Luke 4:42-5:11
“Notice what you notice.” As I pointed out Wednesday, the Matthew reading from two days ago would have been better placed somewhere else in our “lectionary”. Whereas Matthew’s writing is very general in nature, both Mark and Luke are more specific – Jesus comes from the Synagogue to dinner to His Sabbath healings. I spoke yesterday how I was struck by Jesus’ rising early in the morning…while it was still dark (Mark 1:35). It turns out that Mark is the only writer who notes this particular behavior. Luke simply says And when it was day… (v. 42). I’m glad for Mark’s contribution!
Both Mark and Luke have Jesus moving on to other towns – an item that Matthew covered in much greater detail two days ago. All three Gospels have Jesus’ fame spreading as he preaches His “good news” and heals the sick throughout all of Galilee (or Judea, depending on your translation).
Today’s reading is a second case where I could have been more careful in putting the readings together, splitting off Luke’s 5th chapter material from the rest of the reading – actually putting Mark 1:35-39 and Luke 4:42-44 together on one day would have worked nicely, then Matthew 4:23-25, then Luke 5:1-11. More info for next time…!
In addition to what all three Gospels are covering the past three days, Luke also has the calling of the disciples – Peter, James and John. We’ve already seen earlier activity of Jesus and (at least some of) these disciples in John 1:35-51, then later in Matthew 4:18-22 and Mark 1:16-20. Matthew and Mark are in complete agreement in their Gospels as to Jesus’ calling of Peter, Andrew, James, and John, while Luke’s account goes into much greater detail. Because there are substantial differences, it would take a lot of words to build one coherent picture. Instead, we can either see these two accounts occurring on different days or we can just accept two different accounts of the same activity.
I’ve never imagined these to be large boats with which Peter and Andrew and James and John were fishing, rather something like larger than a bass boat or a 16’ jon boat. However, verses 9 and 10 imply something larger: For he <Simon Peter> was astonished, and all that were with him, at the catch of fish which they had taken; and so also were James and John… I think the phrase “all that were with him” implies more than a few; otherwise Luke might have said “the other two” or “the other three”. But “all … ” seems bigger. And “all …” clearly excludes James and John; they are mentioned in the next verse. So when the four disciples left their business behind with Zebedee and followed Jesus, it must have been a larger enterprise than I had previously imagined. Naturally the question always follows – what have we left behind to follow Jesus?
Slava Bohu!!