Fifth Sunday in Ordinary Time – Cycle C
Reflecting on Luke 5: 1-11
They do this for a living, every night but the Sabbath. They study the sea. They know its ebbs and flows. Their families depend on their patience, their intuition about where to cast their nets. And this night, they can say with certainty, the sea has no fish.
Jesus has commandeered Simon’s boat and is teaching a short distance from shore. It’s morning now, and the exhausted fishermen are cleaning their nets, joining with others to listen to this unknown, charismatic teacher.
Jesus says to Simon, “Cast out into the deep for a catch.” Is there anything more beautiful? Jesus is sitting in the boat. The crowds on the shore are gathered. And with the words of his mouth, the schools of fish, hidden all night, gather to hear him too.
On the Fifth Day of creation Jesus, the One who was there at the Beginning, commanded the fish to “be fruitful and increase in number and fill the waters in the seas.” And now, billions of years later, that Voice is out in the sea with them. They gather by the millions to hear his Voice again.
The fishermen don’t know this, of course. But in just their brief moments with Jesus they are willing to cast their nets deep. Like the fish, they are drawn by the Voice who, on the Sixth Day, created humankind in His Image.
And so out they go, out into the deep, where the vast numbers of fish leap into their nets.
That was a mere two thousand years ago. The voice of Jesus has not changed. Listen. Then cast out into the deep and watch his grace move in your life.
Have you ever experienced the astonishing abundance of God’s grace?
Kathy McGovern ©2016