Reflections - To Make Fishers of Men

To Make Fishers of Men

It took two miraculous catches of fish

It would always be a mystery me and to many, I am sure.

The apostles who walked for three years with the messiah, the Son of God, who witnessed His miracles, who hung on to his every word; Thomas called Didymus, was even willing to die for Him. (John 11:16)

Peter, always ready with the sword to defend his Lord, denied Him most avowedly, others abandoned Him, not to be seen either on the Road to Calvary or near the cross (except for John the Evangelist).

Mary Magdalene, from whom Jesus cast out seven demons, and to whom Jesus appeared first, told the “mourning and weeping” apostles that she had seen Jesus. They did not believe her. (Mark 16:9-15)

Why were the disciples behaving in such a strange way?

Jesus told them about what was going to happen to Him several times, and most memorably (Mark 10:32-34), when He was going to Bethany (very close to Jerusalem) to raise Lazarus from the dead.

“Look, we are going up to Jerusalem, and the Son of Man will be delivered over to the chief priests and scribes. They will condemn Him to death and will deliver Him over to the Gentiles, who will mock Him and spit on Him and flog Him and kill Him. And after three days He will rise again.”

It was not that they did not know what was going to happen. They simply did not want to believe it would happen. It was just too much to internalize and to accept.

“When he had finished praying, Jesus left with his disciples and crossed the Kidron Valley. On the other side there was a garden, and he and his disciples went into it.”

^“Now Judas, who betrayed him, knew the place, because Jesus had often met there with his disciples. So Judas came to the garden, guiding a detachment of soldiers and some officials from the chief priests and the Pharisees. They were carrying torches, lanterns and weapons. (John 18:1-2)

And the events began to unfold. Oh my God! It is actually happening …

^“Then Simon Peter, who had a sword, drew it and struck the high priest’s servant, cutting off his right ear. (The servant’s name was Malchus).

Jesus commanded Peter, “Put your sword away! Shall I not drink the cup the Father has given me?” (John 18:10-11)

This was the turning point for Peter.

This man, his Lord, the Messiah, the Son of God, was actually going to his death. He was not going to fight.

All the illusions of power, such as it may be, being with the Jesus, who would save Israel. The sons of Zebedee, had worked out their part in the kingdom: “to sit, one at His right hand and the other at His left when He comes in His Glory” (Mark 10:37).

All their glorious dreams came crashing down when Jesus said, “Shall I not drink the cup the Father has given me?”

The shock of hearing that statement filled their mind with a terrifying fear. With John, Peter followed the detachment of soldiers, who were taking Jesus away after his arrest. Peter was still hoping for a miracle. The storm will go away. As Jesus stilled the winds, He would raise his hands and strike the soldiers down and march into Jerusalem and do the same to the Roman occupiers.

However, by the time Peter reached the gates of the High Priest’s courtyard, his bravado (cutting off high priest’s servant Malchus ear) had melted, and he began to feel like a fugitive avoiding capture. Denying Jesus was not hard. It was essential for his survival.  

Among all the apostles, John stands out in stark contrast. He appears well connected among the rulers and elders to walk into the High Priest’s house along with Jesus, and familiar enough with the household, to speak to the servant girl on duty there to bring Peter in. (John 18:16)

The other apostles of Jesus, would not or could not believe He would actually die the death He predicted. Like Isaiah 53 said:

“He is despised and rejected of men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief: and we hid as it were our faces from him; he was despised, and we esteemed him not.

^“He was oppressed, and he was afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth: he is brought as a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before her shearers is dumb, so he openeth not his mouth.

The apostles who could not accept Jesus’ death (even though He had died); could they believe in His resurrection when Mary told them as much?

Their attitude: “Go away, Mary, leave us alone”.

Strange perhaps to say, but in the apostles’ heart they would have preferred Jesus to stay dead. With all this talk of resurrection, it would only mean more trouble. And, it did, 50 days after Easter, post the holy day of Pentecost.

Jesus had to appear eleven times according to different church scholars, but we know of three – to Mary Magdalene, to the two on the road to Emmaus, and to the eleven, and when He did  “… He upbraided them for their lack of faith and their stubborn refusal to believe those who had seen him after he had risen.” (Mark 16:14)

The amazing transformation that occurred when the Holy Spirit descended upon the Apostles and other disciples of Jesus is the stuff of a revolution in making.

Peter and John could take on the most powerful men in Jerusalem, the high priests, Annas and Caiaphas, (who maneuvered Jesus’ crucifixion with the Roman Governor Pontius Pilate); as well as the rulers and elders, and the whole Sanhedrin, when they healed the lame man, with the now famous statement,  “silver and gold I have none to give, but I will give you what I have: in the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, walk.” (Acts 3:1-10)

How did they the apostles get to this stage? From quavering with fear during the passion and crucifixion of Jesus, to unbridled boldness on the coming of the Holy Spirit upon them?

Their journey with Jesus is like ‘bookends’ with each end representing one of the miraculous fish catches.

The fisherman’s first encounter with Jesus’ was at the Lake of Gennesaret (Luke 5:1-11), at the beginning of Jesus’s ministry, when Jesus asked Peter, ‘Put out into the deeper part, and let down your nets for a catch.’

They caught such a huge number of fish that their nets began to break. When Simon Peter saw it, he fell down at Jesus’ knees.

‘Go away,’ he said. ‘Leave me, Lord! I’m a sinner!’ He and all his companions were gripped with amazement at the catch of fish they had taken; this included James and John, the sons of Zebedee, who were partners with Simon.

‘Don’t be afraid,’ said Jesus to Simon. ‘From now on you’ll be catching people.’

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The fishermen’s second encounter with Jesus was at the end of His ministry, after His resurrection. (John 21:1-14)

“Jesus stood beside the seashore, by the sea of Tiberias but the disciples didn’t know that it was Jesus.

‘Children,’ said Jesus to them, ‘haven’t you got anything to eat?’

‘No!’ they replied.

‘Cast the net on the right side of the boat,’ he said, ‘and you’ll find something.’

So they cast the net; and now they couldn’t draw it in because of the weight of the fish.

So the disciple that Jesus loved spoke to Peter.

‘It’s the master!’ he said.

When Simon Peter heard that it was the master, he wrapped his cloak around him (he had been naked for work), and threw himself into the sea. The other disciples brought the boat in to land, dragging the net full of fish. They weren’t far from shore, about a hundred yards away.

When they came to land, they saw a charcoal fire laid there, with fish and bread on it.

Jesus spoke to them.

‘Bring some of the fish you’ve just caught,’ he said.

So Simon Peter went and pulled the net onto the shore. It was full of large fish, a hundred and fifty-three in all. The net wasn’t torn, even though there were so many.

‘Come and have breakfast,’ said Jesus to them.

None of the disciples dared ask him, ‘Who are you?’ They knew it was the master.

Jesus came and took the bread and gave it to them, and so also with the fish. This was now the third time that Jesus had appeared to the disciples after he had been raised from the dead.

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It took a catch of fish each time to remind the apostles that Jesus was Son of God. Even after three years of walking with Jesus – witnessing amazing miracles – ‘the deaf could hear” – however, when Jesus spoke about his passion, death and resurrection to the apostles – they were tone deaf to this part of His teaching (except John the Evangelist).

After Jesus died and had resurrected (which they refused to believe), they slipped into their old routine.

They had gone back to fishing, reflecting on the wonderful three years, and accepting that it finally amounted to nothing.

The resurrected Jesus had to call them back to their ministry, through another miraculous catch of fish to follow through on His ministry to “go into all the world and preach the gospel to the whole creation. (Mark 16:15)

The rest is history.

Saturday, April 18, 2020

Why Trees Matter

TREES are on the front lines of our changing climate. And when the oldest trees in the world suddenly start dying, it’s time to pay attention.


North America’s ancient alpine bristlecone forests are falling victim to a voracious beetle and an Asian fungus. In Texas, a prolonged drought killed more than five million urban shade trees last year and an additional half-billion trees in parks and forests. In the Amazon, two severe droughts have killed billions more.


The common factor has been hotter, drier weather.


We have underestimated the importance of trees. They are not merely pleasant sources of shade but a potentially major answer to some of our most pressing environmental problems. We take them for granted, but they are a near miracle. In a bit of natural alchemy called photosynthesis, for example, trees turn one of the seemingly most insubstantial things of all — sunlight — into food for insects, wildlife and people, and use it to create shade, beauty and wood for fuel, furniture and homes.


For all of that, the unbroken forest that once covered much of the continent is now shot through with holes.


Humans have cut down the biggest and best trees and left the runts behind. What does that mean for the genetic fitness of our forests? No one knows for sure, for trees and forests are poorly understood on almost all levels. “It’s embarrassing how little we know,” one eminent redwood researcher told me.


What we do know, however, suggests that what trees do is essential though often not obvious. Decades ago, Katsuhiko Matsunaga, a marine chemist at Hokkaido University in Japan, discovered that when tree leaves decompose, they leach acids into the ocean that help fertilize plankton. When plankton thrive, so does the rest of the food chain. In a campaign called Forests Are Lovers of the Sea, fishermen have replanted forests along coasts and rivers to bring back fish and oyster stocks. And they have returned.


Trees are nature’s water filters, capable of cleaning up the most toxic wastes, including explosives, solvents and organic wastes, largely through a dense community of microbes around the tree’s roots that clean water in exchange for nutrients, a process known as phytoremediation. Tree leaves also filter air pollution. A 2008 study by researchers at Columbia University found that more trees in urban neighborhoods correlate with a lower incidence of asthma.


In Japan, researchers have long studied what they call “forest bathing.” A walk in the woods, they say, reduces the level of stress chemicals in the body and increases natural killer cells in the immune system, which fight tumors and viruses. Studies in inner cities show that anxiety, depression and even crime are lower in a landscaped environment.


Trees also release vast clouds of beneficial chemicals. On a large scale, some of these aerosols appear to help regulate the climate; others are anti-bacterial, anti-fungal and anti-viral. We need to learn much more about the role these chemicals play in nature. One of these substances, taxane, from the Pacific yew tree, has become a powerful treatment for breast and other cancers. Aspirin’s active ingredient comes from willows.


Trees are greatly underutilized as an eco-technology. “Working trees” could absorb some of the excess phosphorus and nitrogen that run off farm fields and help heal the dead zone in the Gulf of Mexico. In Africa, millions of acres of parched land have been reclaimed through strategic tree growth.


Trees are also the planet’s heat shield. They keep the concrete and asphalt of cities and suburbs 10 or more degrees cooler and protect our skin from the sun’s harsh UV rays. The Texas Department of Forestry has estimated that the die-off of shade trees will cost Texans hundreds of millions of dollars more for air-conditioning. Trees, of course, sequester carbon, a greenhouse gas that makes the planet warmer. A study by the Carnegie Institution for Science also found that water vapor from forests lowers ambient temperatures.


A big question is, which trees should we be planting? Ten years ago, I met a shade tree farmer named David Milarch, a co-founder of the Champion Tree Project who has been cloning some of the world’s oldest and largest trees to protect their genetics, from California redwoods to the oaks of Ireland. “These are the supertrees, and they have stood the test of time,” he says.


Science doesn’t know if these genes will be important on a warmer planet, but an old proverb seems apt. “When is the best time to plant a tree?” The answer: “Twenty years ago. The second-best time? Today.”


Jim Robbins is the author of the forthcoming book “The Man Who Planted Trees.”


http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/12/opinion/why-trees-matter.html?_r=1&nl=todaysheadlines&emc=edit_th_20120412