Awestruck

 Today we encounter the “Lukan Jump” wherein the Gospels read at Sunday Liturgies shift from the Gospel of St Matthew to that of St Luke.

In today’s account we find our Lord preaching to a crowd from Peter’s fishing boat. How many people were there we do not know.  St Luke records simply that the multitude pressed about Him, which prompted the Lord to arrange the encounter such that those to whom He was preaching were in fact in front of Him.

Jesus completes His teaching of the crowd, and now He turns His attention to the teaching of those who will be His Apostles.  He requests of Peter, Launch out into the deep and let down your nets for a catch.

All of the time that the Lord preached to the multitudes, we can picture Peter and the others simultaneously being attentive to the Lord’s words but also giving due attention to cleaning their nets and preparing their boats for the following day’s work.

And so our Lord’s request to Peter takes him aback.  He’s tired.  The day’s labor hasn’t borne the fruit a fisherman might hope for.  We’ve toiled all night and caught nothing!  It’s almost as if to say, “If You’ve not noticed, Lord – there’s nothing out there…”  But that’s not what Peter says.  Instead, he replies as we might hope a true apostle would.  Nevertheless at Your word I will let down the nets.

St Theophan’s teaching about this Gospel is priceless:  They toiled all night and caught nothing. But when the Lord entered the boat and commanded them to cast their net, they caught so many that they could not pull them out and the net broke.  This is an image of all work done without God’s help, and of work done with God’s help. When someone works, wanting to achieve something through his strength alone, everything falls apart. But when the Lord draws near to him, one good thing after another flows in. In the spiritual-moral sense, the impossibility of success without the Lord is tangibly evident: ‘Without Me you can do nothing’ (John 15:5). And this law acts in all things. Just as a branch that is not grafted onto a tree not only does not bear fruit, but dries up and loses its life as well, neither can people bring forth fruits of truth valuable for eternal life if they are not living in communion with the Lord. They might sometimes have some good, but it is good in appearance. In reality it is of poor quality, like a wild apple that appears red but is sour to the taste. It is also tangibly clear in an external, worldly sense: someone struggles and struggles, but it all comes to no good. When God’s blessing descends, you do not even know where everything comes from. Those who are attentive toward themselves and the paths of life know these truths from experience.

Peter is overwhelmed at what has just occurred before him.  Jesus makes him an active participant in the miracle, as he would in so many instances to come.  But he is awestruck to such an extent that he looks inward.  Lord, depart from me, for I am a sinful man.  He doesn’t really want Jesus to leave.  But he knows that righteousness doesn’t mingle with sin.  It’s a lesson that I need to learn, as well!