Title: Peter's Obedience
Contents
Today's text The obedience of Peter and the miracles of Jesus in Luke 5 are often preached in Sunday School as well as in the great worship, so many believers will be familiar with it. However, Peter's behavior in obedience and catching many fish is not so easy to understand. If you have been fishing all night and caught no fish, and obeyed Jesus' command and caught a lot of fish, shouldn't you dance with joy? Let's look at Luke 5:6-8.
(Luke 5:6-8) 『[6] In doing so, they caught too many fish, and their nets were torn. [7] So he motioned to his companions in the other boat to come and help. [8] When Simon Peter saw this, he fell down at Jesus' knees and said, "Depart from me, Lord, for I am a sinner."
Why did Peter, after a brief moment of joy, suddenly kneel before Jesus and say, “Leave me, Lord, for I am a sinner”? What does 'catch a lot of fish' have to do with 'sinner'? Is it because I caught too many fish and disturbed others? To get a vivid understanding of the text, let's take a time machine and enter the daily lives of fishermen who caught fish on the shores of the Sea of Galilee in the biblical times.
Fishermanship in Bible times was a very difficult and arduous profession. Fishermen mainly caught fish at night because the fishing nets were made of linen cloth, and when the sun rose in the morning, the nets were clearly visible from the water. No matter how bad a fish is,
Unless you're a 'blind' fish, if you set your net in the morning, you won't commit suicide by rushing into it. With the development of transparent nylon nets that are invisible under water after 1950, it is no wonder that Biblical fishermen lowered their nets at night and waited for fish to rush into them.
They fished mainly from 10:00 p.m. to 4:00 a.m., but fishermen in Bible times were, in modern terms, perfect “owl-like” humans who switched day and night. In Bible times, when there were no motorized boats with engines as we do today, fishermen had to row hard to the middle of the lake. Since the length of the Sea of Galilee is 21 km from north to south and 12 km from east to west, it was necessary to row 6 km no matter how short the row was. Since many fish were caught in the rainy winter, Galilean fishermen must have been drenched in rain in the days when there was no raincoat as it is today. Fishermen also had to dive into the water from time to time to clear their nets so that they would not get tangled. The temperature difference between day and night was extreme in the wilderness, and it was not enough that the whole body was drenched in rain, so they had to go into the water frequently, so the fishermen must have been shaking all night. The life of Galilean fishermen in Bible times was far from the night-fishing entertainment of today's fishing enthusiasts. In a word, it was a harsh ‘field of experience life’.
The Galilean fishermen, who had been toiled through the night, had to relieve their fatigue with a deep sleep during the day. If you take a time machine back to about 12:00 PM in Capernaum, where Peter lived, you will find that the city itself is buried in deadly stillness and silence. The wives of Capernaum must have waged an invisible war of nerves with children who chirped and barked puppies so as not to disturb their husbands' sleep.
The time for the background of today's text is early morning. A large crowd flocked to the shores of the Sea of Galilee from early morning in longing for the word, and Jesus was gradually pushed to the shore of the lake because of the crowds. However, it would have been impossible for the words of Jesus to be heard in Peter's ears, who had endured hardships and caught no fish because of the pitch-black darkness and severe cold all night. Desperate, he was ‘washing’ and ‘drying’ the nets next to Jesus. This is because nets made of fine linen at that time rot quickly if not washed and dried immediately. But what is interesting is that the main character of the text is not a large crowd, but one man, Peter. Ironically, Jesus' interest was not in the crowd that came out from dawn to long for the Word, but in Peter, who was washing their nets emptyly next to him. Because of the crowd, Jesus shows special interest in Peter, especially when he speaks by setting his boat on the shore of a lake. After speaking to the crowd, Jesus finally gives a command to Peter.
“Go out into the deep and let down your nets for a catch.”
Peter obeys without hesitation. “Teacher, we have toiled all night and have found nothing, but at your word I will let down the nets.” Peter's obedience brings the blessing of catching double the fish. However, what we overlook is ‘how great and how difficult it was for Peter’s obedience’ that brought such blessings. Let's share grace together about the meaning of Peter's obedience to us today.
First, Peter overcame physical fatigue. Peter worked all night long. Peter's disappointment and fatigue must have been even more severe because there was no reward and no profit for his labor. While Jesus was speaking to the crowd, Peter washed and dried the linen nets. Now, when he goes home, he must have forgotten all his failures and had only thought of ‘wearing a glass of soju and stretching both legs and sighing deeply’. But at a moment when he was so exhausted and exhausted that he was unable to move even one finger, he commands, “Go back into the depths and lower your nets.” He didn't have the strength to paddle back to the depths of the middle of the lake again, as he had done before to give orders. Because if you paddle for hours to the center of the lake, lower your nets, and come back to the lake shore, the sun will be high and the day will be over. Peter obeyed the Word, relying on the Word, leaving behind the extreme fatigue of the body and the feeling of inner disappointment.
Second, Peter overcame the world of experience and common sense. It was morning when Jesus commanded us to go back into the deep and let down our nets. When the sun had already risen, I looked down the linen net and the fish couldn't fool around into the net. This was a basic truth, based on experience and common sense, for Peter, a veteran fisherman with a good reputation in Galilee for decades. When he barely led his tired body to the depths, Jesus is commanding the time when the fish cannot be moved. While serving in the military, seniors often give absurd orders to prank new recruits. So, if you meet the wrong old man, the military life becomes very tiring. That's why the phrase "it goes round and round" comes from this background. Jesus' command to go back to the depths at sunrise is, from Peter's point of view, 'Isn't this a complete twist and turn? Is there any training like this in the world?’ It was such an unreasonable command to resist.
Third, Peter overcame his pride. Wouldn't Peter, a veteran fisherman with a flair for catching fish, have the pride as an expert in catching fish? However, the impossible happened to Peter, who overcame this self-esteem by relying on the Word, something he had never experienced. Aren't the swarms of fish running out of their minds with their eyes open and running into the linen nets that Peter had lowered? As a result of his hard obedience, Peter was rewarded adequately. One boat was not enough for the fish that had been rolled up enough to tear the net, so they had to be loaded in two. The moment comes when Peter's great obedience will shine even brighter.
Peter did not fall into the temptations of the excitement and joy of the blessing of all things, and the wealth and fame that he would achieve in the future. Suddenly, no one is doing something unexpected. He knelt before Jesus and made a confession that did not fit the situation at all.
“Leave me, Lord, for I am a sinner”
Why did Peter suddenly kneel before Jesus and confess that he was a “sinner”? The key to this well-known outrageous behavior of Peter can only be found in the life and thinking of fishermen in Bible times.
The sea is inextricably linked with the 'god' in control of the sea in the lives of fishermen, regardless of the East and West. Each country and culture has its own god of the sea. Greece called it 'Poseidon', Rome called it 'Neptune', and in Korea, the 'Dragon King' god is that. In Israel, the god of the sea was called 'Yam'. In many countries, fishermen offered sacrifices to the gods of the sea before sailing. This is because it was thought that it was necessary to please the god of the sea to drive a lot of fish. So, in Korea, ‘Shimcheong’ exchanged himself with three hundred rice balls and threw himself into the sea to appease the angry god of the sea, and in the Bible, ‘Jonah’ was thrown.
The Sea of Galilee, the stage of Peter's activity, is famous for catching fish so well that it is called 'water half fish and half fish'. If so, how should we understand the situation in the text where one fish could not catch even after working all night? In fact, this is impossible in Galilee, where there are many fish. The fact that the nets were laid down all night and not a single fish caught was a seldom experienced in Peter's life as a fisherman. He must have felt possessed by a demon because of the incredible experience that had happened to him for only a few hours. You must have been thinking, ‘What the hell is wrong?’ How could this be possible? This was possible only because of Jesus' prior quiescent work. Jesus had already given orders to the multitudes of fish in Galilee. "Guys, don't cooperate tonight!"
How is this possible because of the incredible things that have happened to him? A momentary thought flashed through his mind, shuddering and astonishing Peter. Isn't this something only the god of the sea can do? If so, could it be that the man standing in front of me, who commanded me to ‘go out into the deep and let down the nets’, was perhaps a god? Could it be that the magic that he used last night that he couldn't catch even a single one of them and let them go in vain? As all these thoughts flashed past him like a lantern, he intuited that he was standing in front of a divine being, not just a teacher. He couldn't help but fall over. He stood before the gods and, besides, saw the gods in two orders, so he thought that he might die. Isaiah's confession of seeing a vision of God while praying in the temple during the reign of King Uzziah reminds us.
(Isa 6:5) “At that time I said, Woe to me, I am destroyed; for I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell among a people of unclean lips, and I have seen the King, the LORD of hosts.”
They are humans who compare themselves to each other and live in their own flair, but when they stand before God, they cannot but confess that they are sinners. Peter recognized Jesus, who gave the command to him, as a divine being like God Yam, or at least an agent sent by God, that is, a man of God.
Dear all! The God we believe in is the Creator God. God is pleased with those who obey. Just like the obedience shown by Peter in today's text, God always visits us in our lives. I pray in the name of the Lord that you will be the ones who rejoice in obedience to His word.