A meditation on Luke 5:1–11 (Trinity V, 2026)
Simon has fished this lake his whole life. He owns the boats. He knows the water, the season, the depths, what came up in the nets last week and what came up last year. If there were a trade school for fishermen, they would study under him. And he has spent all night failing at the one thing he is master of. Toward morning he is doing the only sensible thing left: washing the nets, going home, trying again tomorrow.
This is the story we usually tell wrong.
You’ve heard this passage preached before, probably by me. Trust God with your nets. Put in the effort, cast a little wider, and God will multiply your labor. Listen to the Master’s instructions and it will go better for you next time. It is a tidy moral, and it is not what St. Luke is doing here.
St. Luke is telling us a story of death and resurrection, and the miraculous catch of fish is nothing more than the illustration.
The Absurd Instruction
Jesus is not a fisherman. He is a carpenter’s son who spends His life teaching. What does He know about nets, currents, the particular habits of this particular lake? By every rule of Simon’s trade and every year of his experience, the instruction to let down the nets again, in daylight, in the worst hour, in the exact spot he has just failed: is absurd.
Simon almost says as much. Master, we have worked all night and caught nothing. You can hear the objection behind the obedience. But he says it anyway: “Nevertheless, at Your word, I will let down the net.” Not because he believes it will work.
This is where faith begins for most of us, not with certainty that Jesus is right, but with the exhausted knowledge that everything else has failed. You did not come to Christ because you had it figured out. You came because your own competence, your own effort, your own nets, came up empty.
This is the first death in the passage: the death of Simon’s confidence that he knows what will work.
The Fish Were Never the Point
Notice what St. Luke does not do. He does not count the fish. There is no tally, the way the Gospels count loaves and leftover baskets elsewhere. The catch is simply “great,” and the story moves on. That is a clue. The Holy Spirit is telling us this is not the point.
St. Augustine saw something better in this scene: the cross as bait cast into the water, and Satan, mistaking Christ’s death for weakness, for defeat, swallowing it whole, only to find a hook inside. The apparent failure of the crucifixion is the very thing that destroys death’s power. This is what Jesus means when He tells Simon, I will make you a fisher of men. The catching of the fish is the picture of the cross catching death itself.
Depart From Me
When the nets begin to break and the boat begins to sink, Simon does not ask for more. He falls to his knees and says, Depart from me, Lord, for I am a sinful man.
That single sentence is the meaning of the whole passage.
Why does he say it? Because in this moment Jesus reveals He does not merely know where the fish are: He knows everything. If He knows the water this well, He knows Simon’s history this well. There is nowhere left to hide. No credential, no reputation, no pedigree of expertise can stand between Simon and what Jesus sees.
We all build these credentials. A title. A number: how many students are in the school, how many people in the pews. A car, a physique, a résumé of accomplishments we set between ourselves and whoever is asking. Jesus sees through all of it. As Paul says, our works are filthy rags before Him.
Simon’s instinct here is the opposite of what we’d expect. He does not draw closer to holiness; he tries to protect himself from it. This is the oldest instinct of every sinner: if God is truly holy, He must want nothing to do with me until I’ve cleaned myself up first. I’ll get my life in order, and then I’ll come back to church. I’ll get my sins in order, and then I’ll open the Bible again. We assume God recoils from our mess the way we recoil from each other’s. So we say, with Simon, get away from me, not out of irreverence, but out of a kind of broken reverence. Depart, before I contaminate what’s holy.
And notice what Jesus does not do. He does not correct him. He does not say, Simon, you’re too hard on yourself. Simon says, I am a sinful man, and Jesus, in effect, says: I know. I have known since before you were conceived. This is why I came: while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. Not after we fixed ourselves. Not once we got the order right. While we were still dead.
Not Rehabilitation: Resurrection
It would be easy to soften this into a story about second chances: Simon getting another shot, a slightly improved version of himself who no longer doubts. That is not what happens.
Simon is not rehabilitated. He does not move from fifty percent to seventy. He does not go from sick to somewhat healthy, from limping to walking on his own. He is not sent home with instructions to try harder next time. He has to say: I am dead. I am worthless without You.
And he does not become Simon 2.0. He becomes someone else. Peter. The rock. Because the old Simon, his skill, his reputation, his standing among the other fishermen, is buried in this boat, and Jesus says to what remains: Rise.
This is the whole shape of the Gospel compressed into one scene on a lake. Christ does not come to repair us, polish us, make us a little more efficient or a little more humble. He does not want an improved version of your old self. He wants you dead and buried, so that what rises is no longer you managing your own competence, but Christ living in you.
The Empty Net
Look back at your own life: thirty years, fifty, seventy. How much of your effort has actually filled the net? Or has it slipped through, leaving you still exhausted, still waiting for the moment you’ll finally be enough: capable enough, dependable enough, whole enough that people will love and accept you the way you’ve always hoped?
It is not coming. Not because God is withholding it, but because it was never on offer. The world promises that enough struggle eventually produces enough security. It is an illusion, and you already know it, because you have tried.
Christ says two words instead: Fear not.
This death precedes discipleship: Peter still has years of formation ahead of him, failures still to come, a fire of coals still waiting for him on a beach after his own betrayal. But that formation begins from resurrection. It does not build toward it. You do not clean up the net before you bring it to Him. You bring Him the empty net, and He fills it, and only then does the work of becoming Peter begin.
The gospel does not start where your effort left off. It starts in the boat, with the nets empty, the reputation gone, and one sentence left to say: Depart from me, for I am a sinful man.
And Christ’s answer is always the same: I know. Rise.
