It began as an ordinary day, like many other ordinary days. I'd begun going to hear this preacher man called Jesus after the nets had been brought in & cleaned. There was something about Him, so different from the usual religious babble of the priests. What did they know of my life, of struggling to bring in a catch in the early hours of the morning, what did they know of calloused hands, of hard physical work? This preacher man was different. He was a carpenter by trade, He knew what it was to work hard, to labour to bring out a living for yourself & your loved ones, so yes, I'd been going to listen to Him.
He noticed me & we'd struck up a conversation as those listening to Him this particular day began to drift away. I decided to invite Him to come to my home, so we could carry on talking. I'd never have thought or even wanted to do that with any of the priests, even less so the Pharisees, anyway, they wouldn't want to come to my home, totally beneath them that would have been, but, as I say, this Jesus was different.
As we got to my home, I realised I'd forgotten that my mother-in-law was ill. I don't know, what with the catch that day, which hadn't been particularly good, & with some of the things I'd heard this Jesus say, that had really made me think, it just hadn't stayed in my mind. The wife was not best pleased when I bowled up with Jesus in tow & told her we had a guest for dinner.
This Jesus though had a way about Him, He seemed to be able to hear things there was no way He could have heard. He told me to take Him to my mother-in-law. Well, I saw my wife's face, that look, horror mixed with intrigue, mixed with curiosity, but she didn't say no, so I took Jesus into the kitchen. He walked straight up to my mother-in-law, smiled at her, as she straightened her clothes & tried to stand. He motioned for her to sit & in a voice that nothing in the world would argue with, rebuked the fever within her. Time stood still, well it seemed to for me anyway. I wondered what was happening, what would happen, what all this was, what my wife would make of it, what my mother-in-law would make of it. To be honest, I wondered in that tiny moment, what I made of all this!
I know it was only a moment, because then my mother-in-law stood up, her face no longer flushed & wet with fever, as she normally is, but with a different expression on her face - gratitude, I think mixed with, I don't know, something else! Anyway, she thanked Jesus, then with a smile, bustled us out of the kitchen so she & my wife, who was standing open-mouthed at this, could get on with the dinner! And what a dinner it was!
After we had finished the meal, there were loads of people who had found out Jesus was at our house. I will never know how things get round in our village, how information is imbibed somehow, but outside our door were people possessed by demons, those who needed healing, lame, blind, all kinds of needy people all clamouring to see Jesus.
He spent time, one after the other healing them, demons shrieked that He was the Son of God, but He told them to be quiet. One after another, a steady stream of people & each of them He treated differently, but with the same authority He spoke K healed them. I couldn't believe there were so many people ill or lame, or possessed. How did I not know there were all these people around?
By the time the stream of people were gone, it was too late for Jesus to go anywhere, so He stayed the night with us. I wondered about what to say of how early I have to go for the boat & go fishing, well actually that I wasn't going to go to bed, or sleep at all because I needed to go straight to work.
Actually I needn't have been concerned, for He'd fallen asleep, Jesus that was, so I went out, glad of the time to think, exhausted, but in the familiarity of the mundane, I had time to process what I'd seen & heard.
I didn't see Jesus when I returned home, apparently He'd left really early that morning Himself, & I began to wonder whether I had dreamed a lot of what I'd seen & heard, even though I knew I hadn't. After all, my mother-in-law, who had been so poorly, was there hail & hearty looking younger & more full of life than for a long time, so it couldn't all be a dream!
A couple of days after this, as we were washing the nets after a really, really bad night's fishing, there was Jesus! Well, actually we saw the crowd of people first, wondered what was going on as we washed up, then saw Jesus. He was trying to talk to the people, but they were all crowding round Him. He looked round, saw our boat & simply got into it & called out to me with a smile, asking me to put out a little from shore so He could talk to the crowd. I did that gladly & both Andrew & I were glad of the opportunity to hear Jesus once again.
Once He'd finished speaking, He looked directly at me & told me to put out into the deeper water & let down the nets for a catch! Well, we'd spent all night in the deep water waiting for a catch, we'd washed the wretched nets up hadn't we, but something in His tone made me tell Him all that & then I found myself telling Him what a dreadful night it had been, but that because He said so, I'd do it. After all, I'd seen what His words had done, healed mum-in-law, healed all those people, released the demon possessed, so it was worth a go, wasn't it?
I did as He had said & honestly, I'm not kidding, no sooner had I put down those nets they were full & when I say full, there was nearly a weeks catch in the one & I signalled to Andrew, James & John to get themselves over to me pronto to get this catch in otherwise the net was going to break. There were so many fish, it nearly sank both our boats, but we got to shore somehow.
That was the crunch point for me, I guess. I fell at the knees of this preacher man, I knew goodness & authority when I saw it. I'd recognised the fake authority in the priests & the Pharisees, we knew their antics behind the scenes too, which were not always good. This guy was different though. Goodness & authority seem to flow out of Him somehow, & what authority, what a catch of fish, how did He know where they were? We were the fishermen, yet we'd failed to find any that night. I told Him to go away from me, I know what I am, I know I am no better than the Pharisees in my heart & actually I'm nowhere near as clever as them. I'm a sinful man & I told Him so. I'm not sure what I expected His reaction to be, but despite this man having made such an impression upon me, I didn't expect what He did say! He told me “Don’t be afraid Simon Peter; from now on you will fish for people.
All four of us knew this was a defining moment in our lives, His call wasn't just to me, but to Andrew, James & John too. They were all as gobsmacked as I was at this phenomenal catch of fish, yet we knew that we had no honest alternative but to draw up the boats & follow Jesus. To do anything else would have been unthinkable. I don't think at that point any of us, least of all me, knew what would lie ahead, I knew only that if I didn't go with Him my life, our lives would have been as empty as the nets were without His intervention, that I would forever regret it, that whatever my life would become from this moment on, it was what I was truly born to. Sounds melodramatic & perhaps daft, but this sinful fisherman wanted to know what it was to catch people with Jesus.
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