_THE CALLING OF THE FOUR._
When Peter and his companions had the interview with Jesus by the
Jordan, and were summoned to follow Him, it was the designation, rather
than the appointment, to the Apostleship. They did accompany Him to
Cana, and thence to Capernaum; but here their paths diverged for a time,
Jesus passing on alone to Nazareth, while the novitiate disciples fall
back again into the routine of secular life. Now, however, His mission
is fairly inaugurated, and He must attach them permanently to His
person. He must lay His hand, where His thoughts have long been, upon
the future, making provision for the stability and permanence of His
work, that so the kingdom may survive and flourish when the Ascension
clouds have made the King Himself invisible.
St. Matthew and St. Mark insert their abridged narrative of the call
before the healing of the demoniac and the cure of Peter's
mother-in-law; and most expositors think that St. Luke's setting "in
order," in this case at least, is wrong; that he has preferred to have a
chronological inaccuracy, so that His miracles may be gathered into
related groups. But that our Evangelist is in error is by no means
certain; indeed, we are inclined to think that the balance of
probability is on the side of his arrangement. How else shall we
account for the crowds who now press upon Jesus so importunately and
with such Galilean ardour? It was not the rumour of His Judæan miracles
which had awoke this tempest of excitement, for the journey to Jerusalem
was not yet taken. And what else could it be, if the miraculous draught
of fishes was the first of the Capernaum miracles? But suppose that we
retain the order of St. Luke, that the call followed closely upon that
memorable Sabbath, then the crowds fall into the story naturally; it is
the multitude which had gathered about the door when the Sabbath sun had
set, putting an after-glow upon the hills, and on whose sick He wrought
His miracles of healing. Nor does the fact that Jesus went to be a guest
in Peter's house require us to invert the order of St. Luke; for the
casual acquaintance by the Jordan had since ripened into intimacy, so
that Peter would naturally offer hospitality to his Master on His coming
to Capernaum. Again, too, going back to the Sabbath in the synagogue, we
read how they were astonished at His doctrine; "for His word was with
authority;" and when that astonishment was heightened into amazement, as
they saw the demon cowed and silenced, this was their exclamation, "What
a word is this!" And does not Peter refer to this, when the same voice
that commanded the demon now commands them to "Let down the nets," and
he answers, "At Thy word I will"? It certainly seems as if the "word" of
the sea-shore were an echo from the synagogue, and so a "word" that
justifies the order of our Evangelist.
It was probably still early in the morning--for the days of Jesus began
back at the dawn, and very often before--when He sought the quiet of the
sea-shore, possibly to find a still hour for devotion, or perhaps to
see how His friends had fared with their all-night fishing. Little
quiet, however, could He find, for from Capernaum and Bethsaida comes a
hurrying and intrusive crowd, surging around Him with the swirl and roar
of confused voices, and pressing inconveniently near. Not that the crowd
was hostile; it was a friendly but inquisitive multitude, eager, not so
much to see a repetition of His miracles, as to hear Him speak, in those
rare, sweet accents, "the word of God." The expression characterizes the
whole teaching of Jesus. Though His words were meant for earth, for
human ears and for human hearts, there was no earthliness about them. On
the topics in which man is most exercised and garrulous, such as local
or national events, Jesus is strangely silent. He scarcely gives them a
passing thought; for what were the events of the day to Him who was
"before Abraham," and who saw the two eternities? what to Him was the
gossip of the hour, how Rome's armies marched and fought, or how "the
dogs of faction" bayed? To His mind these were but as dust caught in the
eddies of the wind. The thoughts of Jesus were high. Like the figures of
the prophet's vision, they had feet indeed, so that they could alight
and rest awhile on earthly things--though even here they only touched
earth at points which were common to humanity, and they were winged,
too, having the sweep of the lower spaces and of the highest heavens.
And so there was a heavenliness upon the words of Jesus, and a
sweetness, as if celestial harmonies were imprisoned within them. They
set men looking upwards, and listening; for the heavens seemed nearer as
He spoke, and they were no longer dumb. And not only did the words of
Jesus bring to men a clearer revelation of God, correcting the hard
views which man, in his fears and his sins, had formed of Him, but men
felt the Divineness of His speech; that Jesus was the Bearer of a new
evangel, God's latest message of hope and love. And He was the Bearer of
such a message; He was Himself that Evangel, the Word of God incarnate,
that men might hear of heavenly things in the common accents of earthly
speech.
Nor was Jesus loth to deliver His message; He needed no constraining to
speak of the things pertaining to the kingdom of God. Only let Him see
the listening heart, the void of a sincere longing, and His speech
distilled as the dew. And so no time was to Him inopportune; the break
of day, the noon, the night were all alike to Him. No place was out of
harmony with His message--the Temple-court, the synagogue, the domestic
hearth, the mountain, the lake-shore; He consecrated all alike with the
music of His speech. Nay, even upon the cross, amid its agonies, He
opens His lips once more, though parched with terrible thirst, to speak
peace within a penitent soul, and to open for it the gate of Paradise.
Drawn up on the shore, close by the water's edge, are two boats, empty
now, for Simon and his partners are busy washing their nets, after their
night of fruitless toil. Seeking for freer space than the pushing crowd
will allow Him, and also wanting a point of vantage, where His voice
will command a wider range of listeners, Jesus gets into Simon's boat,
and requests him to put out a little from the land. "And He sat down,
and taught the multitudes out of the boat," assuming the posture of the
teacher, even though the occasion partook so largely of the impromptu
character. When He dispensed the material bread He made the multitudes
"sit down;" but when He dispensed the living bread, the heavenly manna,
He left the multitudes standing, while He Himself sat down, so claiming
the authority of a Master, as His posture emphasized His words. It is
somewhat singular that when our Evangelist has been so careful and
minute in his description of the scene, giving us a sort of photograph
of that lakeside group, with bits of artistic colouring thrown in, that
then he should omit entirely the subject-matter of the discourse. But so
he does, and we try in vain to fill up the blank. Did He, as at
Nazareth, turn the lamps of prophecy full upon Himself, and tell them
how the "great Light" had at last risen upon Galilee of the nations? or
did He let His speech reflect the shimmer of the lake, as He told in
parable how the kingdom of heaven was "like unto a net that was cast
into the sea, and gathered of every kind"? Possibly He did, but His
words, whatever they were, "like the pipes of Pan, died with the ears
and hearts of those who heard them."
"When He had left speaking," having dismissed the multitude with His
benediction, He turns to give to His future disciples, Peter and Andrew,
a private lesson. "Put out into the deep," He said, including Andrew now
in His plural imperative, "and let down your nets for a draught." It was
a commanding voice, altogether different in its tone from the last words
He addressed to Peter, when He "requested" him to put out a little from
the land. Then He spoke as the Friend, possibly the Guest, with a
certain amount of deference; now He steps up to a very throne of power,
a throne which in Peter's life He never more abdicates. Simon recognizes
the altered conditions, that a Higher Will is now in the boat, where
hitherto his own will has been supreme; and saluting Him as "Master," he
says, "We toiled all night, and took nothing; but at Thy word I will
let down the nets." He does not demur; he does not hesitate one moment.
Though himself weary with his night-long labours, and though the command
of the Master went directly against his nautical experiences, he sinks
his thoughts and his doubts in the word of his Lord. It is true he
speaks of the failure of the night, how they have taken nothing; but
instead of making that a plea for hesitancy and doubt, it is the foil to
make his unquestioning faith stand out in bolder relief. Peter was the
man of impulse, the man of action, with a swift-beating heart and an
ever-ready hand. To his forward-stepping mind decision was easy and
immediate; and so, almost before the command was completed, his swift
lips had made answer, "I will let down the nets." It was the language of
a prompt and full obedience. It showed that Simon's nature was
responsive and genuine, that when a Christly word struck upon his soul
it set his whole being vibrating, and drove out all meaner thoughts. He
had learned to obey, which was the first lesson of discipleship; and
having learned to obey, he was therefore fit to rule, qualified for
leadership, and worthy of being entrusted with the keys of the kingdom.
And how much is missed in life through feebleness of resolve, a lack of
decision! How many are the invertebrate souls, lacking in will and void
of purpose, who, instead of piercing waves and conquering the flow of
adverse tides, like the medusæ, can only drift, all limp and languid, in
the current of circumstance! Such men do not make apostles; they are but
ciphers of flesh and blood, of no value by themselves, and only of any
worth as they are attached to the unit of some stronger will. A poor
broken thing is a life spent in the subjunctive mood, among the
"mights" and "shoulds," where the "I will" waits upon "I would". That is
the truest, worthiest life that is divided between the indicative and
the imperative. As in shaking pebbles the smaller ones drop down to the
bottom, their place determined by their size, so in the shaking together
of human lives, in the rub and jostle of the world, the strong wills
invariably come to the top.
And how much do even Christians lose, through their partial or their
slow obedience! How we hesitate and question, when our duty is simply to
obey! How we cling to our own ways, modes, and wills, when the Christ is
commanding us forward to some higher service! How strangely we forget
that in the grammar of life the "Thou willest" should be the first
person, and the "I will" a far-off second! When the soldier hears the
word of command he becomes deaf to all other voices, even the voice of
danger, or the voice of death itself; and when Christ speaks to us His
word should completely fill the soul, leaving no room for hesitancy, no
place for doubt. Said the mother to the servants of Cana, "Whatsoever He
saith unto you, do it." That "whatsoever" is the line of duty, and the
line of beauty too. He who makes Christ's will his will, who does
implicitly "whatsoever He saith," will find a Cana anywhere, where
life's water turns to wine, and where life's common things are exalted
into sacraments. He who walks up to the light will surely walk in the
light.
We can imagine with what alacrity Simon obeys the Master's word, and how
the disappointment of the night and all sense of fatigue are lost in the
exhilaration of the new hopes. Seconded by the more quiet Andrew, who
catches the enthusiasm of his brother's faith, he pulls out into deep
water, where they let down the nets. Immediately they enclosed "a great
multitude" of fishes, a weight altogether beyond their power to lift;
and as they saw the nets beginning to give way with the strain, Peter
"beckoned" to his partners, James and John, whose boat, probably, was
still drawn up on the shore. Coming to their assistance, together they
secured the spoil, completely filling the two boats, until they were in
danger of sinking with the over-weight.
Here, then, we find a miracle of a new order. Hitherto, in the narrative
of our Evangelist, Jesus has shown His supernatural power only in
connection with humanity, driving away the ills and diseases which
preyed upon the human body and the human soul. And not even here did
Jesus make use of that power randomly, making it common and cheap; it
was called forth by the constraint of a great need and a great desire.
Now, however, there is neither the desire nor the need. It was not the
first time, nor was it to be the last, that Peter and Andrew had spent a
night in fruitless toil. That was a lesson they had early to learn, and
which they were never allowed long to forget. They had been quite
content to leave their boat, as indeed they had intended, on the sands,
until the evening should recall them to their task. But Jesus volunteers
His help, and works a miracle--whether of omnipotence, or omniscience,
or of both, it matters not, and not either to relieve some present
distress, or to still some pain, but that He might fill the empty boats
with fishes. We must not, however, assess the value of the miracle at
the market-price of the take, for evidently Jesus had some ulterior
motive and design. As the leaden types, lying detached and meaningless
in the "case," can be arranged into words and be made to voice the very
highest thought, so these boats and oars, nets and fish are but so many
characters, the Divine "code" as we may call it, spelling out, first to
these fishermen, and then to mankind in general, the deep thought and
purpose of Christ. Can we discover that meaning? We think we may.
In the first place, the miracle shows us the supremacy of Christ. We may
almost read the Divineness of Christ's mission in the manner of its
manifestation. Had Jesus been man only, His thoughts running on human
lines, and His plans built after human models, He would have arranged
for another Epiphany at the beginning of His ministry, showing His
credentials at the first, and announcing in full the purpose of His
mission. That would have been the way of man, fond as he is of surprises
and sudden transitions; but such is not the way of God. The forces of
heaven do not move forward in leaps and somersaults; their advances are
gradual and rhythmic. Evolution, and not revolution, is the Divine law,
in the realm of matter and of mind alike. The dawn must precede the day.
And just so the life of the Divine Son is manifested. He who is the
"Light of the world" comes into that world softly as a sunrise, lighting
up little by little the horizon of His disciples' thought, lest a
revelation which was too full and too sudden should only dazzle and
blind them. So far they have seen Him exercise His power over diseases
and demons, or, as at Cana, over inorganic matter; now they see that
power moving out in new directions. Jesus sets up His throne to face the
sea, the sea with which they were so familiar, and over which they
claimed some sort of lordship. But even here, upon their own element,
Jesus is supreme. He sees what they do not; He knows these deeps,
filling up with His omniscience the blanks they seek to fill with their
random guesses. Here, hitherto, their wills have been all-powerful; they
could take their boats and cast their nets just when and where they
would; but now they feel the touch of a Higher Will, and Christ's word
fills their hearts, impelling them onward, even as their boats were
driven of the wind. Jesus now assumes the command. His Will, like a
magnet, attracts to itself and controls their lesser wills; and as His
word now launches out the boat and casts the nets, so shortly, at that
same "word," will boats and nets, and the sea itself, be left behind.
And did not that Divine Will move beneath the water as well as above it,
controlling the movements of the shoal of fishes, as on the surface it
was controlling the thoughts and moving the hands of the fishermen? It
is true that in Gennesaret, as in our modern seas, the fish sometimes
moved in such dense shoals that an enormous "take" would be an event
purely natural, a wonder indeed, but no miracle. Possibly it was so
here, in which case the narrative would resolve itself into a miracle of
omniscience, as Jesus saw, what even the trained eyes of the fishermen
had not seen, the movements of the shoal, then regulating His commands,
so making the oars above and the fins below strike the water in unison.
But was this all? Evidently not, to Peter's mind, at any rate. Had it
been all to him, a purely natural phenomenon, or had he seen in it only
the prescience of Christ, a vision somewhat clearer and farther than his
own, it would not have created such feelings of surprise and awe. He
might still have wondered, but he scarcely would have worshipped. But
Peter feels himself in the presence of a Power that knows no limit, One
who has supreme authority over diseases and demons, and who now commands
even the fishes of the sea. In this sudden wealth of spoil he reads the
majesty and glory of the new-found Christ, whose word, spoken or
unspoken, is omnipotent, alike in the heights above and in the depths
beneath. And so the moment his thoughts are disengaged from the pressing
task he prostrates himself at the feet of Jesus, crying with
awe-stricken speech, "Depart from me; for I am a sinful man, O Lord!" We
are not, perhaps, to interpret this literally, for Peter's lips were apt
to become tremulous with the excitement of the moment, and to say words
which in a cooler mood he would recall, or at least modify. So here, it
surely was not his meaning that "the Lord," as he now calls Jesus,
should leave him; for how indeed should He depart, now that they are
afloat upon the deep, far from land? But such had been the revelation of
the power and holiness of Jesus, borne in by the miracle upon Peter's
soul, that he felt himself thrown back, morally and in every way, to an
infinite distance from Christ. His boat was unworthy to carry, as the
house of the centurion was unworthy to receive, such infinite
perfections as now he saw in Jesus. It was an apocalypse indeed,
revealing, together with the purity and power of Christ, the littleness,
the nothingness of his sinful self; that, as Elijah covered his face
when the Lord passed by, so Peter feels as if he ought to draw the veil
of an infinite distance around himself--the distance which would ever be
between him and the Lord, were not His mercy and His love just as
infinite as His power.
The fuller meaning of the miracle, however, becomes apparent when we
interpret it in the light of the call which immediately followed.
Reading the sudden fear which has come over Peter's soul, and which has
thrown his speech somewhat into confusion, Jesus first stills the
agitation of his heart by a word of assurance and of cheer. "Fear not,"
He says, for "from henceforth thou shalt catch men." It will be observed
that St. Luke puts the commission of Christ in the singular number, as
addressed to Peter alone, while St. Matthew and St. Mark put it in the
plural, as including Andrew as well: "I will make you to become fishers
of men." The difference, however, is but immaterial, and possibly the
reason why St. Luke introduces the Apostle Peter with such a frequent
nomination--for "Simon" is a familiar name in these early
chapters--making his call so emphatic and prominent, was because in the
partisan times which came but too early in the Church the Gentile
Christians, for whom our Evangelist is writing, might think unworthily
and speak disparagingly of him who was the Apostle of the Circumcision.
Be this as it may, Simon and Andrew are now summoned to, and
commissioned for, a higher service. That "henceforth" strikes across
their life like a high watershed, severing the old from the new, their
future from their past, and throwing all the currents of their thoughts
and plans into different and opposite directions. They are to be
"fishers of men," and Jesus, who so delights in giving object-lessons to
His disciples, uses the miracle as a sort of background, on which He may
write their commission in large and lasting characters; it is the Divine
seal upon their credentials.
Not that they understood the full purport of His words at once. The
phrase "fishers of men" was one of those seed-thoughts which needed
pondering in the heart; it would gradually unfold itself in the
after-months of discipleship, ripening at last in the summer heat and
summer light of the Pentecost. They were now to be fishers of the higher
art, their quest the souls of men. This must now be the one object, the
supreme aim of their life, a life now ennobled by a higher call. Plans,
journeys, thoughts, and words, all must bear the stamp of their great
commission, which is to "catch men," not unto death, however, as the
fish expire when taken from their native element, but unto life--for
such is the meaning of the word. And to "take them alive" is to save
them; it is to take them out of an element which stifles and destroys,
and to draw them, by the constraints of truth and love, within the
kingdom of heaven, which kingdom is righteousness and life, even eternal
life.
But if the full meaning of the Master's words grows upon them--an
aftermath to be harvested in later months--enough is understood to make
the line of present duty plain. That "henceforth" is clear, sharp, and
imperative. It leaves room neither for excuse nor postponement. And so
immediately, "when they had brought their boats to land, they left all
and followed Him," to learn by following how they too might be winners
of souls, and in a lesser, lower sense, saviours of men.
The story of St. Luke closes somewhat abruptly, with no further
reference to Simon's partners; and having "beckoned" them into his
central scene, and filled their boat, then, as in a dissolving-view, the
pen of our Evangelist draws around them the haze of silence, and they
disappear. The other Synoptists, however, fill up the blank, telling how
Jesus came to them, probably later in the day, for they were mending
the nets, which had been tangled and somewhat torn with the weight of
spoil they had just taken. Speaking no word of explanation, and giving
no word of promise, He simply says, with that commanding voice of His,
"Follow Me," thus putting Himself above all associations and all
relationships, as Leader and Lord. James and John recognize the call,
for which doubtless they had been prepared, as being for themselves
alone, and instantly leaving the father, the "hired servants," and the
half-mended nets, and breaking utterly with their past, they follow
Jesus, giving to Him, with the exception of one dark, hesitating hour, a
life-long devotion. And forsaking all, the four disciples found all.
They exchanged a dead self for a living Christ, earth for heaven.
Following the Lord fully, with no side-glances at self or selfish
gain--at any rate after the enduement and the enlightenment of
Pentecost--they found in the presence and friendship of the Lord the
"hundredfold" in the present life. Allying themselves with Christ, they
too rose with the rising Sun. Obscure fishermen, they wrote their names
among the immortals as the first Apostles of the new faith, bearers of
the keys of the kingdom. Following Christ, they led the world; and as
the Light that rose over Galilee of the nations becomes ever more
intense and bright, so it makes ever more intense and vivid the shadows
of these Galilean fishermen, as it throws them across all lands and
times.
And such even now is the truest and noblest life. The life which is "hid
with Christ" is the life that shines the farthest and that tells the
most. Whether in the more quiet paths and scenes of discipleship or in
the more responsible and public duties of the apostolate, Jesus demands
of us a true, whole-souled, and life-long devotion. And, here indeed,
the paradox is true, for by losing life we find it, even the life more
abundant; for
"Men may rise on stepping-stones
Of their dead selves to higher things."
Nay, they may attain to the highest things, even to the highest
heavens.