How’s Your Fear? / Luke 5:1-11 / Pr. Ted A. Giese / Sunday February 9th 2025 / Fifth Sunday of Epiphany / Mount Olive Lutheran Church

Mount Olive Lutheran Church / Pr. Ted A. Giese / Sunday February 9th 2025: Fifth Sunday after the Epiphany / Isaiah 6:1-13 and Luke 5:1-11 “How’s Your Fear?”

On one occasion, while the crowd was pressing in on [Jesus] to hear the word of God, He was standing by the lake of Gennesaret, and He saw two boats by the lake, but the fishermen had gone out of them and were washing their nets. Getting into one of the boats, which was Simon’s, He asked him to put out a little from the land. And He sat down and taught the people from the boat. And when He had finished speaking, He said to Simon, “Put out into the deep and let down your nets for a catch.” And Simon answered, “Master, we toiled all night and took nothing! But at Your word I will let down the nets.” And when they had done this, they enclosed a large number of fish, and their nets were breaking. They signaled to their partners in the other boat to come and help them. And they came and filled both the boats, so that they began to sink. But when Simon Peter saw it, he fell down at Jesus’ knees, saying, “Depart from me, for I am a sinful man, O Lord.” For he and all who were with him were astonished at the catch of fish that they had taken, and so also were James and John, sons of Zebedee, who were partners with Simon. And Jesus said to Simon, “Do not be afraid; from now on you will be catching men.” And when they had brought their boats to land, they left everything and followed Him.

Let us pray: May the words of my mouth and the meditations of all are hearts be acceptable in your sight O, Lord. Amen. 

Grace, peace and mercy to you from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ: Good Christian friends, how’s your fear? Do you think there is a lot to be fearful of these days, are you afraid of the future, maybe you’re afraid of the present, perhaps you’re afraid of the past. Is it your uncertainty in the face of these things that paralyses you and keeps you from moving forward?   

Are you afraid of your sin? While fear about the economy, finances, about poverty and illness and death, about being labelled a social pariah for saying the “wrong” thing or holding the “wrong” public belief seem to run rampant in our day and age many people however seem rather unafraid of their sin. In fact there’re many who want to have their particular sin grandfathered into goodness. To have their sin moved from the category of vice to virtue. Dear ones before our Old Testament reading today, just a little earlier in the book of Isaiah we have this warning from the LORD through the prophet Isaiah:

   Woe to those who call evil good

       and good evil,

   who put darkness for light

       and light for darkness,

   who put bitter for sweet

       and sweet for bitter!

   Woe to those who are wise in their own eyes,

       and shrewd in their own sight!”[1]

So I ask again, ‘How’s your fear?’ are you afraid when you ought to be afraid when the danger is real and the hellfire is eternal, are you comforted when you should be comforted when the promises of God exceed your wildest dreams or is everything upside down and backwards in your life? From today’s Old Testament and Gospel Readings we find two men who recognize that they are sinful and are rightly afraid of their sin. These Saints of the LORD, the Prophet Isaiah and the fisherman Simon Peter, when they are confronted with the presence of the Living God show a healthy kind of fear, the sort of fear and reverence we hear about in the catechism when in the explanations of the Ten Commandments we say “we should fear and love God so that ...” in these cases, ‘so that’ we don’t come casually into the presence of God—when we recognise that we are in it—but rather that we come reverently confessing our sins.

Now this is the positive aspect of the fear that we see in Saint Peter and Isaiah, they both recognize that they are men with “unclean lips,” men who are “sinful,” but in both cases the good, right and true fear of the LORD becomes obscure because they expect that the Holiness of the LORD means their imminent death, or at the very least that it means that they will not be able to be in the presence of God. In Isaiah’s case just seeing the HOLY, HOLY, HOLY LORD of hosts high and lifted up was enough to have that imminent fear of death because Isaiah would have know and remembered what the LORD said to Moses when God was about to pass by Moses, “you cannot see My face, for man shall not see Me and live.”[2] Isaiah would have remembered how the LORD had said to Moses, “Behold, there is a place by Me where you shall stand on the rock, and while My glory passes by I will put you in a cleft of the rock, and I will cover you with My hand until I have passed by. Then I will take away My hand, and you shall see My back, but My face shall not be seen.”[3] In today’s Old Testament reading Isaiah is not look at the back of the LORD enthroned in glory so Isaiah is rightly afraid for his life, especially because he knows his sin and he knows that God is Holy and judges sin. Saint Peter is no different, when Peter realises who this Jesus is who created the miraculous catch of fish that day by the seaside in Galilee Peter falls down at Jesus’ knees, saying, “Depart from me, for I am a sinful man, O Lord.” Like Isaiah Peter knows he can not be in the presence of the LORD in his sinful condition. They are both caught off guard with their ‘spiritual pants down,” naked before the LORD with their sinfulness exposed.

The very first man to realise his sin had the same reaction. Think back to Adam and his wife Eve, to those moments right after they had eaten the fruit forbidden to them. Moses tells us in the Book of Genesis,

“Then the eyes of both were opened, and they knew that they were naked. And they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves loincloths.

And they heard the sound of the LORD God walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and the man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the LORD God among the trees of the garden. But the LORD God called to the man and said to him, “Where are you?”And he said, “I heard the sound of You in the garden, and I was afraid, because I was naked, and I hid myself.”[4]

Did you catch that, “I was afraid, because I was naked,” yes, Adam and Eve were physically naked this is why they “sewed fig leaves together and made themselves loincloths,” but more than that they were also spiritually naked. Their righteousness was gone and the sin that they had just committed was exposed to both them and to God. No doubt Adam remembered what the LORD had commanded him, “You may surely eat of every tree of the garden, but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.”[5] While the LORD could have done as He had said to them, He showed them mercy and graciously forestalled their immediate death. What does our Saint Peter eventually write about the mercy and grace of God, “The Lord is not slow to fulfill His promise as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance.”[6] Adam and Eve, Moses and Isaiah and Simon Peter all knew this patience, this mercy, this grace of God first hand. They all had a healthy fear and reverence of the LORD rooted in the knowledge of their sin but for all of these the unexpected part was the forgiveness that they received.

All of these, caught as they were unexpectedly in the Holy presence of God, knew that they were not able to make themselves Holy by anything they could say or do. Both Isaiah and Peter had the presence of mind to confess their sins. We did this today when we first considered our unworthiness and then confessed before God and one another that we have sinned in thought, word, and deed, and that we are not able free ourselves from our sinful condition. Then taking refuge in the infinite mercy of God, our heavenly Father, we sought His grace for the sake of Christ, and saying: God, be merciful to me, a sinner. And then we said together “Almighty God, have mercy upon us, forgive us our sins, and lead us to everlasting life.”[7] Because we know and have been taught the rest of what was to happen, which Saint Peter was yet to experience as a first hand witness, we don’t say what Peter said, when Peter said, “depart from me,” we say, “have mercy upon us, forgive us our sins, and lead us to everlasting life,” and then we receive the miracle of forgiveness.

It is the mercy and grace of God that changes us, that forgives us. It is the mercy and grace of the LORD that delivers to us the atonement that Jesus won for us at the cross of His crucifixion. Simon Peter at the seaside in Galilee, Isaiah in the midst of his vision of the HOLY, HOLY, HOLY LORD of hosts enthroned in Glory, even Moses and Adam and Eve had God come to them and the Holy presence of God changed them. Adam and Eve received both the benefits and promise of Jesus’ future rescue from sin, Moses received encouragement to continue in the work laid out before him, Isaiah had his sinful lips cleansed with the atoning fire of the white hot coal from the altar of God, and Simon Peter received these words, “Do not be afraid.”

Those words of Jesus, “do not be afraid,” did they sink in all at once with Saint Peter? No, not really, sometimes they can be hard to hear, especially when applied to sin and forgiveness. Later Peter, who had become a close follower of Jesus, came up and said to Him, “Lord, how often will my brother sin against me, and I forgive him? As many as seven times?” [To which] Jesus said to [Peter], “I do not say to you seven times, but seventy-seven times.”[8] Which is to say every time.[9]

Do you ever have fear that Jesus won’t forgive you when you come to Him for forgiveness? When you acknowledge that you have sinned with your thoughts, words and deeds; that you’ve repeatedly sinned by what you have done and by what you have left undone? Have you made yourself the judge of what God will forgive or not forgive in your life? Have you made yourselves the judge of what God will or will not forgive in the lives of others? Is your lack of forgiveness for your brother creating in you a fear that God may not forgive you for your sin? Are you afraid to fall at Jesus’ feet as Peter did? Do you know someone who has this fear; so much so that they are hiding from the LORD like Adam and Eve were hiding, pathetically covering their sins with loincloths of fig leafs? Dear ones take to heart Jesus’ words to Saint Peter “Do not be afraid.”        

And also remember what the mighty angel, the seraph, says to Isaiah when he touched Isaiah’s mouth with the white hot coal from the altar, “Behold, this has touched your lips; your guilt is taken away, and your sin atoned for.”[10] In that moment the crucified, risen and ascended Lord Jesus’ came to Isaiah just as the crucified, risen and ascended Lord Jesus enthroned in Glory at God the Father’s right hand comes to us with the bread and wine of Holy Communion to make our lips clean, and not just our lips, to deliver His atonement, to make us Holy and not sinful in His presence. And in this place, at this altar rail, we come with a healthy fear of our sin and the knowledge of how it truly separates up from God but also we come with the words of Jesus “Do not be afraid.” Now you may still feel guilt over past sins but your guilt has been taken away, you may still remember your past sins but you have the promise that the LORD forgets them, for He is the one who says, “I, I am He who blots out your transgressions for My own sake, and I will not remember your sins.”[11] Yes at the communion rail, in your prayers, in the words of the confession and absolution it is the HOLY, HOLY, HOLY LORD of hosts who for His own sake makes you holy and righteous in His sight and in His presence so that you as a forgiven child of God have a place with Him, so that you have eternal life in Him and not death and damnation. He comes to you, He changes you. And as one changed you are now free to follow where He leads you. And like Isaiah and Peter you need not fear where He leads you because you are with Him and He is with you.[12]

As one who been given and received atonement for their sins, whose sins were paid for in full “not with perishable things such as silver or gold, but with the precious blood of Christ,”[13] when Isaiah then heard the voice of the Lord saying, “Whom shall I send, and who will go for Us,” without fear he was able to say, “Here I am! Send me.”[14] And when Jesus likewise says to Simon Peter “Do not be afraid; from now on you will be catching men” Saint Peter was also able to leave everything behind and followed Jesus without fear. So I ask once more, “How’s your fear?” While there are many things to be afraid of in the World, do you need to be afraid that God will not forgive you in your sin? Do you need to fear that He will say to you ‘go away’? Do you need to be afraid to come to Him for forgiveness when you have failed to follow Him? No. Be of courage, “Do not be afraid:” be careful to listen to the voice of Jesus as you hear it read to you as you read it for yourself in God’s Word, and take His words to heart. Remember what Jesus would later say in the Gospel of Saint Luke, “I have not come to call the righteous but sinners to repentance.”[15] Dear ones there is no dodging it, Jesus didn’t just come for men like Isaiah and Simon Peter, no, Jesus came for you. Jesus comes for you today and it is because the LORD forgives sins that we are called respect and revere Him above all other, especially above our-selves.

Lastly, regardless of how hostile it might seem to you, do not be more afraid of the World than you are of the LORD, remember what Jesus says “And I tell you, everyone who acknowledges Me before men, the Son of Man also will acknowledge before the angels of God, but the one who denies Me before men will be denied before the angels of God.” Saint Peter would later learn this lesson, but that is a sermon for another day; as you live out your Christian life following where Jesus calls you, reverently do so as one who fears, loves, and trusts in God above all things,[16] especially above irrational fear, or false fears generated by your own mind or by sin, death or the devil or the world. Trust in Christ Jesus He is faithful and true.[17] Amen.    

Let us pray: Lord have mercy on us, Christ have mercy on us, Lord have mercy on us, “take our minds and think through them, take our lips and speak through them, take our hearts and set them on fire; for the sake of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, Amen.

[1] Isaiah 5:20–21
[2] Exodus 33:20
[3] Exodus 33:21–23
[4] Genesis 3:7–10
[5] Genesis 2:16–17
[6] 2 Peter 3:9
[7] Divine Service Setting IV, Lutheran Service Book, Concordia Publishing House 2006, page 203.
[8] Matthew 18:21–22
[9] In Scripture the number 7 is a perfect number and multiples of the number 10 mean completeness, so this is the perfect number of times x the complete number of times + the perfect number of times which is to say every time: 7 x 10 + 7.
[10] Isaiah 6:7
[11] Isaiah 43:25
[12] John 6:56; John 15:4-7
[13] 1 Peter 1:18b–19a
[14] Isaiah 6:8
[15] Luke 5:32
[16] Explanation of the First Commandment, Luther’s Small Catechism, Concordia Publishing House 2017, Page 13.
[17] Revelation 19:11

Main Photo: Composite of James Tissot's The Miraculous Draught of Fishes (La pêche miraculeuse), 1886–1896 from brooklynmuseum flanked with mirrored, cropped and tinted black and white AI generated hand sketch abstract cloud background of clouds from freepik.