NOTES for Лк 5:1-11
The Lord’s encounter with His disciples, recounted in today’s Gospel reading, is one of the first, which makes Peter’s trust in the Teacher all the more difficult. For at this moment the Lord is speaking about something in which Peter himself is a professional. He knows that if they have caught nothing throughout the whole night, there are now no schools of fish at an accessible depth. Nevertheless, he trusts the word of One who is not a specialist in this field and lets down the nets. Once again the disciples become witnesses to the divine authority of the Lord Jesus over the created world. Once again, like the people in yesterday’s reading, the disciples are seized with reverent awe. Instinctively, they want to bow down and draw back, as Moses draws back from the flaming bush while removing his sandals. But they are in a boat, and there is nowhere to retreat. Peter therefore says such strange words: depart from me, for I am a sinful man. A direct manifestation of God’s power can be met in no other way than with such awe. But today Jesus Himself crosses this boundary, this gulf between the divine and the human. And from this moment the Galilean fishermen become the beginning of the Church.