Drop Your Nets: Mark 1:14-20

The news spread through Galilee like fire through dry grass: John had been arrested. Herod's soldiers had dragged the prophet from the wilderness in chains. The voice that shook the Jordan valley had been silenced.

But another voice rose to take its place.

Jesus walked the shoreline of the Sea of Galilee, where the morning mist still clung to the water and fishing boats rocked gently at anchor. The air was thick with the smell of fish and salt and tar from mended nets. Simon and Andrew stood waist-deep in the shallows, their circular casting nets spreading like wings before splashing down, then dragging heavy through the water. Their arms ached. Their backs ached. They had done this every morning since boyhood, and their fathers before them.

Jesus stopped. "Follow me," he called across the water, "and I will make you fishers of men."