Reading Luke Together #19 – Put Out Into the Deep

When I made my first pilgrimages to the Holy Land years ago, as we would make our way on highway 90 from our hotel in Tiberias toward Capernaum and other sites to the north, I would notice the turnoff sign to Magdala, pretty much a big gas station, a kooky water-slide, and a few houses. I wondered what was under the ground – like so many as yet undug archaeological sites.

Then, in 2006, while clearing land by the road for a retreat center, they found it: Magdala, the large town from Bible times, home to Mary Magdalene, a synagogue, houses, fisheries, towers. Probably the most fabulous archaeological discovery in the past 75 years. “Discovery” isn’t the right word – since we knew something was there. The Catholics now have built a marvel of a church on the site, dedicated to the women of the New Testament. It’s called Duc in Altum. “Put out into the deep.” That’s what Jesus told his first disciples the day he got into their fishing boat on the water just a stone’s throw from Magdala (Luke 5:4).

The unearthing of Magdala, and Jesus’ suggestion to go deep: it’s all a parable! We live such superficial, surface-y lives, when the real treasures are hidden, requiring some digging, labor, not settling for the obvious. There’s more to you as a person than the self you trot out and even experience day by day. Peter Scazzero, when he led us in our Emotionally Healthy Spirituality series, said your self is like an iceberg, a bit visible above the surface, but most of it hidden, submerged.

A whole city was lying there all the time, right by the road. Jesus had walked around that city, and knew its fishermen. “Put out into the deep” is good fishing advice, but it’s also what Jesus invites us to do and be about. Wisdom is down deep. Holiness isn’t a superficial thing. The religious life is like the roots of a tree, invisible, in the dark, yet propping up and sustaining everything else.

In Luke 5, they do unfurl the nets where the water was deep – and the catch was massive. Peter, realizing he was in the presence of something divine, felt the dissonance and confessed that he was a sinful man. Jesus was not shocked, or offended. Jesus didn’t wag a finger, or withdraw. Jesus knows us all – especially the depths in us. He loves. He yearns to lead us into the deep.

And then Jesus promptly healed a leper – by touching him, laying his hand on the untouchable one (Luke 5:13). So Jesus. He feared no one. His love and purpose overrode any fears or need for self-protection.

And finally our section ends when Jesus tries to withdraw from the crowds. As we saw in the previous chapter, Jesus wanted, or desperately needed, time alone with God. That’s how he had the energy to go deep. His time alone with God was his going deep, and his profound intimacy with God was what moved people and lured them into following him.

After the respite, after his conversation with God, or simply a quiet time resting in God his Father, Jesus is back at it, healing the paralytic who had to be hauled in on a pallet by four men (Luke 5:17-26). If you read slowly (always advisable!), Luke says plainly “When Jesus saw their faith, he healed.” Not “When Jesus saw the paralytic’s faith,” but “their faith,” the faith of the four. We are always being delivered and aided by the faith of those around us, those who believe when we can’t. We are privileged to be part of a believing community, which is far greater than the sum of its individualistic parts. We believe together, and in good company.