Fishermen Who Left Their Nets

The morning sun was climbing over the Lake of Galilee, and Peter sat by his boat with nothing to show for his night.

All night long he had fished. He and his friends had thrown their heavy nets into the dark water, again and again, and every time they pulled them up, the nets came back empty. Not one fish in all those hours.

Now Peter was tired and damp and grumpy, washing the empty nets. He felt like a fisherman who could not even catch a fish, ordinary and a little ashamed.

That was when Jesus came walking along the shore. Do you remember how he had walked out of Nazareth, carrying God's promise with him? His feet had brought him here, to the edge of Peter's lake.

A crowd pressed close, hungry to hear him. So Jesus stepped right into Peter's boat and asked him to push out a little way from the land. And Peter did. From the boat, with the water carrying his voice, Jesus taught the people.

When he was finished, Jesus turned to tired Peter and said, "Go out to the deep water. Let down your nets."

Peter almost laughed. The deep? Now? In the bright morning, when even the whole dark night had given them nothing? "Master," he said, "we worked all night and caught nothing." But something in Jesus made him add, "Still. Because you say so, I will."

So they let the nets down one more time.

And the fish came. So many fish that the nets began to tear. So many that Peter had to wave his friends over, and they filled both boats until the boats sat low and groaning, almost sinking under all that silver, wriggling life.

Peter stared. Then he did something surprising. He fell down at Jesus's knees, right there among the flapping fish, and said, "Go away from me, Lord. I am a sinful man."

Peter suddenly felt very small. He had met someone holy, and it made him sure of all the wrong inside him. He thought a man like Jesus could never want a man like him.

But Jesus did not go away.

Jesus looked at Peter, the tired one, the empty-handed one, the one who felt too sinful to come close. And gently he said, "Do not be afraid. From now on you will catch people."

The King was gathering a kingdom, and he began it with a borrowed boat and a fisherman who smelled of fish and felt like nobody at all.

That is how this King works. He fills the empty nets. He calls the small and the ashamed, and he says, come. Follow me. I want you.

So Peter and his friends pulled their boats up onto the shore. And they left everything, the nets, the boats, the whole great shining catch, and they followed him.

Peter walked away from the biggest catch of his life, because the King who filled his nets had asked for him, and he did not yet know all that was coming.