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“At Your Word…”
Grace to you and
peace from God our Father, and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.
Peter may call
Jesus, “Master,” but it's clear that
he didn't truly believe. He already had everything figured out in his own head.
He knew how to fish; he was an expert. He knew that he and his partners had
worked all night, using the tried-and-true methods they had most likely learned
from their fathers. Somehow, there were just no fish. If they couldn’t find any
fish, how could this carpenter’s Son be of help? What could this Jesus know
about fishing? He was probably thinking, “Stick to preaching and teaching,
Rabbi, and let the expert do his job.” Like a child who listens to and obeys
his parents but still thought he knew better, he grudgingly, condescendingly
said to the Lord, “Nevertheless, at your
word, I will let down the nets.”
The Word of God is
powerful to do exactly what He says it will do. As the Lord said through the
prophet Isaiah, “As the rain comes down, and the snow from heaven, and do
not return there, but water the earth, and make it bring forth and bud, that it
may give seed to the sower and bread to the eater, so shall My word be that goes forth from My mouth; it shall
not return to Me void, but it shall accomplish what I please, and it shall
prosper in the thing for which
I sent it.” The Lord tells Peter to go drop the nets in the deep
water, and when he does, his boat and the boat of his partners overflow with
fish to the point that the boats begin to sink—and this is after these professional
fishermen hadn't caught one fish. Peter finally recognized the power of the
Word of God, the power Jesus wields as the Son of God. He fell on his knees and
said, “Depart from me, for I am a sinful
man, O Lord!” The Lord taught Peter to locate true faith in the right
place: in His Word. Faith flows from the Word of God and receives what Jesus
did for us by the power of the Word.
We have to repent
with St. Peter too, don't we? How many times have we tried to find faith and
salvation outside the words of Jesus? How many times have we tried to rely on
our own reason and strength? In our sin, we've got it all figured out. We smile
at our boss instead of complaining about him or posting vague condemnations on
social media; we shut the computer down rather than looking at that
pornographic website; we throw a vague prayer into the air to demonstrate our
faith. We’ve got it figured out. We stop this sin, and God will love us. We do
better, and we will catch God's favor. Do we doubt His Word and forgiveness? Our
lives confess that we do.
The gift to Peter,
James, and John that day was not fish. The fish were left on the shore when
they left the nets to follow Jesus. The gift was faith: they received Jesus by
the power of the Word. The boats would stay where they were; from now on they
would fish for men. They would cast the very nets which caught them: the power
of the Word of God. Our Lord sends His fishermen to preach repentance and faith,
to share the good news that Jesus died to pay the price for sin. He sends His
fishermen to wash those sins away with water and His Name, to make people His
own children in those baptismal waters. He sends His fishermen with His own
body and blood to feed and nourish that gift of faith.
And it is in those
very nets that we have been caught. With water, bread, wine, and the Word of
God, your pastors, fishermen sent by Jesus to speak His Word and act as His
hands, have used those means to wash away your sin, to speak forgiveness to
you, to feed your faith. Instead of departing from you in your sin, your Lord
removes your sin. Having received these precious gifts, you are now invited and
freed to follow Him. In the name of the Father and of the Son (+) and of the
Holy Spirit. Amen.
The peace of God which passes all
understanding will keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus always. Amen.
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