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4/20/22 Glenda Simpkins Hoffman
Easter Sunday was such a glorious day with so many gathered for worship and the egg hunt and time of fellowship on the Town Green between services. The flowers and trees were bursting with color and the people overflowing with joy. The Lord is risen. He is risen indeed!
I love that Easter is not just a day but a season of the church year. Eastertide continues from now until Pentecost on June 5. But the truth is, we celebrate the resurrection every Sunday, and we are actually called to live the reality of the resurrection every day of our lives. What does it look like? We follow Jesus.
Our devotions this week are about Peter, and we get a glimpse into what it looked like for him so many years ago. Peter, like every Jew, was longing, hoping, praying for the Messiah. He first learns about Jesus from his brother Andrew who tells him, “‘We have found the Messiah’ (which is translated Anointed). He brought Simon to Jesus, who looked at him and said, ‘You are Simon son of John. You are to be called ‘Cephas’ (which is translated Peter).”
Sometime later, Jesus asks Peter, a fisherman, if he can use his boat as a platform to speak to the crowd. After he is done teaching, Jesus tells Peter to go fishing. This is rather ironic: an itinerant preacher—the son of a carpenter—telling a professional fisherman when and how to fish! It’s the middle of the day, and Peter is busy cleaning the nets. He’s probably tired and maybe wants to go home.
But notice Peter’s response. “Master, we have worked all night long but have caught nothing. Yet if you say so, I will let down the nets.” Even though Peter shares the reasons not to do what Jesus says, he does it out of respect for Jesus and his authority. Peter’s first response is to listen to and obey the word of Jesus. And the result is remarkable! He catches so many fish the boat is overflowing and begins to sink. It’s more than Peter can handle, so he calls James and John to help.
What has taken place is no accident. It’s a miracle! It’s by the grace and power of God that Peter has caught so many fish in the middle of the day. So notice the next response: “But when Simon Peter saw it, he fell down at Jesus’ knees, saying, Go away from me, Lord, for I am a sinful man!” Peter’s second response is one of humility. His response reflects that he understands who Jesus is and he understands who he is. Jesus is Lord, and Peter is a sinner. Peter assumes that a man of God would not want anything to do with an everyday sinner. He is assuming that God works with and uses the devout and saintly types.
But it turns out admitting our inability and sin is the best prerequisite for service. When we are aware of our inadequacy and inability to measure up, we can then turn to God and depend on him and his supernatural resources of grace and power to do in and through and for us what cannot do for ourselves. Peter’s confession becomes his resume for service and the key to experiencing the forgiveness that Jesus gives.
Jesus goes on to assure Peter and all of us by saying, “‘Do not be afraid; from now on you will be catching people.’ When they had brought their boats to shore, they left everything and followed him.”
It strikes me that Peter and the other disciples were so convinced of who Jesus was and what he could do, their greatest fear was missing out on the chance of a lifetime of following him—the Messiah or the anointed one. So, they left everything to follow Jesus.
What this encounter reveals to us is that to follow Jesus there are things we have to leave behind. And most important, we have to allow him to be the Lord of our lives and prioritize and everything else around him. I once heard a speaker restate this verse in a way that really captured my attention. “Follow my lead, and I will transform you into people who have incredible influence over people’s lives. The example of Peter’s life shows us how that actually happened as he followed Jesus. But it took the cross and the resurrection for Peter to understand what it meant for Jesus to be the Messiah. And it took his own failure in denying Jesus to really help him understand how much he needed Jesus’ grace and power. I’ll talk more about that in the sermon on Sunday.
After the events of Holy Week and the crisis of the Jesus’ death and his failure, Peter initiates another fishing expedition with the disciples. It’s what they know to do. Their fishing expedition is a failure. They catch nothing. Zip. Nada. Suddenly, the resurrected Christ appears to them and tells them to cast their net to the other side of the boat. To their surprise, they catch so many fish they can hardly haul them in. This story about catching fish points to the gifts Jesus will continue to give to those who follow him that enable us to live a resurrection life.
The resurrected Christ reminded them of his early words. While fishing had been the disciples’ vocation, they have been given a new calling, a new purpose, a new commitment to Christ’s ongoing work in the world to catch people. There is no limit to the number of people Jesus longs to catch.
This incredible catch of fish not only points to renewed purpose but also power. Undoubtedly this experience brought to mind other miracles the disciples had witnessed revealing Jesus’ power. They saw Jesus walk on water, feed 5,000 people with two fish and five loaves of bread, heal the sick, cast out demons, and even raise people from the dead. It must have been reassuring to see Jesus’ power still doing for them what they could not do for themselves.
Along with purpose and power, Jesus gives provision. He not only gives them the catch for the day but actually prepares a hot breakfast for them to eat after a night of toil. Just as he had served his followers in his life, Jesus will continue to meet their physical needs giving life-sustaining nourishment for his people providing for their needs.
As the disciples are sitting and eating with Jesus again, they must have remembered the many meals they shared with Jesus, particularly the Last Supper, as he took bread, blessed it, broke it, and gave it for many to eat and be satisfied.
This is good news. Jesus has done everything necessary to save us and will continue to provide all that is needed as we follow him in life, whatever our circumstances. And he will provide what we need as we participate in his ongoing work in the world.
Perhaps the greatest resurrection gift that Jesus offers in this passage is simply the gift of himself in his presence. I love these lines: “None of the disciples dared ask him, ‘Who are you?’ They knew it was the Lord.” That phrase is repeated three times in this passage. “It is the Lord.” It must have brought the disciples such comfort and joy to see Jesus alive and to have him sitting with them and sharing a meal with them again. This gave them hope and confidence in his promise that he would continue to be with them.
This joyous story in the Gospel of John assures us that Jesus’ resurrection gifts are available to us individually and collectively right here, right now whatever our experience. We have everything we need to live an abundant life and to bear much fruit as we trust the Risen Christ to live out our purpose, to receive and rely on the resurrection gifts he continues to give through presence, power, and provision of the Holy Spirit.
The question is how do we do that? How does the reality of the resurrection impact the way we live an abundant life of love in our everyday lives and ministry? Join me Sunday as I will preach on John 21:15-21 and we will explore those questions.
