Into Deep Water

When he had finished speaking, he said to Simon, “Put out into the deep water and let down your nets for a catch.”

Simon answered, “Master, we have worked all night long but have caught nothing. Yet if you say so, I will let down the nets.”

When they had done this, they caught so many fish that their nets were beginning to burst [Luke 5:4-6].

As we turn to the Gospel lesson appointed for this upcoming Sunday [Luke 5:1-11, the Fifth Sunday after the Epiphany, RCL, Year C], we see that a crowd has assembled on the shores of Lake Gennesaret. They want to hear Jesus teach. The pressing throng leads Jesus to an improvised solution: borrowing a fishing boat as his pulpit. Its owner, Simon Peter, stands nearby, exhausted from a fruitless night of fishing, his calloused hands still cleaning the empty nets. It’s a moment of apparent ordinariness—a teacher adapting to his audience, fishermen concluding their workday. Yet in Luke’s careful telling, this everyday scene is about to become the stage for an extraordinary encounter, one where the mundane waters of a Galilean lake will reveal their cosmic significance.

We might remember that in ancient Near Eastern thought, the primordial deep represented untamed chaos—that void over which God’s Spirit hovered in Genesis 1:2. Within this passage, Luke deliberately employs the Greek word bathos to tap into the rich tradition of “deep waters” as a symbol of all that threatens ordered existence.

Luke shows Jesus deliberately engaging this ancient fear. When he directs Simon Peter to “put out into deep water,” Jesus isn’t simply suggesting a better fishing spot. The Greek bathos here echoes through Scripture—from the psalmist’s cry “out of the depths” (Psalm 130:1) to the prophetic vision of ships in “mighty waters” (Psalm 107:24), from the desperate plea of one drowning in “deep waters” (Psalm 69:2) to Ezekiel’s image of Tyre “wrecked in the depths of the waters” (27:34). In each case, these waters carry the weight of cosmic chaos and divine power.

One might put oneself in Peter’s shoes. He’s a professional fisherman who has spent the night—the proper time for fishing—casting nets without success. His expertise tells him that fishing in daylight is futile. Yet Jesus, a carpenter’s son—what would He know about fishing? —suggests the impossible: Take the boats into deep water, into bathos.

Oddly enough, Peter does so, and the chaos of deep water becomes the setting for overwhelming abundance. The nets strain, the boats begin to sink under the weight of fish. But more significantly, human expertise collides with divine possibility.

Notice that before this moment, Peter has addressed Jesus as “Master” — a term of human respect. Now, confronted with divine power manifesting in the depths he had always feared, he falls to his knees: “Go away from me, Lord, for I am a sinful man” [Luke 5:8].

For Luke, writing to a fledgling Christian community several decades after these events, the story carries particular weight. They face their own forms of chaos—religious tensions, political oppression, social upheaval. The deep waters looked different but felt just as threatening.

Luke’s stories about Jesus carry weight for our communities as well. Our own congregations are blessed with deep wells of expertise—advanced degrees, professional achievements, years of specialized knowledge. Seminary-trained ministers serve alongside physicians who have spent decades perfecting their craft. Biblical scholars who can parse Greek verbs collaborate with attorneys who can parse legal precedents. Like Peter, we know our fields. We understand the proper times and seasons for success. We’ve earned our expertise through years of study and practice, through countless nights of casting nets into familiar waters.

Yet the call to deep water remains. The call doesn’t negate our expertise; it transforms it. In the story at Lake Gennesaret, Jesus doesn’t tell Peter to stop being a fisherman. Instead, he invites him into a deeper expression of that identity: “From now on you will be catching people” Luke 5:10]. This transformation, though, carries no guarantee of perpetual clarity. The same Peter who falls to his knees in recognition of divine power will later walk on water—and sink. He will boldly proclaim Jesus as Messiah—and then deny him thrice. Perhaps this too is part of the mystery: transformation isn’t a one-time event but a continuing journey into ever-deeper waters.

To the surprise of some, this story isn’t primarily about evangelism or church growth. It’s about divine power manifesting precisely where human wisdom reaches its limits. It’s about venturing into depths where our credentials and experience—however impressive—cannot guarantee outcomes. In our interaction with Christ, we encounter a startling truth: Christ doesn’t merely rescue us from deep waters—He actively calls us into them.

It’s like the difference between a lifeguard and a master swimming instructor. The lifeguard waits on shore, ready to rescue those who flounder. But the instructor? Ah, the instructor leads students into progressively deeper water, knowing that true transformation requires leaving the safety of the shallows.

This isn’t to suggest that every deep-water experience represents a divine summons, or that each hardship we face is orchestrated for our spiritual growth. Rather, the question becomes whether we can discern, in our various encounters with the bathos, those moments when Christ himself is calling us deeper—not as a test or trial to endure, but as an invitation to witness divine possibility. Like Peter, we might discover that the very waters we fear or resist could become the setting for unexpected abundance.

The bathos still beckons today. Denominational and institutional decline, cultural shifts that threaten cherished certainties, problems that resist our best professional solutions—these are our deep waters. Like Peter, we might protest: We’ve worked all night and caught nothing. Our expertise tells us that venturing deeper will only waste precious time and energy.

Yet the invitation stands: Put out into deep water. Do so, not because our knowledge is worthless, but because transformation often begins where human capability ends. Where professional wisdom meets divine possibility. Where chaos and abundance coincide. Like Luke’s early community, our congregations face their own forms of deep water—declining attendance despite carefully crafted growth strategies, persistent questions that resist our most learned theological responses, human suffering that defies both medical expertise and pastoral wisdom.

Where do you encounter the bathos in your life? The text offers no simple answers, only an invitation. You and I are invited into deep water, where divine power still moves over the face of the depths. The question that haunts us isn’t whether we’re in deep water, but whether we’re ready to recognize the One who may have called us here.