©2003 Larry Huntsperger Peninsula Bible Fellowship

02/02/03

The Fisherman

2/2/03 The Fisherman

I very much hope

that what I do during the next few minutes

will not come across to you as a sales pitch.

If it does,

I will have failed miserably.

It is prompted by the fact that there is in the back

a table with a bunch of copies of a new book titled “The Fisherman”.

The book was just released this month by Revell,

and because it’s got my name on it as the author

and because you are my family

I thought I owed it to you to give you a little background on the book.

And let me say first of all, just so that you know,

that I never have and never will make any money

off of any books that are sold here at the church.

The church is able to buy the books at a discount,

but whatever profit there is from those sales here

goes directly into the general fund.

I have absolutely no financial interest whatsoever

in whether or not you choose to buy a copy.

Having said that, however,

I do have several reasons why

I’m going to take the morning to introduce you to the book.

First, I want do so

because it will help you decide whether or not you want to invest the time into reading it.

But more than that,

the very fact that the book exists,

and that it exists in this form

has been used by God in my own life

in some ways I want you to know about.

Let me begin first by introducing you to the book.

It is being marketed as Christian fiction,

and correctly so.

Knowing my aversion

to so much of the commercialization that floods the Christian world,

the thought that I would write a “Christian” novel

may come as a surprise to some of you.

Perhaps the best way for me to explain what I’ve attempted to do through this book

is for me to read a portion from the Author’s Note

found at the beginning of the book.

“The book you are about to read is fiction.

It is not the fifth Gospel.

It is not the Third Epistle of Peter.

Apart from a few quotations from Scripture woven into the text,

every word from the first to the last is the product of my imagination.

Having said that, however, I need to say more,

for although The Fisherman is fiction,

it is fiction unlike any you have ever read before.

During the writing process,

when asked what I was working on,

I described the manuscript as historical fiction.

I now believe this does not accurately describe the book.

Authors of historical fiction weave their own imagined plot against their chosen historical backdrop,

allowing the history to provide a frame through which readers can see the plot.

I have done exactly the opposite.

I have not placed a story into a historical frame;

I have created a frame through which I hope you will be able to see history with a new clarity.

The entire plot of this book

and the central events of each of the twenty-seven chapters

are taken directly from the historical records.

I have been careful not to alter nor amplify any of these events for the sake of the story.

If I have done my work well,

my words will simply enable you to personally enter into these events

and the lives of those involved in them.

And then just a final word about who the book is written to.

Imagine being granted a private audience with the Apostle Peter near the end of his life.

He has given you permission

to ask him anything you want to ask.

In response to his offer, you say,

“Peter, I want you to tell me what it was really like

during those few years you spent with the Master.

What was it like to be there?

What was it like to be you?”

If you can imagine yourself in such a conversation, this book is written to you.”

And, having read that to you,

some of you will realize

that you have already heard little bits of this book here and there

during the past few years.

It has crept into my teaching in the form of illustrations,

and it will very likely continue to do so in the months and years ahead.

Now, I’ll read a little more of it for you in a few minutes,

but I first want to share with you

the basic premise upon which the whole thing was written.

There are two of them, actually.

The first is that there is not

and cannot be any real difference whatsoever

between us, you and me,

and those men and women who joined their lives to Jesus during the first century.

The whole range of emotions,

of fears,

and anxieties,

and insecurities,

and doubts,

and frustrations,

and angers that we battle in our lives

were present in their lives as well.

Nearly every picture I’ve ever seen

of people in “Bible times” surrounding Jesus

have reflected people who appear to be immersed

in a kind of unquestioning,

bliss-filled submissive adoration of the Master.

I simply don’t buy it.

If the gospel records are to be of any value to us whatsoever,

those people in them

had to have wrestled with all the same struggles,

and fears,

and questions,

and churning points in their relationship with Christ

that you and I have faced.

And my second basic premise for the book flows from this.

I began with the assumption

that everything I have felt in my relationship with Christ

is something Peter, and in fact all the disciples, must have felt as well.

We are given a tremendous amount of material about Peter in the New Testament,

more than anyone else outside of Christ Himself and the Apostle Paul.

And the really exciting thing

is that we are given information

about Peter both before his own submission to Christ,

and before the presence of the Holy Spirit in his life following Pentecost.

And what I did when I wrote The Fisherman

was to take the wide range of emotional responses

that I have faced in my own relationship with my Lord during the past 35 years,

the confusion,

and the fears,

and the doubts,

and the irritation with the way God does things,

and the incredible joy at discovering He loves me and takes me just the way I am,

I took all those things that I have felt,

and placed them into the mouth and the mind of Peter

as his life with Jesus unfolds.

I commented to Sandee a while back

that when I wrote The Grace Exchange

I put into words what I think, what I believe about my Lord.

When I wrote The Fisherman

I put into words what I feel about Him.

And during the past few weeks

as a few copies have made their way into circulation,

I have discovered something I had secretly hoped for,

but had no idea whether or not it would actually happen.

When Christians read the thing

and see Peter feeling all these different emotions in his relationship with Christ,

it gives them permission to accept their own emotional responses to their Lord as well.

Our discovery of what it means for us to live honestly before our Lord

is no easy process.

We just naturally believe there is a narrow band of “acceptable” emotional responses to God.

We should feel adoration,

and gratitude,

and reverence,

and feelings of praise.

But we certainly shouldn’t feel irritation,

or anger,

or frustration,

or disappointment.

But the more I studied the life of Peter

the more convinced I became

that God carefully positioned him in the Biblical record

in a way that was intended to lead us into a life of emotional honesty and freedom before our Lord.

And when I wrote The Fisherman

my hope was that it would give those who read it

permission to live in that emotional honesty with God.

The entire book is written in the first person.

What that means

is that the entire book is written as if the Apostle Peter himself is talking,

telling us what he was thinking and feeling

as he moved through his 4 years with the Master.

Obviously I don’t really have a clue what Peter thought or felt,

but I do know what I would have felt and thought,

and because Peter really was just like us

it is reasonable to assume his responses must have closely paralleled our own.

I’ve made one other discovery about the book during the past few weeks, too.

I’ve discovered that, at least in some situations,

the nonchristian mind simply doesn’t get it.

Obviously the central focus of the book

is the developing love/trust relationship between Peter and Christ.

When the book does what it’s suppose to,

it reflects back to us our own relationship with the Lord.

But when the reader has no personal awareness of the Lord

in some situations they simply don’t get it.

Unfortunately the book was reviewed by such person

and his comments made it clear

he didn’t have a clue what was happening in the book.

He simply reviewed it from the perspective of its historical content

and came to the conclusion there was nothing new there.

Obviously everyone who picks up the book

will know every detail of the “plot” before they read a single sentence.

That’s assumed.

If the reader cannot key into Peter’s personal relationship with Christ,

they will go away untouched.

OK, let me read the Prologue to the book for you

so that you can see a little of what it’s like,

and then I want to share with you how the thing ended up being published,

and then I’ll read just one more passage.

And again,

keep in mind that this is not Larry writing,

it’s Peter.

I have brooded long over what I am about to do. In the end I have chosen to write because so few seem to understand. I am not a writer. Words on paper come hard for me. Even now my mind is filled with a thousand other things I would rather be doing. But if I do not speak, who will? Who knew the Master better then? Who knows him better now?

You see, it was not the way you think it was. There! I have said it. And unless you understand how it was, my friend, you will never be able to understand how it should be now.

I was born Simon Barjona. You know me by a different name—Peter. I am one of the twelve disciples chosen by the Master during his time among us. Several excellent accounts of those remarkable months have been written and widely circulated by others more skilled in such things than I. Those accounts accurately record many of the events we witnessed and shared together. I have nothing to alter or add to those accounts. I write now because so few seem to understand those accounts correctly. So few seem to understand him correctly—the way he was when he was with us and why it changed our lives forever.

Perhaps it would help if I allowed you to see those days through my eyes. I want you to know not just what happened but what it felt like to be there. I want you to know it was real, more real than the hot dust under our feet, more real than the flies buzzing around our sweat-soaked clothing. Somehow I want to help you to see the things I saw and feel the things I felt. I have seen what the enemy has done with the record of those days. I have seen what he has done with people’s perceptions of me. I have seen the way reality has been twisted into ritual and religion. I have seen the way it sucks the life and vitality out of the people of God. When I wrote my second open letter to the family of God, I addressed it “to those who have received a faith of the same kind as ours.” But unless you understand what my faith is like and where it came from, the letter’s assurance will be of little value to you.

And so I write with the hope that I can help you to see the Master as a man. For, if we cannot see him correctly as a man, we have no hope of understanding him correctly as our God.

I’ll share one more passage with you in just a minute,

but before I do

I want to introduce it by sharing with you

how The Fisherman came to be in print.

You all know that about ten years ago

I wrote up and then found a publisher for a series of talks I’d given here on Sunday mornings.

The publisher, Harvest House, titled it The Grace Exchange.

For a number of different reasons

the publisher could not find an audience for the book,

and I personally believe it must have set some sort of record

for the shortest time in print.

During the years that followed

I began writing The Fisherman.

I worked on it in my spare time over about 4 or 5 years.

When I had it about half done

I sent it to Harvest House as a proposal

and they wanted nothing to do with it.

Certainly the dismal sales of The Grace Exchange had something to do with it,

but they also said there was simply no market for historical Christian fiction.

Normally I would have taken this as a clear indication

that what I was doing was a waste of time,

and dropped the project altogether.

But I was having so much fun writing it

that I just kept on going.

When I finally finished it

I told the Lord I’d done what I thought He wanted me to do

and if He wanted to do anything more with it

He’d have to take over

because I had no heart whatsoever

for running around trying to find someone to publish the thing.

For more than a year it just sat in my office.

Then, about two years ago

we had a man visit our fellowship here for just one Sunday.

He was from the East Coast,

working as a consultant for the oil industry.

He picked up a copy of The Grace Exchange,

liked it,

and called me and asked if I had written anything else.

I sent him a copy of The Fisherman manuscript.

I heard nothing more for some time.

Then he contacted me

and asked if he could share the manuscript with some friends.

I said sure.

One of those friends was a freelance editor for Christian books.

She fell in love with the manuscript,

called me,

and asked if she could pass it on to a friend of hers

who was an agent for Christian books.

I asked if it would cost me any money.

She said no,

and I said sure, why not.

A few months later

I received a letter from the agent

offering to represent the work.

The agent contacted Baker Book House, who owns Revell,

and they in turn offered me a publishing contract.

They took the thing and have done a beautiful job on it,

and have used it as their lead book for their winter releases,

using the book’s cover as the cover for their Fall and Winter catalog.

I don’t know whether they can find a market for it,

but I do know that God can and will do whatever He wants in our lives.

I’ll tell you honestly,

during the past year and a half

I have simply been an observer

to what are, for me, truly remarkable works of God in my life.

And I want to close by reading one more section from the book

because there is a character in this section

that captures so well what I see the Lord doing in my own life.

This event picks up the life of Christ

after He has been teaching a group of what must have been close to 20,000 people.

Jesus finally finished his discourse and sat down. It was obvious that he was finished teaching for the day, but no one moved. Rather than gathering their families together and heading home, they all just sat there—an endless sea of humanity spread out before us. Apparently they had no intention of leaving unless they saw Jesus himself depart. The whole situation became rather awkward, and we disciples grouped around the Master, not knowing exactly what to do. I finally took it upon myself to speak to Jesus. I pointed out the obvious: we were miles from the nearest village, it was getting late, these people were hungry, and they all needed to either go home or find temporary lodging for the night. I encouraged Jesus to send the people away.

Jesus looked up at us hovering around him and said, “They don’t have to go away. You give them something to eat.”

We looked at the crowd. Then we looked back at Jesus. Then we looked at the crowd again. This time I kept my mouth shut. I’d been here before. I was hearing Jesus speaking words, but the words made no sense.

Finally Jesus broke the silence. “Philip, where can we buy bread to feed these people?”

I was thrilled it was Philip he singled out for the test. I didn’t know the answer to this one. Philip did some quick mental calculations and stated what we already knew. It would take more than half a year’s wages to buy bread for this mob.

Silence reigned once again in our little group.

Then my brother spoke up. “There is a lad here who has five barley loaves and two fish, but what are these for so many people?”

I looked over at him and saw Andrew standing with his hand resting on the shoulder of a boy perhaps ten or eleven years old. The boy was holding a small lunch basket, neatly covered with a white cloth. I remembered seeing Andrew sitting with the boy throughout much of the afternoon. Apparently the little fellow had been playing outside when the crowd passed through his village in pursuit of Jesus that morning. He begged his mom for permission to join the group. She learned their neighbors were going, so she quickly packed him a little lunch and sent him off in their care. In the confused transition from the beach to the hillside, the young fellow had been separated from his neighbors and found himself all alone in that multitude. He was safe enough but a little scared. Andrew had a way of picking up on those things. He saw the boy standing by himself, struck up a conversation with him, and offered to keep him company until they located the boy’s neighbors.

Andrew told me later how that lunch basket ended up in the Master’s hands. Throughout the afternoon the little fellow kept glancing at the basket sitting next to him. He felt uncomfortable eating his lunch when he knew those around him had none. When Jesus finished his teaching and sat down, for a few minutes neither Andrew nor the boy spoke. It was apparent to Andrew that the lad was deep in thought about something. Then he turned to Andrew and asked, “Do you know if Jesus brought a lunch with him today?”

Andrew said he knew Jesus had not brought a lunch and, in fact, had not eaten anything since early morning.

The boy was silent again for a few minutes. Then he turned again to Andrew and said, “Do you think Jesus would like to have my lunch?”

Andrew suggested they go up and ask him.

The events that followed are no doubt well known to you. Jesus sent Andrew and Matthew back to the fishing boat to get the large baskets we kept on board for sorting and storing our catch. He told the rest of us to divide the crowd into groups of somewhere between fifty and a hundred people in each group. As I headed out into the crowd I glanced back and saw the boy sitting on the grass next to the Master. He was laughing at something Jesus was saying. The lunch basket sat unopened on the grass between them.

As soon as Andrew and Matthew returned, Jesus stood, offered a prayer of thanksgiving for the little basket of food, then pulled back the cloth cover, removed the contents, and began breaking pieces of fish and bread into one of the baskets. In just a few seconds the basket was filled, and he told us to bring it over to the first group of hungry listeners. The next basket he filled was the boy’s little basket. He filled it until it overflowed, then handed it back to the lad. The boy sat next to Jesus with the basket on his lap and ate his lunch. But his eyes were glued to the miracle taking place in Jesus’ hands.

For the next several hours we toted and dumped and toted and dumped basket after basket of food. As fast as we brought them back Jesus refilled them.

Everyone ate until they could eat no more. When they finally finished, we gathered up the uneaten food and found we had twelve baskets full of leftovers . . . one for each of us.

The crowd’s response to that feast exceeded my wildest expectations. Someone began chanting, “KING JESUS! KING JESUS! KING JESUS!” and it wasn’t long before thousands of voices joined in. At last we had the power of the people behind us. Surely nothing could stop us now. Nothing, that is, except Jesus himself. Rather than seizing the moment and acknowledging their nomination, he told us the meeting was over and ordered us to return to the boat immediately and head back to Capernaum. Once again I felt he was making a tragic tactical error, turning his back on this tremendous momentum, but he made it clear his instructions were not open for discussion. As we shoved off from the shore, I could hear the Master telling the multitude to return to their homes. When I looked again, he was nowhere to be seen.

I cannot think about that little boy with his lunch

without thinking about myself.

We have our little bit of nothing that we bring to our Lord.

And when it serves His purposes

He can take our little bit of nothing

and use it for His good in the lives of so many others.

It’s just the way He does things sometimes.

And with that

you’ll not hear me mention that book again.

But we’ll keep some on hand most of the time.

The book is now available through any book store

or through any of the on-line sources.

The best on-line price I am aware of can be found from Christian Discount Books at:

http://www.christianbook.com/Christian/Books/product?isbn=0800758447&event=AFF&p=1011504