Killing Jesus: A History

He has met the owners before and now sees them washing and stretching their twenty-foot-wide cast nets in preparation for the next voyage. The two men take care to eliminate knots and tangles, while also replacing any sinker weights that have fallen off. Though he knows next to nothing about fishing, Jesus walks down the pier with confidence and steps into one of the empty craft. No one stops him.
    As he gazes back toward the shoreline, Jesus can see the raised central roof of the town synagogue a block from the water. It stands taller than the homes and waterfront administrative offices, reminding him that Capernaum’s citizens worship God and hold a teacher like him in great reverence.
    A fisherman in his early twenties walks to the boat. Simon, as he is known, is a simple, uneducated, impulsive man. He knows Jesus from their previous meeting during the summer, as he and some others were fishing for the tropical musht fish in the warm mineral springs down the coast, near Tabgha. At the time, Jesus had called upon Simon and his brother Andrew to join him as he preached his message throughout Galilee and to save souls by becoming “fishers of men.” While Simon had initially accepted that call to evangelism, he also has a wife and mother-in-law to care for. The task of being one of Jesus’s disciples and spreading the word about his message is difficult to balance with his need to make a living. His commitment to Jesus has flagged.
    But now Jesus is back, standing before him in his boat.
    Simon doesn’t tell him to leave. He just asks Jesus what he wants. Jesus tells Simon to push the boat away from the dock and drop anchor a little way offshore. The spoken word carries easily across the lake’s surface, and Jesus knows he will be heard by one and all if he teaches from a place upon the water.
    Simon is exhausted and dejected. He has been up for twenty-four hours straight, sailing his small boat out onto the lake and dropping his nets again and again. His back aches from his leaning over the side to pull those nets in. He has been in and out of the inland sea countless times, without success. He needs a drink of water and a meal. He needs a soft bed. But most of all, he needs to pay his taxes, and last night did nothing to help this, for he did not catch a single fish.
    Perhaps Simon has nothing else to do at this moment, or perhaps he can’t face the thought of returning home to his wife and mother-in-law empty-handed. Perhaps he hopes the teacher will say a few words that will lighten his burden. Or maybe he just feels guilty for reneging on his original commitment. Whatever the reason, Simon undoes the knot connecting his boat to its anchorage, pulls the rope toward himself, and pushes away from the pier.
    Jesus has been standing this whole while. But when Simon’s boat floats just far enough from the shore that Jesus can be clearly heard by one and all, he takes a seat, adopting the traditional pose for teaching.
    Thanks to Simon and his boat, Jesus is soon regaling the entire waterfront at Capernaum with his insightful words. As always, people are overcome by his charisma. One by one, they stop what they are doing to listen.
    “Put out into deep water,” Jesus tells the weary fisherman when he is finished speaking, “and let down your nets for a catch.”
    “Master,” Simon responds, “we’ve worked hard all night and haven’t caught anything.”
    Sending his boat out into the deep water is the last thing Simon wants to do, yet he also feels powerless to say no.
    So with Jesus sitting calmly amidships, Simon hoists the small sail and aims his boat for the deepest waters of the Sea of Galilee.
    *   *   *
    A short time later, Jesus and Simon are catching so many fish that the nets start to break. The sheer volume of carp, sardines, and musht threatens to capsize Simon’s small craft, and he is forced to signal to James and John, the partners in his fishing cooperative, to come help.
    Rather than rejoice, Simon is terrified. From the moment Jesus first stepped into his boat, something deeply spiritual about his presence made Simon uncomfortable. He feels unholy in comparison, even more so after hearing Jesus’s teachings about repentance and the need to be cleansed of all sins. Simon wants this man out of his life immediately. He throws himself onto his knees atop a pile of writhing fish and begs Jesus to leave him alone. “Go away from me, Lord. I am a sinful man.”
    “Don’t be