Jesus Will Sink Your Boat

I want to write briefly on a part of the Jesus story that I had the opportunity to read for my church's worship service today. It is below:

 So it was, as the multitude pressed about Him to hear the word of God, that He stood by the Lake of Gennesaret, ² and saw two boats standing by the lake; but the fishermen had gone from them and were washing their nets. ³ Then He got into one of the boats, which was Simon’s, and asked him to put out a little from the land. And He sat down and taught the multitudes from the boat.

⁴ When He had stopped speaking, He said to Simon, “Launch out into the deep and let down your nets for a catch.”

⁵ But Simon answered and said to Him, “Master, we have toiled all night and caught nothing; nevertheless at Your word I will let down the net.” ⁶ And when they had done this, they caught a great number of fish, and their net was breaking. ⁷ So they signaled to their partners in the other boat to come and help them. And they came and filled both the boats, so that they began to sink. ⁸ When Simon Peter saw it, he fell down at Jesus’ knees, saying, “Depart from me, for I am a sinful man, O Lord!”

⁹ For he and all who were with him were astonished at the catch of fish which they had taken; ¹⁰ and so also were James and John, the sons of Zebedee, who were partners with Simon. And Jesus said to Simon, “Do not be afraid. From now on you will catch men.” ¹¹ So when they had brought their boats to land, they ^[a]forsook all and followed Him.

While there are many lessons that could be and have been preached on this chunk of scripture, it is stunning that Jesus does not promise the fishermen riches, future business success or to be famous and influential. He gives them some cryptic message about catching people from here on out (whatever that means) and then they follow him. Crazy, right?

Still there is one wild thing to this story that I felt, deep in my soul:

Jesus will sink your boat if you obey him

Have you ever notice that before? These are seasoned fishermen and they'd likely never came up with a catch that almost sank not one, but two fishing vessels. Jesus gives them abundance of life (that is, fish was the ticket to providing for themselves and their families) but so much so that it almost sinks them. Still, they're ready to be sunk. The passage ends with them simply walking away from their boats and effectively "sinking" their lives for Jesus. The future would find these men (with the exception of John) and more dying as martyrs for this Jesus.

So what I wanted to leave readers with was this thought: are you ready to be sunken for Christ? Are you genuinely okay with Jesus derailing your life and taking you away from everything you thought your life might be? Because his M.O. says that that's what he's about. Will he bless? sure. But it'll cost your entire way of life.

Pax,

CM