Upside-Down Christmas: Luke 5

Luke 5

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Hey I’m glad you’re back for our podcast. We’re in Luke chapter five and we’ve been tracing out the upside down themes in this third gospel. And it’s all a part of our Upside Down Christmas series for Advent. And chapter five is great because it shows us how some of the first disciples were called.

Maybe you remember that Peter, James, and John (and Andrew, too)—they were all fishermen. And there’s this scene where Jesus comes to the shore, and he gets into one of their boats because the crowds are pressing in on him. So the cast out just a bit of shore to create a distance and then Jesus does his teaching.

Well after he’s done, he turns to Peter and he says, Hey, cast the nets out. Peter says, Jesus, we’ve been fishing all night and we didn’t catch a thing. But if you say so, we’ll do it. Here’s what it says: “And when they had done this, they enclosed a large number of fish, and their nets were breaking. 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. (Luke 5:6-7) And then of course, Jesus, now famously, says, From now on you’re going to become fishers of men. And that was really how he inaugurated them into his discipleship circle.

But then you might not have noticed this. Look at what Luke says in verse 11. It says, “And when they had brought their boasts to land, they left everything and followed him.” Think about it. These were fishermen. They’d been out all night long. They’d caught nothing. Now, Jesus gives them this massive catch, and what do they do? They leave all those fish on the shore for all those people to take home with them. The largest catch they’d ever hauled in and they leave it on the shore. They abandon it to follow Jesus.

Success in the terms of the world would have meant cashing in on that massive pay day, turning that haul into a marketing strategy: “Simon Peter’s fishery. More fish caught in a single day that other fishermen catch in a year.” Maybe it would have meant trying to hire Jesus to be a consultant!

But Jesus turns this whole idea on its head by leading them into a nomadic way of life full of danger and poverty and homelessness and utter dependence upon God to provide even their daily needs. And by the way, Jesus’ version of success would eventually end in his death which left the disciples alone and scared. And yet, ultimately this was the way to life, wasn’t it.

We think the path to life is seizing on the advantages we’ve been given, seeing material prosperity and expansion as always the thing to do. But a lot of the time, success in the way of Jesus is not what success in the way of the world looks like. Sometimes it looks more like giving up our worldly advantages in order to enter more deeply into some kind of impoverished state in order to be closer to Jesus.

But here’s the thing: if you’re actually going to do that, you have to value being close to Jesus more than you value success according to the world’s standards, don’t you?

And man, there’s the question, isn’t it? How much do we really love Jesus? How much do we want to be close to him?

Let’s pray: Lord Jesus, we confess the dullness of our hearts toward you. We confess that we’ve been softened by modern comforts and luxuries, and that we’ve been fooled by the world’s definitions of success—so much so that we miss you and what you’re trying to do in our lives. We pray that you would honor our efforts to cultivate a deeper love for you by drawing near to us in ways that will foster that love. Teach us the value of being in your presence so that we would happily give up the successes of this world to be closer to you. Amen.

Family Devotion:

What did Jesus ask Simon to do? 

Jesus didn’t tell Simon that he would catch any more fish, but Simon still listened to Jesus and let the net down.  What happened when Simon let the net down? 

What did Jesus tell the men at the end of the story? What does it mean to be a fisher of men?

It means that they will be the ones to tell everyone else about Jesus and convince them that Jesus is the only way to have life. Jesus decided to use ordinary men like Simon to tell people about himself.  The men could not catch any fish until Jesus helped them.  Once the men became fishers of men, they also could not do anything without Jesus’ help. Have you ever asked God to help you show Him to others?