“Jesus Christ: Manifestation of God’s Callings”

The Fifth Sunday Of Epiphany – February 7, 2010

Judges 6: 11 - 24a/Psalm 85: 7 – 13/1Corinthians 15: 1 – 11/Luke 5: 1 – 11

Archbishop Loren Thomas Hines, D. D.

The gospel today speaks to us of hope.  It shares with us the provision of God in our lives.  It is amazing how that in our walk with God, as with our walk in every part of our lives, we really feel that what we do is our ability, is our energy, that causes things to prosper and to happen.  But in the lessons today that we read, each one of them share with the necessity of realizing that our strength, our wisdom, and all things come from God, through Christ to our lives.  That if anything good does happen, it is because He is at work within us. 

The story of Jesus at the lake of Gennesaret is amazing.  He saw two empty boats on the shore. Boats that had been used all night long have not brought in any results from a tremendous amount of labor and work.  They were empty.  They sat there as a declaration and a proclamation of man’s inability to accomplish a task on his own.  It speaks to us, it warns us, and it guides us that when we do things on our own energies, on our own inabilities, on our own mental capacities, the end result is emptiness.  It may seem that on a surface, there may be some success, but yet as we look at the reality of it, there is no fulfillment.  There is no satisfaction. There is this hunger, this desire for more and more.  We are never satisfied because we have not reached that place of fulfillment.

Jesus gets into one of the boats and He asks Simon Peter to take the boat at a little raise so that He could use the boat to minister to the people.  He wanted a little distance so that they would not crowd Him; they would not push upon Him.  He wanted them to relax, and He wanted to have the ability to minister to them freely.  Peter pushes the boat out just a little bit.  Jesus uses the boat, which was incapable of bringing forth a harvest all night long, with Peter’s permission and cooperation to minister to the crowd.  It does not give us an understanding of exactly what happened in that ministry. But every time Jesus ministered, great things happened so we can be assured that some awesome events were taking place.  It says that when He finished ministering, He said to Simon Peter, “Put out into the deep water and let down your nets for a catch.”  The response of Simon Peter was, “Master, we worked hard all night and caught nothing.”  Does this not sound like our lives?  Does this not sound like our efforts that we put into the things around us?  We think that we are doing great things.  We push hard yet the results are so shallow, so empty, so unfulfilling.  Peter said to Jesus, “At your bidding, I will let down the nets.” Peter heard the voice of Jesus, he heard the call, and he obeyed.  He went out deep.

Perhaps this speaks to us in the way we live our lives today because in most of our lives, we are not into the deep.  We are in the shallow.  We do not want a lot of responsibilities.  We don’t want a lot of energy that we must invest in something – in thoughts or in the work that goes into something that is very difficult and hard.  We want to just take it easy. We’ve come away from the things that have taken a lot of our energies and thoughts, and we find ourselves the easy way, the thing that doesn’t cause us much, or doesn’t take much of our efforts.  But Jesus said to Peter, “Get out into the deep water.” 

In Romans 11:33 it says, “Oh, the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God!”  Here is where the depth is – knowing God’s ways; following God’s ways even though it seems that it is not acceptable where we are.  It means a deep commitment. It means a giving of all.  From the very beginning of Scripture, this is what we have been told, “You shall worship the Lord, your God, with all your heart, with all your mind, and with all your energy, your effort.”  This is what God wants of us – our all. He wants us out of the deep.  But for some reason, we find that so exhausting, that it takes so much of our time and our efforts and so we don’t put our whole self into our relationship with God – knowing Him, understanding Him, and walking in His ways.  We prefer the shallow that here in this particular story, Peter and the men had fished the shallow all night long.  There were no results.  They had put all their energies into that shallowness.  But Jesus said to Peter, “Go out into the deep.”  He did and when he put down his net,  when he followed the example of Christ, and when he followed the instructions of Christ, the fish were so many in the net that the net began to break. He had to call his companions to come and help him.  The depth, the deep water – giving of our all.  Not just getting our feet wet, but going in over our heads, giving our all to God.  Peter shows us the attitude that needs to come from us.  “I am not taking any credit for this.”  When he saw what had happened, he said to Jesus, “Depart from me for I am a sinner.”  He realized his efforts were of little value. He realized that all he had done was done out of self – rebellion against the principles of God.

In the story of Gideon in Judges, it is very much the same type of scenario.  Israel was in deep trouble because they were disobedient to God.  God had allowed Midian to take over and Midian was treating them cruelly.  Israel was crying out for God to deliver them.  The Midianites were taking away everything.  When a crop would come for harvest time, they would come in and take the crops – whether it was the wheat, the barley, the grapes, the oxen – whatever it was.  Whenever they were at a point of harvest or maturity, the Midianites would come and take them, leaving Israel with nothing.  We see the picture of Gideon deceitfully putting the wheat into the place where the wine should have been.  He was taking the wheat to its process, grinding it to make it ready to be used. He was doing it so that the Midianites, when they would see him, would not know what he was doing.  The angel of the Lord comes to Gideon and says to him, “The Lord is with you, O valiant warrior.”  Gideon responds and says, “What do you mean valiant warrior?  Look at me. Look at the situation we are in. Why do you say this to us?” The angel responds to him, “The Lord is going to use you to deliver Israel from the Midianites.”  The response of Gideon is, “My family is poor, and I am the youngest of the family. How can I be of value? How can I do this?”  The angel said, “Because the Lord is with you, I am with you. You shall defeat Midian as one man.”  We know the story that Gideon defeated Midian. Even though he was the youngest and was weak, he listened to the voice and the calling of the Lord.  As the Lord was there with him, he was obedient.  Yes, he made some mistakes. He was struggling to get to this point.  He was obedient and because the Lord was with him, he delivered Israel from Midian.