“Gone Fishing”
John 21:1-14
How quickly time goes by. A week
has already passed since we celebrated the resurrection of Jesus Christ. Once again Easter Sunday has come and gone
for us. The emotions of Holy Week have
subsided, the excitement of Easter Sunday has settled down, and churches are
returning to their pre-Easter worship attendance levels.
And yet, one look at the bulletin header for this Sunday reminds us
that Easter has not stopped. Easter
Sunday may have come and gone, but the Easter Season continues, and it will
continue for the next 40 days until Pentecost.
In my sermon last week, I made the claim that Easter is more than just
about one day. Easter is about the
on-going encounter with the living Christ as post-resurrection Christians. It is this fuller meaning of Easter that
reminds us that our faith is not centered on the empty tomb, but on the one,
who appeared in the flesh to the apostles and disciples after God raised him
from the dead.
We are an Easter people precisely because the proclamation of the
resurrection of Jesus Christ does not stop on Easter Sunday, but continues to be the on-going conviction and confession of our faith
from our own encounter with the living Christ.
It is the living Lord of life who makes us an Easter people, and it is
his message and commandment that continues to have profound implications for
who we are and what we have been called to be and do as God’s people. This is why our story for this morning is one
of my favorite post-resurrection stories, because it speaks so much to us about
what it means to live in the on-going message of the resurrection as Easter
people.
Let me take a moment to set our story for this morning in context. John has already told us in chapter 20 that
Jesus appeared to the disciples, not once, but twice after he was raised from
the dead. The second time being the
story of when Jesus proved he was alive in the flesh by showing the holes in
his hands and sides to Thomas. And our
story for this morning comes directly after these first two appearances.
Now, one would think that the first two appearances of the resurrected
Jesus would be enough to get the disciples going in their ministry and mission,
but in our story for today this isn’t the case.
In fact, there is no excitement, no going out to preach the gospel to
the ends of the earth, no making disciples of all nations, no baptizing of
anyone. There is no sense at all that
the disciples have any idea what the resurrection means for them and for their
life as Easter people. Instead, we are
introduced to a group of seven disciples who are not sure what is next for
them, as if they are saying, “Okay, Jesus is raised from the dead, and we
believe, but now what do we do?” They
almost seem stuck somewhere between the time of Easter Sunday and the time
after Easter.
Well, Peter has an idea. He’s
going fishing. So he hangs up his “Gone
Fishing” sign and walks off to the docks.
We can’t be really sure from the text why he decided to go fishing. Maybe he just wanted to take a break from all
the excitement of the last week. Maybe
he just wanted a moment to reflect on some things and get his head cleared
before he sets off on his great evangelistic journey.
Many people since Peter have discovered that fishing – or golfing, or
cross-stitching, or vacationing, or whatever people do when they get tired of
doing what they are supposed to be doing – is a great way to unwind and think
about what’s been happening in their life and where their life is heading. We can’t say for sure what Peter’s
motivations are, but we do know that whatever it was, it was enough to get the
other disciples to grab their fishing gear and go with Peter. After all he has been kind of like their leader
for the last three years as they followed Jesus around.
Some
commentators, however, read more into this fishing trip than a simple, guys’
day out kind of thing. They see Peter’s
actions as nothing short of defection.
They not only see Peter leaving his discipleship back on shore, but he
has carried six others out to sea with him.
Despite his belief that the Jesus of his past has now become the Jesus
of his present in the resurrection, Peter just walks away from any commitment
and connection to Christ. It does make
you wonder if these commentators are on to something. There does seem to be an air of finality to
Peter’s words when he says, “I’m going fishing,” as if he means “permanently.”
At
first glance, this seems to be a rather harsh criticism of the times when we go
do the things we like to do to unwind and think and take a break from all those
things we are supposed to be doing. We
all get burned out, even me. We all need
time to recharge our batteries, clear our head, and reflect upon God, or life,
or whatever. But this is not what our
text is saying.
There is a big difference between what we sometimes go and do, and what
Peter did. Peter and the disciples
didn’t just go take a break from what they were supposed to be doing. They went back to their old way of life, to
their old ways of doing things, to the old reliable line of work. They went back to living in the life that
they knew even before meeting Jesus.
The danger for us is in this post-resurrection time is to do the same
thing: to return to our own old ways of life, to our old ways of doing things,
to our old reliable line of work now that the celebration of Easter Sunday has
ended; to hang out our “Gone Fishing” sign, and go on as if our life has never
been changed and made new by the light of the resurrection and the Spirit of
the living Christ.
But, being an Easter people means that we have been
changed and made new by event of the resurrection of Jesus. It means that the on-gong message of Easter
and the fact that Jesus is the living Lord of our life continues to have
profound implications for our lives of faith, whenever and wherever we may find
ourselves in our day-to-day life.
Each one of us has been put in a specific place and in a specific time
for a specific purpose. We no longer
have an occupation; each one of us has been given a vocation, a calling to make
everything we do a witness to the gospel of Jesus Christ, and an opportunity to
do God’s work in the world. And it is in
just those moments when we do decide to hang up our “Gone Fishing” sign that
Jesus’ appears to us and reminds us of our greater purpose, just like he did
with Peter.
The
conversation between Jesus and Peter while they eat breakfast is so personal
and intimate that it is as if Jesus is talking directly to us. Scholars and pastors have long puzzled over
the meaning of Jesus’ question to Peter, “Do you love me more than these?” Some say Jesus is referring to the disciples
love for Jesus as in “Do you love me more than the disciples love me? Others say Jesus is referring to Peter’s love
for Jesus compared to Peter’s love for the other disciples as in “Do you love
me more than you love the other disciples?”
But what if Jesus is referring to something else? What if Jesus is looking at the “Gone
Fishing” sign over Peter’s life, and while they are sitting at breakfast, Jesus
reaches down, grabs a hold of one of the fish that they caught, lifts it front
of Peter’s eyes, and asks, “Do you love me Peter? Do you love me more than you love these fish? Do you love me more than your old way of life,
your old ways of doing things, your old reliable line of work? Don’t you remember when I first came to you
and called you as my disciples? Don’t
you remember that morning long ago when you hadn’t caught anything all night,
and I told you to let down your nets into the water and when you did you caught
so much fish that your nets were about ready to break? Don’t you remember when I said to you,
‘Follow me and I will make you fishers of people’? Don’t you see that I have come again to you
the same way today? Do you love me more
than these, Peter? Then feed my
lambs. Do you love me more than these,
Peter? Then tend my sheep. Do you love me more than these, Peter? Then feed my sheep. Peter, follow me.”
Being
an Easter people, an Easter people who live in the light of the resurrection,
and who confess faith in the resurrected and living Christ, means that we can
never put our calling to follow Jesus on permanent hold. It means that we can never forget that Jesus
has called us to ministry and mission in all times and places, wherever we are
and in whatever we are doing.
I can’t tell you how many times when I have been working hard on
something, whether it be a sermon, a Sunday school
lesson, a Bible study, or one of the numerous projects on my desk, when I have
received a call from a stranger needing help with food, or gas, or some kind of
crisis. Every time that happens, I am
reminded again that this is not my occupation, but my vocation as Christ’s loving servant and faithful witness. Every time that happens, I am reminded again
that Jesus’ has called me to feed his lambs and tend his sheep and follow
him. Every time that happens I am
reminded again to take down my “Gone Fishing” sign and
remember the on-going message of Easter of the resurrection of Jesus
Christ.
From his encounter with the living Christ, Peter would indeed remove is
“Gone Fishing” sign. He would go on to
live an extraordinary life. He would go
on and continue to lead the church and make it possible for nearly the entire
world to encounter the love of God in Christ.
He would go on to heal people’s pain, bring good news to the poor, feed
the hungry, clothe the naked, and work for justice and liberation. And he would go on to be executed for his
faith in Jesus, the Stranger who stood on the beach that day, and who again
said, “Follow me.”
We will not always know at first the identity of the stranger who calls
to us on the beach of our lives, but we can be sure that whenever and wherever
we meet them, we will come face to face with the living Christ. For in following him, we will not only live a
life pleasing to God, but we will also experience the hope, peace, and joy that
comes from remaining faithful to the ministry and mission that he has called us
to do as his Easter people. Amen.