus. Since then Simon had been learning from Jesus about the kingdom of God, just as he was doing in the boat while Jesus preached the word of God the multitude in Luke 5, which probably happened in the second year of Jesus’ public ministry. Jesus finishes His sermon and tells Peter, “Launch out into the deep and let down your nets for a catch.” Peter responds respectfully to his teacher, “Master, we have toiled all night and caught nothing.” Night seems to have been the best time to catch fish, but not every shift goes well. Peter and his associates had toiled all night and had nothing to show for it. But Peter does what his master tells him to do. “Nevertheless, at Your word I will let down the net.” The result of this daytime excursion into the deep? “When they had done this, they caught a great number of fish, and their net was breaking. So they signaled to their partners in the other boat to come and help them. And they came and filled both the boats, so that they began to sink.”
Before we even get to Peter’s confession and calling we should notice how Jesus blesses these men’s work. They had worked hard all night. They had nothing to show for it. They were tired, maybe even a bit discouraged after a fruitless night’s work. And what does Jesus tell them to do? Do it again. Let down your nets for a catch. Peter and company do what He says for no other reason than that Jesus had told them to do it. They had all sorts of reasons for not letting down their nets in the heat of the day in the deep part of the lake. But they had one reason to let down their nets: Jesus’ word. And Jesus blesses their work. He who on the fifth day of the world said, “Let the waters abound with an abundance of living creatures” (Gen 1:20) brings those living creatures into Peter’s nets. Jesus brought so many fish into their nets that they filled two boats to the point where both boats began to sink. This should be encouraging to all of us who work, labor, and toil, whether for an ourselves or an employer. More than that, it should be encouraging to everyone to whom God has given any vocation and responsibility; husband, wife, mother, father, grandmother, grandfather, volunteer, student, teacher, pastor, and so on. How often do we toil in our vocations and come up empty, like we’re getting nowhere? When those times come upon us—and they come upon everyone at one point or another—we ought to recall this episode of Jesus’ ministry. He calls us into our vocations, so that whatever we do, we can do it heartily, as to the Lord and not to men (Col 3:23). Since all our work is given to us by God, we can say, like Peter, “Nevertheless—that is, in spite of how I feel and am what I’m experiencing—at Your word I will let down the net,” knowing that knowing that our labor is not in vain in the Lord” (1 Cor 15:58).
But the text doesn’t stop there. Simon Peter sees all this happening, the boats sinking from the weight of the miraculous catch of fish that Jesus has brought into their nets. The man he knew previously as Teacher, and Master, he now recognizes as much more. That realization brings him to fall down at Jesus’ knees in his boat, saying, “Depart from me, for I am a sinful man, O Lord!” Jesus is no longer “master.” He is Lord, Kurios. And having the Lord Himself sitting in his boat, and seeing His almighty power displayed, he cannot but see himself for what he is, a sinful man. Peter felt His sinfulness acutely. He doesn’t confess specific sins, thoughts, words, or deeds that make him a sinner. He confesses himself a sinful man, and that identity is the rootstock from which all his actual sins of thought, word and deed come. But Jesus does not depart from Peter. He deals with Peter’s sinfulness. He doesn’t pronounce, “Your sins are forgiven” as He had to others who came to Him, but that is what He effectively does when He says to Simon, “Do not be afraid.” Don’t be afraid of your sinfulness. Don’t be afraid of God’s wrath which you’ve brought upon yourself. Instead, rejoice, for will not depart from you. And what’s more, “From now on you will catch men.” Jesus calms Simon’s evil conscience and gives him a new identity.
The new identity is a fisherman of men. The very gospel that Jesus has used to catch Peter, Peter will one day use to catch others and bring them into God’s kingdom. After Jesus’ ascension, this is precisely what we see Peter doing. On the Pentecost after Jesus’ resurrection, Peter tells the multitude, “Repent, and let every one of you be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins; and you shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. For the promise is to you and to your children, and to all who are afar off, as many as the Lord our God will call” (Acts 2:38-39). He’s catching men with the net Jesus gave Him. He shows them their sin so that they confess their sinfulness, then He rescues them from their sin’s consequences with the net the gospel, with baptism which brings the forgiveness of sins and the gift of the Holy Spirit so that they, too, might receive new identities and walk in the newness of life. Peter and the others cast this net. Pastors continue to cast this net. And, true to His Word, Jesus keeps bringing fish into the net. It isn’t Peter that fills the net. It’s not the pastor. It’s Jesus, so that with St. Paul all ministers of the gospel can truthfully say, “I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the increase” (1 Cor 3:6). Christ continues to catch men with the net of the gospel; showing them their sinfulness, not just their individual sins, but their nature, then showing them His mercy, that God forgives them freely for Christ’s sake, without any worthiness in them, so that they no longer are afraid, and receive a new identity.
The new identity He gives to all who believe is not, like Peter, fisher of men. Jesus was promising Peter and the rest that they would be called as His apostles who would catch men through their preaching. Since then, pastors are those fisherman of men, using the same net, casting in the same way through preaching and administering Christ’s sacraments. The new identity He gives you isn’t minister, but Christian, disciple, and learner. He bids you to take His yoke upon yourself and learn from Him. The yoke, the burden He lays on you isn’t burdensome. It’s the gospel and the new life the gospel creates in all who believe. Not everyone is a minister, but everyone—including pastors—is called to live the new life the gospel brings. There is always the temptation to remain in the confession of being a sinful man, and by that I mean there is the temptation to wallow in that confession, so that we only see ourselves as poor, wretched sinners with nothing good in our flesh. This is most certainly true, but for those who have been caught in the gospel’s net, it is not the whole truth. It isn’t the whole identity. Yes we are sinful men and women. But the gospel makes us into new men and new women, so that we do not let sin reign in our bodies. And when we know and feel our sins in our hearts, so that we say with Paul, “O wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death?” (Rom 7:24), Christ wants to catch us once again with His gospel, to forgive us all our sins and renew us again each day. Just as Peter received a new identity, so do all who believe the gospel, for the gospel makes us new men with new hearts.
The same Peter who confessed himself a sinful man to Jesus writes a bit of what that new identity looks like in today’s epistle. “Finally, all of you be of one mind, having compassion for one another; love as brothers, be tenderhearted, be courteous; not returning evil for evil or reviling for reviling, but on the contrary blessing, knowing that you were called to this, that you may inherit a blessing.” As new men and women in Christ we are followers of what is good. We do not return insult for insult, mockery for mockery, hatred for hatred. That is the way of the sinful man who knows not the gospel. Rather than speaking coarsely, bitterly, and antagonistically toward others, we bless others, even when they persecute us, even as Christ blessed and prayed for His persecutors. And when Christ gives opportunity, all Christians are to give a defense to everyone who asks a reason for the hope that is in them, and this is to be spoken in gentleness and respect. This can only be done by new man in Christ, whom the Holy Spirit renews in us day by day. We confess that we are indeed sinful men. But hearing and believing Jesus’ word of absolution, we cast off our fear and receive this new identity each day with joy, and then we live in that new identity, with good words in our mouths toward others, and praise on our lips to our Lord Jesus Christ, at whose word we let down our nets, knowing that all our labor in Him in not in vain. Amen.
The peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, guard your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus. Amen.
