History tells us that Simon Peter, the apostle and disciple of Jesus, was crucified by the emperor Nero in Rome in 64 AD. The reason: he would not renounce his belief that Jesus had risen from the dead, that Jesus was God in the flesh, and that through Jesus God was revealed as Lord of all creation (including the Roman empire), not Nero. Peter, in fact, felt unworthy to be crucified in the same manner as Jesus and insisted on being crucified upside down. The Romans obliged. What in the world could motivate someone to live and to die like this? I think Peter had encountered Someone who made sense of everything–both life and death. I think Peter had encountered a glory that exposed all the fading glories of this world, a glory that filled his life with meaning and purpose and energized his days with the wonder and presence of God Himself. Peter had come to know that he was part of a larger story “in which the last word is Glory.”[1]
FROM FISH TO GLORY
Peter’s first glimpse of this glory was when he met Jesus on the Sea of Galilee (Luke 5:1-11). Peter and his crew had been fishing all night. They weren’t fishing for fun, either. Fishing was Peter’s work. His family depended on his catch of fish. And all night long, he hadn’t caught a single snapper, not one little fish. Peter was dead tired, ready to go home to tell his wife the bad news and get some much-needed sleep.
At that vulnerable point, Jesus challenged him: “Set out your nets a little deeper.”
What? Are you crazy? Peter was probably thinking, “I don’t need a carpenter to tell me how to work! And why go deeper? This seems useless.” I don’t know why Peter did it (maybe it was to prove that Jesus was crazy), but he took Jesus’ bait (no pun intended), rowed out into deeper water, and let his nets down.
What Peter saw next could only be described as “Glory!” Peter’s fishing nets were overflowing with fish! Imagine the scene: scales gleaming in the sunlight, fins and flippers flying everywhere, water splashing, nets breaking, people yelling. Peter could not believe his eyes. He was thrilled and astonished.
And humbled. He quickly realized he was in the presence of something more powerful, Someone worthy of fear and awe. He immediately said, “Depart from me, Jesus, for I am a sinful man” (Luke 5:8). Peter had what the Bible called a “fear of the Lord” experience, the awareness “that the presence or revelation of God introduces into our lives. We are not the center of our existence. We are not the sum total of what matters. We don’t know what will happen next.”[2]
SET YOUR NETS A LITTLE DEEPER
Why did Jesus do this miracle? Was it so that Peter could buy a new house or a new boat with the extra cash he’d get from the fish? So Peter would know that whenever he needed a boatful of fish or an easy life, he could just call on his good buddy Jesus? I don’t think so. Although Jesus did many miracles (usually acts of mercy), he refused to be seen as a “miracle worker.” He told people not to talk about them, and he warned that it was “an evil and adulterous generation” that asked for miracles (Matt. 16:4). Jesus knew that we tend to view God as our “genie,” using Him for quick-fix miracles, but then wanting him to go back into His corner until we need Him again. Jesus also knew that seeing isn’t believing. As Philip Yancey said, “Although faith may produce miracles, miracles do not necessarily produce faith.”[3] That’s why John called Jesus’ miracles “signs:” they were pointers to something else, something greater and enduring. But we don’t always follow the signs. As Yancey also commented, “A sign is not the same thing as proof; a sign is merely a marker for someone looking in the right direction.”[4] In following Jesus, Peter soon learned that God is after much more than quick fixes. If God were a genie, then the magic lamp certainly wasn’t working when Jesus was arrested and nailed to the Roman cross.
So then why did Jesus deliberately do this one amazing miracle for Peter? I think maybe it was to break into Peter’s heart. Maybe so that Peter would know that God is not some far off, ephemeral concept or idea, but rather the living God, right here, right now, in our everyday “work-world.” Maybe Jesus was saying, “Peter, I’ve got the material stuff in your life covered. So trust me with what really matters, your soul.” Jesus invited Peter into the wonder-full sphere of entrusting his life into the hands of Almighty God, to “set out a little deeper.” What this invitation means to each of us is personal, since God is able to speak into our hearts. But God does provides clues in His creation and in His Word. And one of those clues is the beautiful, creative connection between work and worship.
THE INTERSECTION OF WORK AND WORSHIP
It is important to notice that this miracle occurred in Peter’s workplace. “Work” is what most of us do most of our daily lives, whether working for an employer, going to school, running a business, volunteering, or running a home. Work is a good, God-imitating and God-created thing. God is a worker. Our Genesis story tells us that for six days God “worked” in creating this amazing, glorious universe. Then He put us to work, cultivating, maintaining, and creating in this world of His (Gen. 1:28). We feel most alive, most ourselves, when we are creative, working, doing a job well done. And yet work can become all-consuming, an “idol” that we worship and that enslaves us. And work sometimes can become drudgery, dull, monotonous, boring. Accepting the invitation to “set our nets a little deeper” can give us the perspective we need for life and work.
This invitation, the “entry point” into living life more deeply, is worship–the worship of something greater than ourselves, greater than our work, greater, more enduring, and more meaningful in every way. Worship is being encountered by the Holy, Majestic, Almighty, Loving God in wide-eyed wonder. As Eugene Peterson notes, worship is “stopping and being quiet long enough to see, open-eyed with wonder—resurrection wonder. As we stand or sit in surprised and open receptivity to what is beyond us, what we cannot control, we cultivate the fear of the Lord. Our souls are formed by what we cannot work up or take charge of: we respond and enter into what the resurrection of Jesus continues to do on the foundations of creation, our work and workplace.”[5]
In the Old Testament, this time of worship was the Sabbath, which God ingrained in creation itself. For six days, God worked in creating this universe, and then on the seventh day he “rested” (Gen. 2:2). He stopped to reflect on all He had made, saying “It is very good.” And God commanded the Israelites to celebrate that seventh day as sacred, both to quit our slavish tendencies for ourselves and for others, and to entrust ourselves to the wonder of God. Before the Israelites entered the promised land of Canaan, this cadence of work and worship was ingrained in them. For six days they would go out and gather the bread that God provided each day (“Give us today our daily bread”), but on the seventh, they didn’t gather. They stopped, reflected, worshipped. But would they have anything to eat on that seventh day? Worship and Sabbath taught them that God does provide, for He provided double on the sixth day so that they would have enough for the seventh. Worship and Sabbath taught them that humans do not “live on bread alone but on every Word that comes from the mouth of the LORD” (Deut. 8:3). In other words, we need worship to live.
Worship cultivates a capacity for wonder, clearing our eyes to see our relationships and our work from an eternal perspective. Worship restores the “fear of the Lord,” which is “fear with the scary element deleted.”[6] This “fear of the Lord” is the right and proper awe of God our Father which replaces all other fears, and properly frames the anxieties and pretensions in our lives. Worship is the well of energy that reorients, re-energizes and refuels. Worship reminds us what life is for–it’s not just to catch fish for a living, but to live for “catching” and loving others (Luke 5:10). Worship turns our perspective from being “Me” centered to being “You” centered, from an entirely selfish outlook on the universe to one that resembles the heart of God reflected in Jesus Christ.
HOW ABOUT WORSHIP?
As we return to some normalcy post-Covid, now is a good time to return to worship. Worship is not just Sunday morning; it is entrusting our souls every day to the loving care of God. But worship is also, and very much, Sunday morning too. As Peterson writes, “the church is to embed Sabbath-keeping in weekly acts of worship in the company of the people of God. We keep Sabbath best when we enter a place of worship, gather with a congregation, and sing and pray and listen to God. This is ancient wisdom and we disregard it at our peril.”[7]
As Paul prayed, “I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the saints, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses all knowledge–that you may be filled to the measure with all the fullness of God” (Eph. 3:17-19).
You can read more in my book From Fish to Glory: 1 Peter for Daily Living, available on Amazon and at https://store.bookbaby.com/book/from-fish-to-glory.
[1] Eugene Peterson, Living the Resurrection: The Risen Christ in Everyday Life (Colorado Springs: NavPress, 2006), 64.
[2] Id, 28.
[3] Philip Yancey, The Jesus I Never Knew (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1995), 171.
[4] Id, 178.
[5] Eugene Peterson, Christ Plays in Ten Thousand Places: A Conversation in Spiritual Theology (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2005), 117.
[6] Peterson, Living the Resurrection, 28.
[7] Peterson, Christ Plays, 112.