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᛭ INI ᛭

Today’s Gospel is a gift for you. It’s not necessarily about you. It’s describing how the Lord works it out so that He catches you, so that you’re His, and His forever.

This flies in the face of our sensibilities. It flies in the face of most Christians try to read their Bibles. We live in a time where most people who read their Bibles try to figure out what a given text is telling them personally. To make that happen this verses, characters, and stories get pulled out of context so that the reader gets some wisdom, pick me up, or principles to apply to their life.

But that’s not why Spirit caused the Scriptures to be written. This sort of pandering to an individual’s personal desires is not how the Lord does things. He doesn’t do things like we do things. He doesn’t fit our wisdom, our way of thinking.

Like I just said: Today’s Gospel is a gift for you. It’s not necessarily about you. It’s describing how the Lord works it out so that He catches you, so that you’re His, and His forever.

The Lord catches sinners. He shows up to do that very thing. He comes and suffers and bleeds and dies for sinners. He gets caught for the sake of sinners. He suffers Himself to be rejected by men. He is forsaken by His Father. He suffers under Pontius Pilate—crucified, died, and was buried.

“Christ crucified is the power of God and the wisdom of God.” It’s not human wisdom. It’s not human strength. But it’s God’s power and wisdom. Not only that “it pleased God through the foolishness of preaching to save those who believe.” And now we get back to what’s going on in our Gospel lesson.

Christ crucified saves sinners. Christ comes to save sinners. Christ comes to be crucified for sinners. He doesn’t come to condemn and kill sinners. Confronted with his Creator, his Lord, His God, Peter rightly cries out: “Depart from me, for I am a sinful man, O Lord!” That’s actually the way of faith. Believers recognize they’re sinners, and thus because of their sins, they’re afraid to be in the presence of God. Peter has the right kind of fear of God. We don’t “fear God’s wrath,” as the Catechism teaches us to do from Exodus 20.

But all this is in our wheel house. We’re accustomed to this sort of preaching and message. We line up with Peter as sinner before Jesus. So, let’s turn back to how today’s Gospel is a gift for you. It’s not necessarily about you. It’s describing how the Lord works it out so that He catches you, so that you’re His, and His forever.

This is the turn of the text that flies in the face of our way of doing things. This is the turn where the text isn’t about us, but it’s a gift for us. After Jesus absolves Peter—that’s what Jesus is doing when He says, “Do not be afraid.” After Jesus absolves Peter, He repurposes him. “From now on you will be catching men.” “Catching” means “catching alive.” Jesus says to Peter, “From now on you will be catching men alive.”

Jesus here is calling Peter into the Office of the Ministry. He chose him—picked his boat! Here Jesus calls Peter to be a preacher of the Gospel, so that Peter will preach “Christ crucified” for the forgiveness of all your sins. This is how the Lord has chosen to catch you, too. This is why Jesus Himself established the Office of the Ministry. This is why there are Pastors.

We want Bible texts to be about us. But the Lord sets up His Word to tell you about Him and your need for Him. He sends out His chosen me for the same reason: to preach repentance and the forgiveness of sins. This is opposite from our normal way of thinking about Christianity. Our North American dialect of Christianity is steeped with the mentality of “pull yourself up by your boot straps.” It’s rooted into the mindset of individualism.

But like I said: Today’s Gospel is a gift for you. It’s not necessarily about you. It’s describing how the Lord works it out so that He catches you, so that you’re His, and His forever.

It’s a gift that the Lord doesn’t do things our way. He sets up means for you to be brought into His kingdom. He has different nets to catch you. There’s, of course, the preaching of His cross. There’s the water and word of Holy Baptism that Gifts Jesus’ cross and empty tomb to you. There’s Holy Absolution. There’s the bread and wine that are Jesus’—really are—Jesus’ body and blood, just like His words say.

But here’s the thing. As Lutherans we like to talk about the Word and Sacraments. Those aren’t abstract things. They don’t just drop out of heaven. The nets that dropped into the Sea of Galilee that day recorded in Luke 5 didn’t just plop down out of nowhere into the sea and caught the fish. Those nets were thrown in by fishermen! To catch fish you need nets and you need fishermen. So also, with the Word and Sacraments!

For there to be Sermons about Jesus’ death there needs to be a preacher, to preach repentance and forgiveness. You don’t just need words and water for Baptism. You need hands to pour the water and a mouth to speak the words. There’s a pastor with a mouth to speak the Absolution. There’s a man to bless the bread and wine with Jesus’ own words and hands to deliver the bread and wine that are Jesus’ body and blood because His blessing.

The Unaltered Augsburg Confession—that’s what the UAC in our congregation name is all about. The Unaltered Augsburg Confession puts it this way: “That we might obtain [saving] faith [in Jesus] the Office of preaching the Gospel and administering the Sacraments was [established by God], for through the Word and Sacraments, as through instruments, the Holy Spirit is given. He works [this] faith, where and when it pleases God, in those who hear the Gospel, that they are received into God’s favor for Christ’s sake alone.”

Old Adam scoffs at such a thing! “I don’t need that.” “It’s just me and Jesus.” But Jesus directly sent out preachers, like Peter, James, and John; and He continues to do so through the Holy Spirit working in the Church. Ministers—Jesus’ men who will catch you alive—show up in places of the Lord’s own choosing. Just like He chose Peter’s boat.

Today’s Gospel is a gift for you. It’s not necessarily about you. It’s describing how the Lord works it out so that He catches you, so that you’re His, and His forever.

It’s not how we think about the Lord working. We often over spiritualize how the Lord works. “Me and Jesus.” But who gets to define how that relationship works? Often not Jesus. But the Lord does things His way. He works in the way of Gift. First, Jesus chose Peter—a fisherman—to be His minister, “catching men alive.”

Down through centuries Jesus’ choosing continued. Two thousand years of choosing His men—putting them in proper places. Why? All for your sake. He chose His pastors so that you would be baptized, hear sermons, and receive His body and blood. That’s the net Jesus sent His clergymen to cast, to catch you. So you can be His, His forever.

“It pleased God through the [foolishness] of [preaching] to save those who believe. We preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and [foolishness] to Gentiles, but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and lthe wisdom of God.“

That’s the Gift of Luke 5 for you.

᛭ INI ᛭