“TRINITY 5”
Saint Luke 5: 1-11
5th Sunday after Trinity: 9 July Anno Domini 2023
Fr Jay Watson, SSP
Pagans, and “‘Murican” “Christians,” who aren’t Christian at all, always think things just “come to pass.” When one is metaphorically fat, dumb, lazy, and ignorant of Scripture and The Church’s teachings of over 2,000 years, then everything is just “what-evs.”
NO. It “came to pass” because The Lord made it so. The Lord journeyed once again to the Sea of Galilee. Christ Who by The Holy Spirit hovering over the waters of the deep, doing the will of The Father, created everything that is, is the same Christ Who always hovers over the Baptismal + Font, i.e., He is with you constantly, right now, in your Baptisms! Jesus loves water. He loves lakes and rivers. Because from His obedience to The Law and because of His suffering and dying on Calvary for you sins, He is The Water of Life—Water from The Rock. Water from His riven side, and Blood, fills this font and fills The Holy Chalice of The Eucharist.
You know the story. You know the obvious applications that pastors have been giving you for years, this one included: Gennesaret = The Font; two ships = the two Testaments of Scripture; the wood of the ship = the wood of the pulpit which gives the wood of The Cross; the nets = The Gospel; and the great catch of fish = ingathering of The Lord’s people. Yes. All true. Universally used in homiletical illustrations and points from the early Church, to the Patristic Fathers, to Luther, to modern Lutheran exegetes. Go in Peace you now know some stuff. Amen.
But. That’s not the point. That Jesus is God of God is indeed made clear by His power over nature, yes. But that is not the point. Well, it is, in a sense. All Scripture is about our Lord’s Person and Work. But dominion is only part of it.
The text is simply the delivery (to you) of The Word of God—the Word of God in Scripture placing The enfleshed, incarnate Word of God in you and on you. Jesus says, Jesus demands, Jesus expects from you: “repent and believe.” And those who confess their sins and receive His Holy Absolution, simply WILL do His commands. There will, there must be good works which flow from faith. No good works, no striving for obedience and deeper faith in the Word, quite possibly, quite probably, no faith. Are you a dead apple tree? Well, Christ the Tree of Life—The apple tree of Life—is not dead. So, are you a broken off branch rotting on the ground of your own indifference, lassitude, and ego of self-will? Jesus is the great deluge of mercy and strength, and peace. He flows into you in His Word. You are filled more than to the brim by His constant stream of truth and life. Are you not then overflowing in rivers of water, i.e., currents of mercy and love and service to your neighbors? Jesus the eternal spring of Heavenly water never dries up. Have you dried up by wandering into the desert of this world—being hypnotized by the devil’s parlor tricks?
You are not the “12.” You are not Christ’s official Disciples (capital “D”) who become His called and ordained Apostles (and their successors). You do not, nor are you called to, leave home and family and become “fishers of men.”
But when Christ enters His ship—the One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church, when He speaks (instructs, catechizes, exhorts, and yes, rebukes your sins), you listen. You wash your nets daily in remembering Who first + washed you. When Jesus tells you to “launch out into the deep,” you comply with the faith He’s given you to comply with—you fear, love, and trust Him above all things. By The Holy Ghost as your comforter and counselor, you work even when you are tired, sad, angry, depressed, sick, and dying; you work even when you think you have “toiled all the night.” You repent of your weak faith and grumbling and you believe He is the one who toiled for 33 years on your behalf, and then “toiled” for 6 long hours on the bloody tree.
You are loved by God. You are loved in spite of all the bad that you daily; in spite of your unwillingness to love God above all things and to love and serve your neighbor. You are given mercy—you have mercy. You are forgiven. You will have peace that passes all understanding on your tongues in a moment.
He will not, never, depart from you “[o] sinful man.”
“Fear not.” He has caught you. He has placed you in His saving ship. You follow Him—
In the Name of the Father and + of the Son and of The Holy Ghost
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