Year 1, Day 214: Luke 5

Peter Meets Jesus

If you want to see something pretty cool today, read Simon Peter’s reaction to seeing the Lord in comparison to Isaiah’s reaction to seeing the Lord.  (Compare Luke 5:8 with Isaiah 6:5)  Now, they aren’t direct quotes – not even close.  But they do have a few things in similarity.

• Both Peter and Isaiah see the Lord fully for who He is.  (You’ll need Isaiah 6:1, actually)
• Both Peter and Isaiah have no physical response except one of humility in God’s presence
• Both immediately recognize how doomed they are to be so close to perfection knowing that sin cannot abide in God’s presence
• Both receive reassurance that they are not doomed, Peter receives a promise to be used by God and Isaiah receives a promise of atonement

I think it is pretty cool to look at both of these people and learn from their true encounter with God.    Encounters with the divine humble us.  They bring us to our spiritual – and sometimes physical – knees and reveal how much we need mercy, confession, and repentance.  Encounters with God reveal just how much of our life is spent “fishing” for the wrong result.  Encounters with God give us reassurance and new direction. 

For the record, if you throw into the mix Paul’s encounter with Jesus on the Damascus road in Acts 9 or Moses’ encounter with the burning bush in Exodus 3 and you still come out with the same result.  When God work, these are the typical results: humans become humble, humans understand their doom, God reassures through grace.

The Call

There is a really neat aspect to this story as we find it in Luke.  In Mark and in Matthew we find a much more sterile version of this story.  They say that Jesus was walking beside the lake, Jesus calls out to them, and they leave their nets and follow.  Matthew and Mark make it sound so simple.  But here in Luke we get a fuller picture.  Jesus gets into Peter’s boat and Peter is willing to serve Him.  Peter must therefore like Jesus.  And when Jesus tells him to put out his nets, Peter complains about the futility of the act but he does listen.  What do we have here?  It’s really quite simple.  Jesus calls Peter to be a disciple because Peter demonstrates that he likes Jesus, he listens to Jesus, and he is willing to serve Jesus.  That’s what the call to discipleship is all about.

Jesus’ Public Relations

Forging ahead, I now want to make a subtle point about these healing stories.  In our Youth Sunday School class we spent an hour looking at this point this past week and it is relevant here.  Notice that when Jesus goes to a town, he doesn’t pay a herald to go before Him and announce His coming.  Nor does he advertise about Himself once He gets there.  As many of these stories indicate, the word of His miracles goes before Him. 

The people who are healed – or even see His healing – tell others about Jesus.  They don’t save the people they are talking to – only Jesus does that.  But they are going before the Lord and following the leading of the Holy Spirit to prepare the hearts so that when Christ does show up they are ready to receive him.  Unfortunately some are only ready physically, but some are ready both physically and spiritually! 

So often I get caught up in the desire of bringing Christ to a person that I forget that I may rather be called to prepare a heart so that Christ can come to them later.  That is a very important task, and it often gets pushed to the side or swept under a carpet.  But the report of Jesus must go out.  The hearts of the people must be prepared. 

Jesus and the Leper

Let’s now look at the following stories.  Jesus heals a little.  The leper says “If you will it …”  How often do we forget to seek God’s will before asking for something?  What if God didn’t want that leper to be healed because He had another plan for that leper?  There is nothing wrong with the leper desiring to be healed – so long as the leper understands that if God wills something different that God’s will takes precedence as the greater path.  I love this leper, for in him I see such a simple truth that he displays.  This truth is rare in scripture among those with whom Jesus interacts.  It is even rarer in the culture around us today.  In this leper we find a man who is willing to submit to the will of God.

Jesus came looking for those willing to submit, but Jesus looks for such people among the commoners in the land.  In fact, so much of the early Gospel accounts narrow that even further to indicate that Jesus came to be among the sick of this world!  If Jesus wanted to hang out among the righteousness, He shouldn’t have come at all!  No one in this world is righteous, and nobody in this world has ever been righteous outside of God’s intervention with the exception of Jesus.  Jesus didn’t come to hang out with His own kind.  He came to hang out with people who are sick.  Jesus came to hang out with people who are sick in sin.  Jesus came to hang out with tax collectors and lepers – physically and spiritually.

Levi’s Call and Celebration

But the last story tells us that this isn’t the only qualification for people that Jesus came to hang out with.  Jesus came to hang out with those who would celebrate the fact that Jesus came to be with them.  Yes, Jesus came to be among the sinners.  But Jesus does not spend His time with every sinner; rather Jesus spends the vast majority of His time with the sinners who turn to Him and follow Him.  He spends His time with those who celebrate what He has come to do within them.  This is a large part of what Jesus is teaching in this last story of Luke 5.  The call of Levi mimics the call of Peter in many ways.  Jesus speaks to Levi and Levi likes Jesus, listens to Jesus, and is willing to serve in the ministry of Jesus.

There is a deeper point of theological truth here.  Sanctification is more than just “confessing that I believe in Jesus.”  Sanctification is celebrating that we belong to Jesus.  Sanctification is celebrating that Jesus has invited us in while the Holy Spirit teaches us to take the trash (sin) within us out to the curb.  Sanctification isn’t celebrating who we presently are … sanctification is celebrating that Jesus has come into our midst to make us into something that only He can see!  Those who celebrate what Jesus is doing within them are the ones that Jesus hangs around.  Those are the ones who become His disciples!

Pharisaical Grumbling

You will also notice something happens as Jesus goes forth into the world.  The religious elite around Jesus don’t particularly care for Him.  They don’t care for His teaching.  They especially don’t care for the crowd that gathers around Jesus.  They don’t like His methodology.  They really don’t like much about Jesus.  They think that He is a young upstart who is overturning the proverbial apple cart.

And you know what?  He is!

The religious leaders of Jesus’ day were missing the boat.  They thought religion was all about the temple.  They thought religion was all about control.  They thought religion was all about the outward signs of faith.  They genuinely believed that prosperity meant God’s blessing – which is why the poor and the sinners were so often looked down upon.

But Jesus comes to the world and gives a different view.  Jesus says, “It isn’t the wealthy that God has blessed but rather the humble.  It isn’t the high in status that God has blessed but rather those who are willing to cast off their own desires and serve Him.  It isn’t the person who presents this perfect façade that is blessed but rather the person who genuinely acknowledges their sin and confesses it.

Jesus teaches true spirituality and they hate Him for it.  Pay attention here, because I don’t think much has changed over the last 2,000 years.  People who preach true spirituality are still hated to this day.  Religious leaders – even ones in the Christian Church – are still finding ways to persecute people who seek genuine discipleship and true spirituality.

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