Part 28 – John 21
Well here we are in our final chapter of John’s gospel.
I want to end our excursion through John as we began.
Here in John 21 we have an account of some men, who after 3 years of following Jesus, appear to think their journey and experience of the revolution that they thought was going to change the world was over and so revert back to the day job.
Peter, in John 21:3 says “I am going fishing”. You can imagine the scene, ‘what else am I supposed to do now, all hope is gone’.
If we wind back to where it all began in John 1:40-41, we find that Peter was introduced to Jesus by his brother Andrew, who’s words to Peter were “we have found the Messiah”. It appears that both Peter and Andrew were expecting to find this saviour. They had grown up with the Torah and the words of the prophets, which consistently talk about the coming “saviour of the world”, that is the saviour that would liberate mankind and fully restore Israel and release them, the Jews, from their oppressors. What they weren’t expecting was a deliverer who would open up the way so that all mankind could fully know, experience and understand what it means to be fully human.
For any of us to fully know who this Christ is, this man who claimed and proved that he was God in man, (“who did not consider it robbery to be equal with God, who humbled himself to death” Phillipians 2:5-11) we have to have seen Him spiritually and to have experienced the risen Christ. We must have an encounter.
In this final chapter John is showing his readers that the risen Christ is concerned and interested in the physical well being of those he came to save. Peter and some of the other disciples have given up hope and have gone back to the day job. Their inspiration has just been crucified, yes they had seen him risen, but it appears that they are completely lost and rudderless and so revert back to the familiarity and security of what they know, fishing. I wonder at this point if Peter remembered the words that Jesus spoke to him and his brother Andrew “follow me and I will make you fishers of men” Matthew 4:19, and I wonder if he was thinking ‘this is not what I thought I would be doing 3 years ago, life appears to have gone backwards to how it was, life is hopeless, all is lost, let’s go fishing at least we can do that’.
I think this can be true for all of us, we have an encounter with ‘the Christ’ and for some reason we lose hope, we lose sight of the risen Christ and we appear lost and rudderless in a world that we know needs a fresh vision, a world that desperately needs “fishers of men”, men and women who are prepared to count the cost, leave all and follow Christ. Then the risen Jesus appears on the shoreline of our experience and calls out for food, a very practical but profound thing to say.
Jesus knows that everything is spiritual and he is calling us to be practical, honest and attentive.
He asks for food, which is practical.
They answer No, which is honesty.
He says cast on the right side, which is to be attentive.
Being spiritual is also about being practical. God is in life and life is in God which is why Jesus asks for food. Just as our bodies require food for survival, so does our spirit. To be a partaker with the divine Creator we need to live here and now which requires that we eat food. To live in the spirit here and now requires that we partake of the spirit.
Life is full of choices and following Christ is one of those choices. Christ died in order that you and I could be set free from our oppressor, he died so you and I could live. He has risen from the grave and comes to meet us on the shores of our experience and invites us to share food with him.
Are we willing to be a partaker? Despite our doubts, despite our hopelessness, despite the feeling of being rudderless.
In our story here, these disciples were first honest in their answer, they were then obedient and attentive to the request of Jesus to try again and cast on the right side. Sometimes we might be fishing on the wrong side!!
There is more we could say and we could look at many of these stories and encounters of Jesus in John’s gospel and get much more or a different perspective than what I have recorded in this series on John’s gospel. The key is to keep reading the scripture, keep asking God for a fresh revelation of himself and He will not disappoint.
Let’s wrap this series up with some questions :-
- Have we sought this man Jesus like Nicodemus – who had many questions?
- When we have found Him or as in John 9 when Jesus finds us do we point Him out in a crowd like John the Baptist?
- When we encounter Jesus on the shores of our experience do we answer honestly and act obediently to His requests?
May God bless you and give you hope and may we all find our security in Him.
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