Launch out into the Deep...

“…and let down your nets for a catch !”   Reading: Luke 5:1–8

Jesus had gone into Simon Peter’s boat and had just finished teaching the crowd when He gave this command to put out into deep water and let down the net !

Simon had just heard, like everyone else, the teachings and encouragements of Jesus. After this command to let down the net in deep water, Simon first looked at the outward circumstances: “Master, we worked hard all night and caught nothing…” But then he leans on the word of Jesus and obeys ! For Jesus desires to manifest His glory !

The result is there, beyond all expectation: two boats filled with fish.

His obedience led to a miracle !

“Deep water” is what we might today call the “open sea.”
That is, going out into the world in order to work for the Lord and step into the mission He has entrusted to us.

This means: going with the faith and the strength the Lord gives us. When the Lord sends us, He also equips us with everything we need to accomplish the tasks to which He calls us.

This command that Jesus gives to Simon Peter, He is still giving it powerfully today to us who have come to the end of the age and who have the duty, as Christians, to proclaim what we have seen and heard to a world that is often hostile.

Are we also ready, like the disciples, to go out into the deep, that is, into the world, into territory that is sometimes hostile and disappointing, for the great catch to which the Lord is urgently inviting us ?

We always have good excuses to put forward, don’t we, so that we don’t have to move !

To go out into deep water is to venture farther from the shore, to leave the zones where we are in control, in order to enter into a greater dependence on God. It is to accept going to a place where only the Word of God will sustain us !

This miracle of the great catch reveals the holiness and power of God and brings us to repentance! We truly discover God and His call, which is irrevocable.

Before this event, Peter had allowed Jesus to get into his boat, which was his work tool.

Let us also allow Jesus to use our “boat” so that He may first bless us and transform us, and then send us out into deeper waters ! We will witness miracles! Around us, souls will be saved by the power of the HOLY SPIRIT.

Franz