Bass Lake

Here's this week's reminiscing Bible study blog post for i.ucc:

I remember the summers I spent at my grandparent’s cottage in Grawn, Michigan on Bass Lake. On several occasions my cousin Tom and I – sometimes with my sister, Robin and sometimes with my cousin Heidi and often with my Dad, took the boat to one of several fishing spots on the lake. We would always catch some rock bass, occasionally some bluegill, a rare large mouth bass, and even rarer bullhead (catfish) and always several small perch. We never caught enough fish to make a dinner for everyone back at the cottage, but we still loved to fish.

Then there was the day of the HUGE CATCH. I always remember the day when we caught more than 100 perch in about an hour. We were pulling in fish as fast as we could bait our hooks. We used salmon eggs and worms. And then after spending hours cleaning the little perch, we had a wonderful meal that night.
With this week’s Bible reading from Luke 5:1-11, the fish story came back to me.

Except in this week’s reading, it wasn’t pole fishing. This was net fishing. And Peter, James, and John weren’t catching anything with their nets. Jesus got on their boat, preached awhile to the crowds gathered, and then told Peter to go out into the deep water. Peter was skeptical, but he did it. And they caught more fish than they could handle.

Peter’s response to what had happened was pretty dramatic and reminiscent of Isaiah’s response when he was called by God. Jesus response – to “not be afraid” is also familiar – it occurs more than 60 times in the Old and New Testament. And then Jesus said something to wrap things up very satisfyingly “From now on you will be catching people”

No – not people taken from their homes and then squirming and dying on the deck of a boat. Jesus told the disciples that they were going to bring Jesus’ Good News to all the people.

What’s your “Bass Lake” or “Lake of Gennesaret” story?