1. Grace, mercy, and peace to you from God our Heavenly Father and our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. The message from God’s Word on this 5th Sunday after Epiphany is taken from Luke 5:1-11 and is entitled, “The God of Surprises,” dear brothers and sisters in Christ.
2. In our Gospel lesson from Luke 5, Peter asks Jesus to please go away. But Jesus is the God of surprises and, rather than go away, He comes closer. In 2003, Stephen Prothero wrote a book called American Jesus: How the Son of God became a National Icon. In it, he offered a cultural history of Jesus in America.
3. Rather than study the writings of theologians, he looked at the daily life of God’s people. He observed their Jesus bumper stickers, their Jesus movies and musicals, their Jesus figurines and bobble-head dolls, their Jesus inflatables, and their Jesus car air fresheners. Wherever Jesus appeared, Prothero observed Him and chronicled His following. From the sagely Jesus of Thomas Jefferson to the Lord of Judgment of the Great Awakenings to the Sweet Savior of the sentimental novel, Prothero recorded the changing figure of Jesus that people encountered in their daily life.
4. I thought about Prothero’s book when I read our gospel reading for today. Luke is recording the call of the first disciples. What struck me from this narrative is the way in which Jesus appeared to the disciples the day He called them to follow Him. Remember, this is not the first time the reader of Luke’s gospel has met Jesus. Throughout his account, Luke has given us many different pictures of Jesus.
5. In the annunciation, Jesus is announced by the angel Gabriel that Mary is to be the Mother of the Son of God in terms of His rule. He will sit on the throne of David and deliver people from their sins. Mary responds with a song that celebrates God dethroning the powerful and lifting up the lowly, feeding the hungry and sending the rich away empty. In the nativity, Jesus is revealed as the Lord of Hosts by an army of angels who break out in song. They celebrate the birth of the Savior and send shepherds to confirm their word. The shepherds respond by hastening to see these heavenly things that are hidden in earthly wrappings and then share what they know with the world.
6. In the presentation in the Temple, Jesus appears in the arms of Simeon as the long-promised Messiah. He will deliver Israel from oppression and open the Kingdom of God to the Gentiles. He is like a sigh of relief after you have held your breath in anticipation. After seeing this, Simeon is prepared to die in peace.
7. The appearances continue. In the Temple, in the Jordan River, in the wilderness, in the synagogue in Nazareth, again and again, Luke offers us visions of Jesus. Each revelation brings a different quality for us to see. So what quality is emphasized the day Jesus calls His first disciples? What kind of a Jesus do they follow and what might they expect from Him?
8. This Jesus is a God of surprises. While the disciples are cleaning their nets from a long night of fishing, Jesus gets into one of their boats and sits down and starts teaching. A failed night of fishing is followed by a surprising proclamation.
9. Then, Jesus directs His words straight at Peter and to the other fishermen with him. He instructs them to put out into the deep water and lower their nets for a catch. Surprisingly, Jesus this carpenter has expertise in fishing. Although it goes against common knowledge and his own experience as a fisherman, Peter obeys Jesus. The fishermen see a surprising abundance of fish. Their boat is suddenly capsizing because of the miraculous number of fish that are brought in. This Jesus is a God of surprises.
10. But maybe the most intimate and powerful surprise is the last one that is recorded. Peter realizes he is in the presence of someone holy, this Jesus. His words are powerful, and His works are full of wonder. Suddenly, Peter is overwhelmed, not by the miraculous catch, but by his own sinfulness. He knows he is unable to stand in the presence of the holy Lord. So, he stops gathering fish and falls to his knees in front of Jesus and begs Him to go away. Peter knows that the holy cannot abide with the sinful and, in an appeal to Jesus’ mercy, Peter asks Jesus to please go away.
11. But Jesus is the God of surprises and, rather than go away, He comes closer. He sees Peter and the other fishermen and asks that they come closer to Him, that they follow Him. He will make them fishers of the Kingdom. Imagine how surprising this is. Jesus is a Lord who calls sinners into His presence and promises to transform them for service in His Kingdom.
12. This is the image of Jesus we have when people are called into discipleship. Not a Jesus who demands that you earn your spot in His Kingdom by displaying your righteousness before Him. Not a Jesus who looks at your qualifications and sees if you can make it into His Kingdom. Not a Jesus who sends you away to clean up your life before you come and follow Him.
13. No. We have a Jesus who calls and gathers sinners into His Kingdom through His Word and Sacraments. This is what we learn the day Jesus calls us. And this is what we see as His most surprising work in the gospel. On the cross, He takes an instrument of torture and uses it to bring about deliverance from our sins, death, and the power of the devil. He dies under the judgment of sin that He might rise and bring forgiveness to all sinners. This is His mission, and this is how and why He calls you and me to follow Him. Jesus has come to be our surprising Savior. Even though He sees our sin, He gathers us into His Kingdom through an act of forgiveness and sends us forth in service to God and to the world. Amen. Now the peace of God that passes all understanding, guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus until life everlasting. Amen.
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