Have You Ever Been So Excited That You Swam Across a Sea to Meet Somebody? Neither Have

Sermon April 22 2012 John 21 1 19

Have you ever been so excited that you swam across a sea to meet somebody? Neither have I. Peter, in our Gospel for today, seems pretty impressive in the regard. As soon as the disciples realized that it was Jesus standing on the shore, they were all excited, but Peter grabbed his coat and jumped in the water.

Now, it’s worth saying that it wasn’t all that impressive. They were in the Sea of Tiberias, which is what the Sea of Galilee was called in John’s day, and it was really a glorified lake. Plus, they were only like a hundred yards from shore. Interestingly, the Gospel doesn’t tell us if Peter actually got back to shore before the disciples – and he was swimming in his outer coat while the other guys were in a boat. But whatever. If he’s so excited, let him swim.

Of course, what got them to even recognize that it was Jesus in the first place? Well, after a whole night and morning of not catching a single fish, these experienced professional fishermen caught their first haul after this stranger on the beach spoke to them, and it was a doozy. A hundred and fifty-three fish.

In a way, this story is actually set up as a parallel to the Last Supper. Call this one the First Breakfast. Just like the Supper, there is an abundance of food. Like the Supper, the meal is presided over by Jesus, and attended by at least some of the Disciples. He breaks bread and gives it to them. In some ways, it’s also a parallel to the Miracle of the Loaves and the Fishes – we’re at the same body of water, there is a miraculously large amount of food, thanks to Jesus. The food is the same as at that Miracle – bread and fish.

The first half of this story is actually fairly straightforward and simple. Think about it, and you’ve got some pretty basic ideas there. Just like with the last time we had loaves and fishes, Jesus is demonstrating abundance in him. Ever more, the disciples come to the beach hungry, they come empty. The symbolism is pretty obvious – with no Jesus in their lives, their nets and their bellies are empty. They just can’t catch a thing. But the moment Jesus returns, their catch is overflowing. Abundance in Christ.

And then there’s the theme that we keep see recurring that the disciples don’t recognize Jesus until after the miracle. This happens over and over! When Mary sees Jesus at the tomb and think he’s the gardener. In Luke, when Jesus appears to the two believers on the road to Emmaus. It’s a common element in these resurrection stories. You even see it elsewhere in Scripture – in Genesis, Abraham and Lot both bring people into their home to stay the night, only to later realize that they are angels. The point of these stories is that God is with us – Christ is with us – even when we don’t recognize it. A simple, and beautiful, sentiment.

There is one more thing about this first half of this story that strikes me. So, two chapters ago, Jesus died. Chapter 19 starts with Jesus being beaten before the Crucifixion. Then, the next chapter, 20, happens just a few days later. It’s the resurrection. Mary meets the risen Christ, he calls her name, she recognizes him. She runs and tells the disciples, who come see the empty tomb. Soon, Jesus even appears personally to all the disciples, even shows up and gives proof to Thomas, who was feeling some doubt about the whole thing. The disciples have seen the risen Christ. That was the last we heard from them, at the end of chapter 20.

Now here we are in chapter 21. It’s true that the Gospel doesn’t tell us how long it was since that last encounter, but it must have been no more than a few weeks.

How are the disciples supposed to respond? How are they supposed to live their lives knowing that their master, their teacher, who lead them around the region for the last three years, has died, AND that he has risen from the dead, and is off doing who-knows-what? What do they do with themselves now? They’re not really grieving anymore I suppose, since they know Jesus isn’t dead, but still… they had been sort of professional disciples for a few years now, and there’s a question that has to be answered – what do we do with ourselves now? Well, on this day at least, their answer to that question was: Go fishing. The way the Gospel describes it, it’s almost like they’re all sitting around moping, and then Peter jumps up and announces, “I’m going fishing!” Nathaniel was there, and Thomas, and James and John, and two others, and they decided to go too, maybe just for a lack of anything better to do. They went fishing.

It’s worth noting that several of these men were fishermen by trade before Jesus called them. Peter was a fisherman, and so was his brother Andrew, and so were James and John. Remember, they just left their dad Zebedee there in the boat when Jesus called? So, well, I guess it’s time to hop back in the boat and head out there. I mean, with Jesus gone, we can’t eat miracle-food anymore, so let’s get back to it.

But the story raises a quiet question – what do we do with the knowledge of the risen Lord? What do we do when the shock of Easter is worn off, and we just have to live our lives, get by and feed ourselves, with the knowledge that Christ is risen? Do you just nod and get back to work?

If this story is any indication, that can be tough. When the Disciples tried to just get back to work without figuring out how this all affected their lives, it didn’t go very well. They didn’t produce anything. That’s not to say it’s impossible for us to go back to our daily grind after experiencing the power of the Resurrection. But in the way that Scripture works, when something “just isn’t working”, it’s probably trying to tell us something.

So the first part of the story goes like you’d expect it to. The disciples, basically useless now that they don’t have Jesus leading them around and telling them what to do, can’t catch fish, and they’re hungry. A stranger shows up, tells them to cast once more, and the net comes back just chock full of fish. And the net isn’t even busted, which may not sound important, but if you’re a net-fisher by trade, you spend most of your time fixing holes in your nets. The story is perfectly engineered so that by the time the disciple’s figure out who it is, you’re almost annoyed with them. Well of course they should have known it was Jesus. When they see him, they’re overjoyed. Peter, always the most zealous of the group, is so excited that he can’t even wait for the boat to come ashore. He throws on his coat and swims. They get to shore and Jesus has a fire set up, and they cook breakfast.

Here’s when the story sort of changes directions. What seems like a friendly breakfast between a teacher and his students becomes an interrogation. In case anybody forgets, this same Peter, the one so excited to see Jesus, was the same one who denied him three times on the night of the Crucifixion. So Jesus has three questions for Peter, one for each denial. Or, really, it’s one question, three times. Simon (which is Peter’s real name) – Simon, Son of John, do you love me more than these? Of course it seems like he must love Jesus most, because he was so eager. Yes, Lord, you know that I love you. He asks again, do you love me? Yes, Lord, you know that I love you. He asks a third time, and Peter’s really getting anxious at this point. Simon, son of John, do you love me? Yes, Lord! You know everything, and you know that I love you. And each time that Peter says Yes, Jesus has an instruction. Or really, one instruction repeated three different ways. Feed my lambs. Tend my sheep. Feed my sheep.

It’s a slightly ambiguous command. Many gallons of ink have been spent discussing whether they had specific meanings, like maybe new Christians were lambs instead of sheep, or tending was different from feeding, but I think Jesus is just saying one thing in three ways: Now that I am leaving the earth, the job of those who love me is to take care of my stuff.

You see, one of the main points of the whole book of John is the sovereignty of Jesus. In John Chapter 1, when it describes Jesus as the Word of God, it says, “All things were made through him, and without him not anything that exists was made.” All of Creation belongs to him. In chapter 10, when Jesus is describing himself as the Good Shepherd, he refers to all humankind as his sheep. All living beings are the sheep of Christ, in his care, fed and tended by him.

So if all living creatures are the sheep of the Good Shepherd Jesus, and if all of Creation exists because of him, then what does it say for Jesus to say, Feed my lambs. Tend my sheep. Feed my sheep?

You could argue that it’s Jesus telling Christians to take care of each other, but I think that it’s more than that. You could say it’s Jesus telling Christians to feed people who need feeding, to tend them when they need it. But I think it’s more than that. I think it’s Christ telling us that we are now the shepherds of Creation. All of existence, this whole world and everything that lives within it, it is our job to tend these things, to care for them, because they belong to Christ, and he cares.

Do you know what a steward is? It’s somebody who is in charge of something owned by somebody else, and a good steward takes care of it as if it were their own. Let us be good stewards of this world, as Christ commanded us. Let us feed and care for people who need feeding and care. Let us feed and protect all living things that face destruction. Heck, it’s earth day today, so there’s no better time to remember be good stewards of the planet, to dedicate ourselves to the care and sustainability of this world that God created for us.

I know that these generalities sound good. In a way, they’re easy to follow. We, like Peter, might be so eager we try to beat everybody else to follow Jesus. But remember the end of this passage – Jesus tells Peter that just like Peter wraps himself in his cloak to go meet Jesus, one day somebody else will wrap him up and lead him to death. And that is the result of following a Savior who lived and died and lived again – if we actually try to follow him, it is an unpopular and dangerous life. Peter died for it. What might be asked of us? How might we be faced with a decision we don’t like to follow Christ? To actually care for a stranger, dirty and poor. To actually make decisions that sacrifice our own good for the good of others, for the good of other life on this planet. This is what it means to follow Jesus.To actually love this world and everything within it, because it belongs to Jesus, and he loved it all first.