"Lord, you know everything," said Peter in desperation, after Jesus had asked "Do you love me?" (John 17). Certainly Jesus had intense powers of observation - seeing Nathaniel under his fig tree before Philip went to him (John 1:48), and telling the Samaritan woman about her five previous husbands (John 4:18) point to an almost unnatural insight into the natural world. This is not to say that as a human being he was omniscient - it is unlikely that he could have repaired a faulty television set, for instance. But he saw people's hopes and fears, strengths and weaknesses, and could foresee and handle Peter's denial, Thomas' doubt, even Judas' betrayal.
This power of insight allowed Jesus to stand beside people in their need. This is very clear from the healing stories, where Jesus often appears to recognize the sufferers' needs better than they do, and where healing is in a very real sense a new beginning, the start of a new life, a resurrection even.
But Jesus is not just beside us to heal our sickness and our sinfulness. He is also with us in our daily walk through life - in our work and in our relaxation. Two stories may help to illustrate this.
Jesus grew up, we are told, in the home of a carpenter. Even if Joseph did not teach him the trade, he must have been familiar with the tools and skills. Yet when we meet him in his ministry, he is at Capernaum, on the shores of Lake Galilee, and when he finds disciples, several of them are fishermen, with their own skills. And despite their "leaving their nets" to become "fishers of real people", in practical terms, they keep their boats and presumably continue to catch the occasional fish as well.
John's Gospel (21:1-14) tells us of an event after Jesus' resurrection. Peter and six of the other disciples decide to go fishing, and catch nothing. They see a stranger on the shore, who tells them to cast their net on the other side. They do so, and the catch is so copious that they cannot pull the net in. Only then do they realize that the stranger is Jesus.
Jesus meets the disciples at their work. They know their job, but are not being very successful at it. Jesus gives them a different insight. There is no reason why they should trust a remark made by a complete stranger, but they do. It is in this act of trust that they recognize that the "stranger" is in fact someone who knows them better than they do themselves. Perhaps here is a lesson for all of us, as we do our jobs or as we go about our daily business. Not just that "who sweeps a room as for thy laws makes that and the action fine", but that we need to stand back from what we are doing, whether cooking our supper or dealing with our bosses or our customers, and ask if God can give us a fresh insight.
Another story is also set in a fishing boat. Again, the disciples know their job. But they have got out of their depth. Jesus has made them fish for people to follow the Way, and they get into the boat to sail to "the other side" - an unfamiliar shore in a land, the Decapolis, where people live with different ways and different traditions. And not only is this a new challenge, but when they are half-way across, a storm brews up, and with all their fishing experience, they see that the boat seems to be sinking, and they panic. They turn to Jesus, who is asleep in the stern: "Teacher, don't you care that we are perishing?" And of course, Jesus brings peace and tranquillity to the whole situation.
"Why are you afraid? Have you still no faith?" he asks. If they had had faith, they could have mastered the situation themselves, safe in the knowledge that they were doing what Jesus had asked them to do. As it was, their faith extended to the realization that Jesus, "raised up" (for waking and resurrection in the Gospels are the same side of the coin), would do something about it. So he did.
As we go through life, Jesus calls us all to use our talents and skills in his service. At times, this will lead us, too, "out of our depth" - even at times when we do not think of ourselves as directly serving God. Yet we serve God in our daily lives and in our work, just as much as when we come together for worship, or to study the Bible. In our lives, we can easily feel a sense of failure, of being our of our depth. Yet Jesus' words are for us too in our work, in our daily life. We too should have faith. We too should not be afraid. We may feel out of our depth, but Jesus will not leave us to struggle alone.
HD