Signs and Wonders

Jesus’ voice resonated across the surface of the water as He taught about the seeds and the sower, about birds and briars, poor rocky soil and rich fertile ground. To Simon, this would have been another of Jesus’ rather obscure narratives without an identifiable point that he could discern [Mark 4:10, 13]. It also would have smacked a bit too much of farming and dry, dusty land to hold the interest of a confirmed fisherman, especially one who was exhausted from a night of fruitless labor.

Jesus would have agreed with Simon’s pessimistic assessment of the crowd’s engagement with His message. He even said as much to the disciples later, in His peculiar, roundabout way: “…To you has been given the secret of the kingdom of God, but for those outside everything is in parables, so that ‘they may indeed see but not perceive, and may indeed hear but not understand, lest they should turn and be forgiven.’” As Jesus sat in the boat teaching, His very words were the seed of which He spoke, and the various types of soil of which He spoke crowded the shoreline before Him, listening in rapt attention. How it must have broken His heart to know how little fertile ground was represented in that throng. But He had other work to accomplish before this day was over, work that was already in progress by way of His calculated inconveniencing of Simon.

As Jesus dismissed the crowd, Simon undoubtedly stifled an exclamation of relief as he prepared to row back to shore and resume his interrupted chores. That notion was short-lived.

“Put out into the deep and let down your nets for a catch.” With those words the last strand of Simon’s already frayed patience was suddenly at the snapping point. He had somehow kept his composure as Jesus commandeered his boat and interrupted his morning routine. Now Jesus was in effect insulting Simon’s considerable knowledge and experience as a commercial fisherman by asking him to do that which was undoable! Even a rank apprentice would know that fish were not present to be caught in daylight hours, especially in deep water. Bright sunlight made the fishermen’s white linen nets stand out brilliantly in the deep blue water like the death trap that they were. They were useless except at nighttime. And though they were long enough to reach a good stone’s throw between boats, the nets only hung in the water a little over a man’s height below the floats which ran along the surface. In any water deeper than that the fish, if they were present, could simply swim underneath the net and be on their way. Not that any fish would be present since they only came up into the shallower waters at night to feed. At first light any schools that had managed to avoid the nets -as they all had the previous night- would move further out into the lake and dive down into the coolness and security of deep water.

Simon took a deep breath and carefully crafted a response that spoke more by what it didn’t say than by what it did: “Master, we [the lifelong and highly skilled fishermen] toiled all night and took nothing! But at your word, [You, the carpenter with no commercial fishing experience] I will let down the nets.” By Simon’s standards, this was a triumph of diplomacy. He had managed to rather gently call Jesus’ attention to His utter lack of fishing credentials, while still deferring to His leadership by agreeing to this nonsensical request.

Simon barked out orders to Andrew, James, John and the hired hands, and their finely tuned nocturnal fishing enterprise swung groggily into operation during unaccustomed daylight hours. Partially mended nets still wet from the previous night were hastily loaded onto the boats as curious onlookers wondered at this strange turn of events. Tired arms strained again at the oars, having had no sleep to restore their vigor. Questioning glances were exchanged between the fishermen as they rowed out through the chop, far beyond their customary fishing waters. All the while Jesus stood in the bow of Simon’s boat, gazing serenely out toward the deep, silently willing the great gathering to begin in the dark waters far below the surface…