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When Simon Peter saw this, he fell at Jesus\u2019 knees and said, \u201cGo away from me, Lord; I am a sinful man!\u201d For he and all his companions were astonished at the catch of fish they had taken, and so were James and John, the sons of Zebedee, Simon\u2019s partners. Then Jesus said to Simon, \u201cDon\u2019t be afraid; from now on you will fish for people.\u201d So they pulled their boats up on shore, left everything and followed him. (Luke 5:8-11)

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Days pass one into another without much pomp or fanfare.\xa0 It\u2019s just ordinary life: food, activity, sleep, some chit-chatting.\xa0 Nothing special to see here.\xa0 Certainly nothing that God would be interested in getting involved with.\xa0 He deals with the big stuff, right?\xa0 That\u2019s certainly what Peter thought.\xa0

He was just an ordinary guy\u2014a fisherman\u2014and as Pastor Michael talked about last Friday, he and his companions had just come up empty after a whole night of working the nets.\xa0

But then Jesus shows up.\xa0 Jesus needs Peter\u2019s very ordinary boat and rowing skills so He can preach to a crowd.\xa0 Then Jesus suggests another fishing trip: to the wrong place at the wrong time of day.\xa0 But this time so many fish are caught that the boats began to sink\u2014Peter had never seen anything like it!\xa0 And in that moment, right there in the ordinary and perhaps even frustrating celebrity fishing trip Jesus had suckered them into, the Kingdom of God happened upon them.

The thin veneer of the ordinary was ripped back to reveal the Holy Son of God who had been sitting and working in their midst the whole time.\xa0 Peter fell to Jesus\u2019 knees in confession.\xa0 Somehow all that preaching Jesus did from the shore didn\u2019t do it for Peter: but this?\xa0 Jesus stepped into the real, ordinary concerns of Peter\u2019s life\u2014into the personal sphere of Peter\u2019s expertise and inadequacy\u2014in order to reveal a work that Peter\u2019s practiced, master angler eyes could see and know immediately was nothing less than divine.\xa0 So Peter fell to Jesus\u2019 knees.\xa0

Then Jesus said: \u201cDon\u2019t be afraid, I still need your ordinary fishing skills.\u201d\xa0 Ordinary Peter had been participating in some big holy mysteries all day without even knowing it\u2014but now with the eyes to see it, his life would never be the same.\xa0 He left everything to follow Jesus.\xa0

It\u2019s one thing to hear the word.\xa0 It\u2019s another to see and experience the word made flesh in one\u2019s own life.\xa0 That\u2019s why it\u2019s important to look for the places in your ordinary life where Jesus\u2019 salvation meets you.\xa0 \xa0\xa0\xa0\xa0

Because under the thin veneer of all that ordinary everyday life, a Holy God is stirring about.\xa0 It\u2019s never just fish, or work, or ordinary life.\xa0 We might be ordinary sinful people, but God in Jesus has redeemed the sinful and put the ordinary to His use.\xa0 God\u2019s holiness surges through the ordinary as our bodies become temples of the Holy Spirit, bread is given for the forgiveness of sins, and water marks us as God\u2019s own.\xa0

So keep your eyes peeled and your ears attentive.\xa0 You never know where the thin veneer of your ordinary everyday life might give way to a vision of Jesus at work.\xa0 But beware, because to realize that the sacred mysteries of Jesus\u2019 work are right there, stirring about within the ordinary of your life, might also mean that you, like Peter, can no longer be the same.\xa0\xa0\xa0

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