This Easter week we are exploring the Gospel appointed for each day - today it's John 21:1-14. Today, we’re in a fishing boat with Peter and six other of Jesus’ disciples, two unnamed. (John takes care to mention the exact number of fish caught in the nets – someone counted them? – but can’t be bothered to find out the names of two of the crew?). These disciples must have fled Jerusalem for the safer home turf in Galilee, and Peter figures he may as well do what he knows, now that everything he thought he learned since leaving his fishing boat has been turned upside-down.
As happened when Jesus first called him away from his nets (Luke 5:1-11), Peter and the crew fish all night and catch nothing. In the morning they’re ready to call it a day, but someone on the shore suggests they throw their nets over to the right. Though that’s pretty much what Jesus had done three years earlier, they don’t recognize the guy as Jesus – not until their nets become so full they’re ready to burst. Then they know who he is, though perhaps he looks different. (“Now none of the disciples dared to ask him, ‘Who are you?’ because they knew it was the Lord.”) Peter, who has been fishing in the buff? throws on some clothes to jump into the water and get to Jesus as fast as he can. That’s love – when you can’t wait to reach the other.
Then Jesus utters my favorite words in the whole Bible: “Come and have breakfast.” He’s got a fire going and some bread, and he invites them to add fish from their catch – his catch, which he has allowed to become their catch; that’s how God’s abundance works in our lives. He blesses the bread and the fish – and thankfully doesn’t say, “Do this in remembrance of me,” or our Sunday mornings would be a lot messier. He shows them that feasting is a sign of God’s kingdom, and that no goodbye is really final in that realm.
Where has Jesus provided you with a feast lately?
Where are you seeing abundance in these trying times?
To what feasts, or ministries, do you feel Jesus inviting you to bring “your catch?”
Here is the verse of “Was That You?” that goes with this story. (Whole song is here).
A bunch of us were fishing, just out doing what we knew.
The blues are all we’re catching, but what else we gonna do?
At dawn some guy calls from the shore, “Over there, you’ll find some fish.”
As nets start bursting from the haul, we meet our deeper wish:
Was that you, with abundance when I never see enough?
Was that you, showing what strength is, when all I know is being tough?
Was that you forgiving more than I could ever understand?
Don’t know why it always takes a while for me to open up my eyes and see:
That was you, watching out for me.
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