Luke 5:1-11 – They left everything and followed him

Peter is sitting beside Jesus in the boat and can hear every word as Jesus speaks to the assembled crowd.

We’re not told anything about what Jesus was saying but whatever he was saying, it was doing something to Peter.

Because when Jesus asked Peter to put out and drop the nets, Peter pointed out that he’d been fishing all night and caught nothing but then said; “but if you say so” – if you say so – “I will pay out the nets.”

Clearly as Jesus speaks he’s doing something to Peter but he’s doing exactly what he does to every human being when we really begin to hear 👂 him.

It’s the beginning of a radical shift in the focus of Peter’s life; his heart is beginning to be taken by Jesus but he’s not yet at the point where he loses interest in the focus of his life to date – but he’s on his way to it.

Suddenly, against all the evidence of a hard nights work, Peter has more, much more than he wanted when he set out for work – a massive haul of fish. But he’s no longer interested and he’s no longer interested because something better has appeared up close and personal. Jesus has got into him and the first fruit of Jesus really getting into him is… what?

He breaks down. Leave me Lord, I don’t deserve this, this is too much. He’s overwhelmed by the extravagance of God. It’s a beautiful discovery. Jesus is so beautiful, so extravagant with his love… The huge haul of fish is just symbolic of how huge Jesus’ love is… and Peter doesn’t want the symbol, he wants the real deal.

In places like this, so many people can’t even see the symbols never mind pass through to the real deal!

Thats what Jesus means when he speaks about people being dead 😵 

In the face of God’s goodness and extravagance Peter understands, perhaps for the first time, his own misery, how utterly small he is…

The love of God for each one of us is real, it’s not an illusion but not enough of us know it.

We cannot really encounter Jesus and God the Father without also receiving in the same moment the sense of our misery – we’re so small, nothing, when we see ourselves in God’s light. When we truly meet Jesus and God it makes us look ridiculously funny… all this running around, everything needing to be bigger and better, all the stuff we think is important becomes quite trivial. Suddenly, most of all that we aspire to makes us look ridiculous, laughable.

We let go of what is taking our hearts only when something greater comes along, gets inside us, steals us away 🥰 but allowing Jesus to steal us away, that’s Heaven!

Nothing we have, nothing we think we have, will hold us when we really begin to encounter Jesus Christ.

It’s in part why nobody comes back from the dead, not because they’re dead, but because we are the ones who are really dead 💀 and they’re the ones really alive.