Catch up time. Again, my apologies for falling behind, but I'm all caught up on reading now. I don't think I'll comment on the end of Mark since Holy Week just ended and we've all got that part of the story on the brain. It was covered pretty well in church. If you didn't attend church this Holy Week, well, there's an incentive for next year. It's actually quite fun.
I love, love, love Psalm 47. It's not only joyful, but actively joyful. I think that's what God wants from us. Action. It begins with clapping hands, shouting, and singing. And why? The very next line sums it all up: "For the Lord, the Most High, is awesome."
Luke's gospel reads a little more easily than Matthew and Mark. Mark is an older text, and it seems clunky to me in places. I'm of the mind that Luke seems more accessible to me because Luke writes to a Gentile audience. He explains things in detail and doesn't assume we already know things. The narrative reads much more like a good book or novel. We have the imagery of the angels singing to the shepherds. The drama of the baby John the Baptist leaping inside his mother when Mary visits her cousin. These are exciting and dramatic moments.
In the story of Jesus meeting Simon Peter and James and John in their boat, we get a much more fleshed out story. Jesus fills their nets with fish to the point that the nets are breaking. This makes the idea of being fishers of men far more meaningful for me. You see, when the fishermen fished on their own, they were barely getting by, but with Jesus' help, they have great abundance. Evangelism is a word that scares me. I think it's scary to many of us in the older traditions of Christianity (i.e. Catholics, Anglicans, Lutherans, etc.) because we strive to not be like the "Evangelical" churches. But Jesus calls all of us to evangelize. To spread the Gospel. Like the first followers of Jesus, our nets will come up empty. But when we call on God to help us, they will overflow. And we need our friends to help:
"they caught so many fish that their nets were beginning to break. So they signaled their partners in the other boat to come and help them. And they came and filled both boats, so that they began to sink...and all who were with him were amazed at the catch of fish that they had taken...They left everything and followed [Jesus]." Luke 5:6-11
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