Once Upon the Ink

(taken from Luke 5:1-11)

The sun is warm and heavy on my head when I come into the story – it reminds me of the comforting press of my grampa’s hand when he’d pass me by as a little one. It’s the kind of honey tinted light that makes you sleepy and content, and the soft lap of waves on the shore add a lullaby to its affectionate weight. I came looking for Jesus, but I see Peter right away. He’s fighting to keep his eyes open as he sits, a big, lanky man slouched at the back end of his small fishing boat, elbows resting on his knees, hands on oars. Jesus, still a stranger to him, sits in front of him talking to a large crowd on the shore. It’s the middle of the afternoon, and all Peter wants to do is curl up and sleep.

But here he is, stuck listening to a sermon. I can’t help but grin. Peter always seems to have that effect on me. He’s a man of action, and sitting here essentially being held captive, has got to be grating on him a little. Especially after a long, depressing night of fishing and catching nothing. His brother Andrew introduced him to Jesus and volunteered his boat, all excited about it too… not factoring in how tired and defeated Peter feels. Peter doesn’t yet know the way Jesus works, the surprise that’s in store for him in just a few minutes.

I wonder if Holy Spirit did it on purpose? Caught Peter in this situation – chained in place by polite Jewish manners so he’d have to listen to Jesus? Or is it that magic weaving the Holy Spirit does – the way she braids chance encounters, people, and time into explosions of wonder and meaning and the wide awake living part of life?

My heart is already squeezing, making tears prickle under my eyelids, because from my side of history it suddenly clicked for me, what this will do for Peter and the others with him. Did you know it already? How did I not put it together all these years of reading stories like these? There are two stories – almost identical events, this one now, and another one that doesn’t happen until after Jesus dies. It’s like magical locks and keyholes are being embedded in Peter’s brain right now, and it bowls me away. This day is setting a precedent – it’s almost exactly what will happen to him again later, when he thinks he’s lost everything.

It’s whispering itself into my ear – the truth that God loved us first. Jesus loved Peter first. Why do we always skip over that? We hear it so much it loses its meaning. But when I think about it, when Jesus shows it to me, like he’s doing right now in this story, I am overcome. It’s where we’re supposed to start, it’s where we’re supposed to sit – in that new place every morning knowing we are loved first. Before we do anything. Before we try to earn it or spread it around or doubt it and then chastise ourselves for wondering if we’re worth it.

I can see Peter’s hands are raw, even though they’re already calloused from years of cleaning and mending the nets, untangling them, working in the cold and the wet. It was a long night of defeat, casting those nets into the water over and over without a single fish. His family depends on him making a catch. And he’ll have to go out again tomorrow. He needs to go home and rest, eat, recharge his batteries.

But, as weary as he is, he still grips the oars, politely keeping the boat in place so Jesus faces the crowd. He’s inwardly cursing his brother for roping him into this task. Worried about whether he’ll be able to support his family. Andrew’s convinced Jesus is Someone, but Peter is wary – the words Jesus speaks, the ones he bothers to tune into – they’re lighting up all kinds of uncomfortable things in Peter’s passionate heart. We always tend to do that too, turn Jesus’ voice into an accusing one.

When evening is finally lurking on the horizon, everyone else going home to find food, Jesus turns to Peter, “take me out to the deep.” He asks.

Peter wants to argue, but Andrew gives him a look, both pleading and warning. Off they go, James and John in the second boat following beside. Maybe they’ll make one more attempt to catch something. Peter’s biting his tongue… hard. Thinking of supper and his wife and his bed.

“This is a good spot.” Jesus says finally, looking around with satisfaction at the quiet ripples. “Why don’t we try casting your nets just here.”

Peter’s eyes flash, a moment of anger, a sharp bit of rebellion before he forces himself to keep his manners. I can tell he wants to be sarcastic, to tell Jesus to mind his own business – that Peter’s the fisherman, the expert. They’ve fished “just here” already. But Jesus has something in his eyes, some kind of quiet invitation that Peter can’t ignore. He’s been poking at Peter’s heart all day, and now there’s a challenge in his eyes – an ask. And a bit of mischief too.

“We’ve laboured all night with no results, sir, but sure.” Peter grits out, straining to hold his tongue, not quite succeeding.

He’s inwardly rolling his eyes, and I grin again, Peter couldn’t help but use a phrase that rolls up the idea of working hard and being exhausted in his answer to Jesus.

We want to be sure Jesus knows it’s not that easy, don’t we? We can’t help but need him to hear that we’ve tried already – hard.

When the men listen to Jesus, throw their nets out, the instant flood of fish almost sinks both their boats. Has them casting wild looks at each other and scrambling, hearts pounding, as they work to bring the catch in. They’re too busy securing the fish and keeping the boats afloat to question what’s happening – but I know they’ll go over and over it later.

I can’t believe I didn’t put this story next to the one that comes later, after Jesus’ death.

Wonder is sneaky and soft-footed. Tiptoeing through our minds. It often takes a minute for us to notice her. I’ve realized that if we don’t stop to look at her – if we just keep marching into the next moment we can miss her presence.

Peter’s reaction once they get to shore is a predictable Peter thing to do. “Get away from me, Lord,” He says as he falls on his knees, “I am a bad man.”

Why is that so often our first response to Jesus? What is it about that moment we first meet his power that sends us straight into a fear spiral – one that blooms with shame and a need to run?

I could laugh at Peter’s drama, but his words trouble me too, it rubs up against some of the teaching I’ve been given on what conviction looks like, that hot poker of what judgement feels like, and the need to submit to a “spanking.”

Is it what Jesus intends to happen?

I look over at Jesus and see that affection on his face, an expression that’s both vulnerable and steadfast. Something is happening here between the two of them, and it’s not really about Peter’s sin. Even if Peter thinks it is. It’s about Jesus calling out the original good of who Peter was created to be. And in doing it now, he’s helping Peter later when all hope is seeming lost. “Don’t be afraid.” He tells Peter. “You see yourself a fisherman, but you’ll soon be catching men with me, instead.”

We all have hidden hurt, traps of fear and lies we can’t see and don’t know are there. We often end up living in them, reacting to them without realizing. We don’t like the way those beliefs speak to us, the accusation and the shame of our ego and our mistakes and the lessons of our trauma, so we bury them deep, turn away again and again, try to stay on the surface above the murk we can’t see through in our souls.

And when Jesus comes walking up to us, his light is so bright it travels all the way down into that bog of things we didn’t know were caging us. The first moment of exposing those hidden wounds hurts, like exposing a fresh cut to water. We see the shame that was lurking in our subconscious, we hear that accusing voice we had forgotten we listened to.

But Jesus is always about healing and wholeness.

He hauls Peter up off his knees. He’s got an intense look in his eyes, this almost-tremor of passion in his voice and I wonder… I wonder if he can see ahead? Does he see that night coming? The one where Peter denies him? And then the fishing trip afterwards – when Peter, out of desolation, gives up and goes back to the beginning?

Do you hear what I’m saying? That even then, in the pain of abandonment and guilt, in going back to the beginning Peter was going to find Jesus there already? And Again.

I stand there, watching the two of them with tears streaming down my face. Peter doesn’t know yet what this story will mean to him later. But I do.

The comparison, the pattern of it is as bright and obvious as neon to me. The hope Jesus is planting right now, the hooks he’s embedding in Peter’s mind to his abundance with all these fish, the safety of his response to Peter’s fear, the unspoken flex of his muscles when the world says he doesn’t exist.

There will be another night down the road of fishing with no luck, another moment when a “stranger” calls from the shore to cast their nets just on the other side of their boat. And there will be another catch of too many fish to count. It will jolt through Peter like a spear of recognition. Killing his shame and his heartache. It will have him jumping out of the boat, swimming to shore in that longing I know so well. You can read about it here.

How many times does Holy Spirit do this kind of thing in us? Laying down hope in situations we have no idea are important, embedding triggers and anchors that pull us back to Love, that remind us we are loved first before we ever learn to love back.