When they brought their boats to the shore, they left everything and followed him. Today's Gospel account recounts the calling of the first four disciples - Peter, Andrew, James, and John. This was a development that might have been necessitated by the sheer amount of work that Jesus found himself facing. Ever since the cure of the demoniac inside the synagogue (cf. 4:33-37), the news about Jesus’ healing ability spread throughout the villages and cities prompting scores of those who were in need of wholeness to seek him. It was becoming pretty clear that Jesus’ mission could not have come at a better time and the good news which was the content of his preaching was long overdue. The afflicted were hungry for the good news while the captives were waiting for liberation. As Jesus would later on say, the harvest was abundant but the laborers were few. Jesus could not do it by himself. He needed to recruit helpers who would also double as his companions. Enter the two pair of brothers who plied their trade as fishermen.
Jesus must have liked something about Simon when they were together at the latter's house. For even after leaving Simon’s house and going to preach to the other towns, he soon found himself where Peter and his companions were fishing. He was not yet done with Simon. After helping Simon make a catch unlike any he had ever made, at his bidding, Simon and the other three left everything behind and joined the Jesus Project. It was a magic moment whose consequence even the four might have only come to understand later on. Simon and the other three were undoubtedly hard-working people, and all they must have ever wanted, as we all do, was to have a means of earning their daily bread and to be secure for tomorrow. Jesus had just helped them make a large catch that would have earned them some good returns. Instead of savoring the moment and deferring any consideration to Jesus’ proposal to another day, the four, at the beckoning of Jesus, left behind the great catch they had made and strolled into a seemingly unsecured future. It was a sight that might have left speechless those who were in the vicinity.
The four were not themselves when they decided to accept Jesus’ proposal. Some change had taken place inside of them. That sign that Jesus did made Simon and his companions to recognize that there is a human longing that cannot be met with food. The sign must have awakened in them an awareness that there is a search (seeking) in life that reaches beyond the physiological sphere. Simon and his companions recognized the fulfillment of these searches in Jesus. They recognized in Jesus that well-spring of life, that source of the fullness of life. And perhaps this was why Simon went down on his knees in recognition of who Jesus was. And this must have been the reason, without doubt, why they readily left their catch of a lifetime to follow Jesus. For in Jesus, they would find more than fish.