John 21:1-19
Rev. Richard R. Wohlschlaeger
Swarthmore Presbyterian Church
April 18, 2010
What do you do when you feel that your life has suddenly fallen apart? What do you do after the death of a life-long partner? After a medical diagnosis that threatens your own life? A job loss? A broken relationship? Something really huge like that. What do you do? That’s the question this morning’s story from John puts before us. What do we do after a devastating personal loss?
I would suggest as a starter that we have at once a very real and quite fanciful story from the Bible to offer us a few options. For the disciples the last week of Jesus’ life had been emotionally overwhelming. The high of their entry into Jerusalem had been followed by extraordinary events in the temple, a Passover meal unlike any other they had known before, an unexpected betrayal by one of their own, an armed arrest by the powerful Roman force, a series of denials by one who had claimed strong and solid faith, a mock trial by a posturing political and religious leadership, a jeering mob, and a bloody execution. Surely Jesus’ death left the disciples crushed and numb. The human spirit can take only so much.
Then came the events that brought an emotional overload of another sort altogether – news of the empty tomb and resurrection appearances that had to be seen to be believed. These events would not only overwhelm and change the lives of the disciples forever; they would change the world as well. But at that time they didn’t know all that. They only knew that their world had been thrown into disarray. What to do?
That’s when Peter says to the rest of the group of disciples gathered together, “I am going fishing.” On one level what a quaint and quirky thing to say. Let’s just go fishing. That’s probably not what I’d do – I’m not much of a fisherman – but for Peter fishing had been his livelihood before he had thrown down his nets and left everything to follow a man named Jesus whom he had never met before. That must have felt like a lifetime ago after all that had happened since that fateful day. Maybe now it’s time to resume normal life again. Just get back to work. Get back to the routines that structure life and ease the pain that otherwise fills time’s vacuum in the aftermath of personal devastation.
I wouldn’t go fishing, as I said, because that’s not something I’m used to doing. That would be only an attempted escape. I would need to go back to the things I’m used to doing. I would need to go back to contemplating Scripture and creating bulletins for worship and writing sermons and responding to people who reach out to the church themselves for comfort and hope.
In that way I’m very lucky, I think, because in times of my personal pain the words of Scripture and the needs of others have shown me Christ’s healing presence in unfathomable and mysterious ways. And I have been lifted up from sadness into paths of new and hope-filled life. What today’s story about the disciples going fishing shows us is that after despair and after words that may sound like an idle tale that cannot be believed, Christ comes upon us in the routines of daily life to lift us up again in miraculous ways.
I think of those times as momentary disclosures of something beyond myself. Often after long periods of frustration and confusion, the light dawns, and what has been shrouded in darkness suddenly can be glimpsed – if only for an instant. But the momentary disclosure is liberating. It frees us to go on with life, with a new sense of enthusiasm. It is not a matter of new information that has made the difference. The new information may be just a vehicle of sorts. The momentary disclosure comes as a revelation, a gift from beyond ourselves.
I have seen this in my daily life as I’ve worked with Lisa and John, for I know that as we share ministry among you – and as we grow in deepening trust and friendship through the sharing of our own stories and our experiences with you – shedding our own tears and exulting in our own joy in response to yours (and I can assure you we have done both), we see the face of the risen Christ in the faces of each other. And we are lifted up to go on towards the vision Christ holds before us.
As the psalmist asks so poignantly, “Where can I go from your spirit? Or where can I flee from your presence?” The psalmist asks this question for which he has already given an answer: nowhere. There is nowhere we can go where God will not find us and lift us up. There is no height God cannot climb to claim us. There is no depth God cannot descend to hold us. Even if we try to escape, we cannot. Not even in the ordinary places of everyday life. Perhaps especially there. God works in the ordinary places of our lives to do extraordinary things.
Of course, it takes eyes to see. Not all the disciples know at first that the mysterious fisherman who joins them on the beach is Jesus. That seems to be the way these post-resurrection stories go. Jesus doesn’t look like Jesus as he looked before. He is embodied in people that don’t look like him on the outside, but he becomes known through the acts that come from the inside of others, even of strangers.
But not everyone recognizes Jesus at first. It often takes a discerning eye. In this story it’s the eyes of the disciple who had been especially close to Jesus. He’s often called simply the “Beloved Disciple,” or the disciple “whom Jesus loved,” but he’s not named with the specificity given to the others. The writer of the Gospel of John suggests that it’s this disciple’s eyewitness account of Jesus’ life that lends authenticity to the Gospel, though he may not actually be the writer.
The whole story turns and gains momentum when the unnamed “Beloved Disciple” turns to Peter and says, “It is the Lord!” A whole night long of fishing has yielded nothing, but as day breaks on the presence of the mysterious fisherman who suggests that Peter and his friends cast their nets on the other side of the boat, they haul in more fish than they can hold. Such abundance must surely be the work of the Lord in the eyes of those who have eyes to see. And when that is pointed out, the rest of them begin to get it.
They begin to recognize in their new-found abundance the presence of the one who had always promised them a life of abundance. That even death would not be the last word. That there would be life after death in ways quite likely unexpected and unanticipated. Even in ways thought impossible. Such good news is the news of Eastertide, my friends. As more and more sightings are reported in the Bible, more and more hope becomes ours as well. As it was with the disciples of old, so it will be with us. The living Christ makes our ordinary or routine no longer ordinary or routine.
“The world is charged with the grandeur of God,” the poet Gerard Manley Hopkins proclaimed. “It will flame out, like shining from shook foil;/It gathers to a greatness, like the ooze of oil/Crushed.” And that grandeur finds its way into the nooks and crannies of the lives of each of us in our distress. “Weeping may linger for the night,/but joy comes with the morning,” our psalmist this morning promises. Sometimes the night may linger longer than we would want or imagine we could endure, but the day does break, and with the sunlight the assurance that God is yet with us in ways we might never have imagined.
“It’s the Lord!” the Beloved Disciple proclaims excitedly to Peter. He apparently has the eyes to see such things before Peter does. You may recall that it was these same two disciples who ran together to look into the tomb where Jesus had been buried. Though Peter is portrayed consistently as the man of action, the other disciple was actually a faster runner. He reached the tomb first and was the first to believe that the burial clothes lying in the tomb meant that Jesus had overcome death. He didn’t know how that had happened, but his faith told him it had come to be. Peter would grasp that truth only later.
Now on the beach at daybreak the same Beloved Disciple is the first to recognize Jesus. These two disciples show two different natures. The Beloved Disciple is the one of discernment, and Peter is the one of action. A little like Mary and Martha, remember? Mary, the one who sits at the feet of Jesus, soaking it all in, and Martha, the one who keeps life going by cooking and serving the meal they all enjoy. Both are valued in the eyes of God. We need each other, we who are thoughtful and discerning, and we who are ready to roll up our sleeves and get to work.
Authentic recognition of God’s presence is critical to faith. But so is the human response to action. Jesus called one his beloved, the other his rock. We complete each other, those of us inclined one way or the other. We complete each other as people of faith in the same way two partners in a marriage can complete each other in the differences they bring to share toward wholeness. Neither understanding nor action alone constitutes authentic faith, which is why we need to unite the best of the Beloved Disciple and the best of Peter as we move forward.
Jesus challenges Peter toward that authentic faith by three times asking him if he truly loves him. We should see in that exchange, of course, the opportunity for Peter to redeem his denial of Jesus in the time of trial. Three times Peter had denied even knowing Jesus. Then the rooster crowed in clarion condemnation. But now Peter has the opportunity to turn that denial into faithful living. If you love me, Jesus says to him, then feed my lambs . . . tend my sheep . . . feed my sheep. Care for those who need help and support, compassion and love. And you will find peace. Not peace as the world gives, but peace as God gives. Deep and lasting peace.
The disciples must have remembered when Jesus had said to them:
“I will not leave you orphaned; I am coming to you. In a little while the world will no longer see me, but you will see me; because I live, you also will live. On that day you will know that I am in my Father, and you in me, and I in you. They who have my commandments and keep them are those who love me; and those who love me will be loved by my Father, and I will love them and reveal myself to them. . . . Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled, and do not let them be afraid.”
Friends, there are yet more sightings to come. I am convinced of this for I have been a witness to these things. Pray that when the risen Christ comes among us we will have eyes to see and courage to follow. Amen.