On this third Sunday in the season of Easter, we look at yet another resurrection appearance, this one from the Gospel of John.
The disciples are despondent. The world has collapsed around them. Their Lord has been crucified. I suppose that by the time this story takes place, which is at least a week after the Resurrection, we can assume that they have heard of the Resurrection, if they have not actually experienced the Resurrected Christ. Although we know that some did see him, if you think of the Upper Room story and this one as sequential. But obviously they do not yet know the significance of the Resurrection for their own lives. They are still confused and bewildered. So they do what any intelligent person would do in such circumstances. They go fishing.
The text says, Peter announced to the other disciples, "I'm going fishing." They responded, saying, "We'll go with you." They went out on a boat on the Sea of Galilee. But that night, it says, they caught nothing.
You see, it's a fishing story. I am eternally grateful to the Gospel of John, which says that after Easter the disciples went fishing, because I am serious about being a disciple myself, following that example. I have done that in the past. This year, though, is the exception. I have stayed here, kept my nose to the grindstone.
But the disciples went fishing a week or so after the Resurrection, and they caught nothing. At which they were probably not surprised, considering how things were going lately. But here comes the first lesson in this amazing, rich story. The disciples, some of them, were recruited by Jesus to be "fishers of men." You remember, Jesus said, "Follow me, and I will make you fishers of men." After the Resurrection, in this story symbolically, they are doing what they were called to do. After the Resurrection, they go fishing. Only they fail. They can't do it without Jesus.
So who should show up, but Jesus himself. Coming to the shore they notice a stranger standing there. He asks, "Catch anything?" Which is the question everybody asks a fisherman. Their answer is typical of fishermen. They say, "Not much happening out there." I know fishermen who have caught enough fish in a day to keep a cannery going. They say, "Not much happening out there." They do that, you know, so you'll go someplace else. They don't want you fishing where they have caught fish. Only that is not the case with the disciples. They really meant it. They caught nothing. They fished all night and caught nothing.
The stranger then says, "Cast your net on the right side of the boat." They do it, and catch a whole mess of fish. The disciple named John says to Peter, "It's the Lord! It's gotta be the Lord! There's only one person who can fish like that!"
The text says there are a hundred and fifty-three fish in that net. Which corresponds, incidentally, to the number of species of fish that the ancient world believed existed in the seas. Now I like to take that literally and say that Jesus was the only person in history to catch one of each species of fish with one cast. It is a record not likely to be equaled. But I am sure we are not supposed to take it literally, but allegorically. When numbers appear like that in the Bible, you can be sure that you are supposed to interpret it allegorically.
So what this is saying is that without Jesus empowering and guiding us, we, as disciples, are ineffective. We are impotent without Jesus' presence with us. With Jesus present with us, which is what the Resurrection makes possible, disciples can bring all humankind into the Kingdom. A hundred and fifty-three species equals, allegorically, all the races, all the nations of the world. So with Jesus' empowerment, everyone will be captured by the preaching of the Gospel.
That is the way the story opens. It proclaims Jesus is with us. Jesus is with us to empower us and to guide us in doing what he has called us to do. Without him, we can't do it. That is the first part of this story. You could call the first part of the story, "the kettle of fish." The second part of this story could be called, "the charcoal fire." This is the part of the story that I want us to focus on.
The disciples get off the boat, and join Jesus on the beach. Jesus is standing by a charcoal fire. Now you are not to miss that detail. This is no ordinary fire. This is a charcoal fire. The last time we read about a charcoal fire in the Gospel of John, it was outside the palace of Caiaphas, the high priest of Jerusalem. The soldiers were standing around a charcoal fire, warming themselves. Peter was lurking a little ways off. The soldiers see Peter standing in the shadows. The light from the fire illumines his face. They think they recognize him. They ask him, "Aren't you a disciple of Jesus?" Peter said, "No." They asked him three times, beside a charcoal fire, "Are you a disciple of Jesus?" And three times Peter said, "No."
I tell you, for Peter, the sight of a charcoal fire would bring back that dreadful memory. Jesus is standing on the shore beside a charcoal fire. Peter, who impulsively jumped out of that boat when he saw that it was Jesus, and ran through the shallow water to the shore, must have stopped dead in his tracks when he saw Jesus standing beside a charcoal fire.
Jesus said nothing to him. He took the fish and cooked them breakfast. Then he took the bread, broke it, and gave it to them. Now they know. They know for sure now. This is the Lord! They are having communion, as he promised. They would sit at table with him in the Kingdom when he returned, when he is Lord of all. When all the kingdoms of the world become the Kingdom of our Lord, then we will sit down with Jesus at the banquet and he will break the bread.
Now look what happened. The meal is over. Jesus turns to Peter, and asks, "Simon, son of John, do you love me?" Peter said, "Yes, Lord; you know that I love you." "Then feed my lambs."
A second time he says, "Simon, do you love me?" "Yes, Lord; I love you." "Then tend my sheep."
A third time he asks, "Do you love me?" "Yes, Lord." "Then feed my sheep."
Three times Peter denied Jesus around a charcoal fire. Three times Jesus forgives Peter around a charcoal fire. That's what is happening here. Forgiveness is happening here. "Feed my sheep" means, you've got your old job back. You are restored. Forgiveness means forgetting the past and starting over again.
Guilt is a chain. Guilt holds you to the past, even if you don't talk about it, or try to forget it, or even if you successfully suppress it, it still weighs you down. It is still a chain that holds you to the past so that you are not free to live the way you want to live. You may not be able to identify it, but there is something that is ruining your life. Forgiveness means that it no longer weighs you down. "He breaks the power of canceled sin, he sets the prisoner free." "Feed my sheep" means, you've got your future now. That is the meaning of the charcoal fire. It is a scene for forgiveness.
Then the story ends with a riddle. It is about the only time that Jesus uses a riddle. Jesus says to Peter,
When you were young, you girded yourself and walked where you would; but when you are old, you will stretch out your hands, and another will gird you and carry you where you do not wish to go.
What does that mean? The author of the Gospel of John puts in his own interpretation. He puts it in parenthesis so you will know that this is just his interpretation. He says it is a prediction of Peter's crucifixion. Peter will die, like Jesus, on a cross in Rome. But Peter will tell the Romans, "I am not worthy to die as my Lord died." So this terrible irony, the executioner simply turns Peter's cross upside down, so he does not die the way his Lord dies, he dies upside down. But he was still hanged on a cross, so John says it is a prophesy, a prediction of the way Peter will die. "When you are old, you will stretch out your hands..." as in the crucifixion.
But there is something else here. Look at the riddle again.
When you were young, you girded yourself and walked where you would; but when you are old, you will stretch out your hands and another will gird [help] you.
When you are young you are like Peter was. You are confident, brash, and boastful, confident of your powers, sure that you can do anything in this life. You remember, Peter said to Jesus, "I will never leave you. Others will betray you, I am sure, but I will never leave you." And he left him.
There is a time in your life when you think you can do anything. You believe that, usually when you're young. Then soon or late you fail, you fall on your face. That is when you learn you cannot do it all. You need someone else. You need someone's forgiveness, maybe. You need somebody's patience. You need someone's grace.
It was exactly that way with the disciples. Days before the crucifixion, in fact days before this scene takes place, the disciples were walking with Jesus toward Jerusalem. Jesus was going to be crucified. And what are the disciples doing? Boasting, bragging, competing with one another as to which one of them is the greatest.
Now look at them. Look at what happened to them just a few days later. Every one of them failed to deliver on their boasting. Every one of them failed. Peter is just the representative disciple. He is the most likable of all the bumblers, but he is still a bumbler, just like us.
I believe what this means--this fishing and catching nothing, and then Jesus showing up to show them how to do it--it means we need grace to do what we are called to do. And at some point in our life, when we are able to say, "I am a sinner, and I cannot do this on my own; come Lord Jesus, help me." That's when we grow up.
Maybe it happens when we discover a weakness in our own lives. We don't want anybody to know about it. We lie about it, or we find some way to cover it up. For a while we think we are successful in doing this, because nobody says anything. Or if they do, our denials cause them to back off, and pretty soon we are spending an awful lot of time and energy in our life pretending.
Then one day we really mess up, and somebody sees it. They let us know that it doesn't matter. You've exposed yourself as imperfect, and it's okay. You are reaching out your hand to that person at that moment, and they take it. It is like being "girded." It is like being carried. It is the most wonderful feeling.
Or it may be that you reach a point in your life when you look back and realize how dependent you are on other people. You boast of your self-reliance. You brag about that, your own achievements. You are caught up in this great American myth of self-reliance, and believe all that stuff about it being all up to you. You read the books and you go to the motivational seminars that say you can do it all by yourself. But one day, when you grow old, you realize, "I didn't do this on my own." You may take the credit for it, you may brag on it a little bit, but you didn't do it alone.
From time to time, this applies to all of us. We've had to put out our hand, and someone else has girded us. This text says that's what happens when you grow old. I say that is what happens to you when you grow up, not when you grow old. It is a sign of maturity. It is the realization that I cannot live my life alone.
The epistle lesson for this morning is the story of Paul's conversion on the road to Damascus. But more correctly it should be said that it is the beginning of Paul's conversion. It began on the Damascus Road, and it continued after that. Before the Damascus Road, by his own confession, Paul says, "I was self-righteous." In those days that was not a pejorative term. Everyone was expected to be self-righteous, because the goal in life was clearly stated, and the way to get there was clearly known. You got there by yourself. It was the equivalent today of being a self-made person. He was successful by any standard that his society could lift up. He was a self-made person.
Then one day he was knocked down, and couldn't see. He held out his hands, and literally, somebody had to lead him. He had been blinded. When he got to Damascus, some more people took his hands. In Damascus the Christians reached out and touched him. When he got his vision back, he could see things that he had never seen before. They had been there all along, but he had never seen them. That he lived by grace, and not by his own strength alone. Later on he would write to the Romans, "I did it, but not I, I, but the grace of God working through me."
When you are young, you gird yourself. But when you are old someone else strengthens you. When you grow old, you fall down a few times. When you mature, you discover the limits of your life, and discover that you haven't got this far by yourself.
Back in the '92 Olympics in Barcelona, the 400 meter race, Derrick Redman, the sprinter from Great Britain, rounded the curve. All of a sudden he fell on the track. He got up, holding his thigh. He had torn his hamstring muscle. He started to inch along toward the finish line. He could barely move. The officials came out on the track and surrounded him, tried to move him off the track. He insisted on finishing the race.
Then a man came out of the stands. It was Derrick Redman's father. He put out his hand to his son. The son reached out and took his hand. The father girded him, strengthened him. Leaning on his father's arm, Derrick Redman finished the race.
Afterwards a reporter asked the father, "Why did you do that? Why did you come out of the stands?" He said, "Because we started this together, and we are going to finish this together."1
The disciples in their boat, fishing. A stranger on the shore tells them where to find the fish. They couldn't do it on their own. Then he renews the life that he gave them years before. He gives it back to them. He just appears from nowhere and gives their life back to them. A life they thought they had thrown away. They know now they could not have done it by themselves. But because he started with them, he finished with them.
When you were young, you girded yourself and walked where you would; but when you mature, you will stretch out your hand, and someone else will gird you.
1. From Bill Ritter, I think!