A month or so ago on our vacation at the beach, Ken and I had this really amazing experience. It was my first vacation at the beach in many years, and my sister-in-law, who owns the condo where we were staying told us that if we walked out the board walk to the beach and took a right and walked down the beach about a mile and a half or two miles, we would come to this inlet where dolphins like to congregate in the morning. She had that she and her husband had seen them every morning when the two of them had been at the beach back in June. So bright and early one morning, Ken and I headed toward the inlet, and sure enough, within moments of arrival we were watching the fins of at least two dolphins rising in falling in the water.
We watched as they moved further into the inlet, then, all of a sudden about 100 yards down the shore, four or five dolphins splashed up on the beach and flailed around for a few moments before receding back into the water. Now, I’ll just tell you, your first thought when you see something like that is that something is wrong, the dolphins are beaching themselves or something. But a nearby observer explained that the dolphins were fishing. You see, dolphins travel in pods, and the way they eat is that a pod will corral a school of fish and sort of push them toward the shore, and then all of a sudden they will splash up on the shore, pushing the school of fish ahead of them so that the little fish have nowhere to go but into the mouths of the waiting dolphins.
With this new knowledge, Ken and I continued to watch, and we quickly learned that even if we couldn’t track the dolphins, if we could see where the school of fish was, we would have a pretty good idea of where the dolphins were. So from the shore, we walked up and down the inlet, following the glint of the school of fish just below the suface. And sure enough, it happened again, not 10 feet away from us this time! The dolphins swam up onto the shore in their particular way of fishing, and flailed about with open mouths, waiting for a fish or two to jump in. We could see the pink of their bellies and hear their calls, it was truly amazing! And it happened because they do the same thing everyday, and we knew what we needed to be watching for as we stood on the shore.
We come to the conclusion of our fishing trip today with a story from John’s gospel near the very end of Jesus’ ministry. At this point, Jesus has been crucified and resurrected, he has appeared to the disciples and then to Thomas. Now we are in this sort of “in between time,” before Jesus’ ascension. It seems clear that the disciples are a bit nervous. They are probably beginning to have those thoughts of “what now?” Jesus is still around, but not the way he used to be. It’s probably been a few days since they last saw him and he’s not preaching and teaching and healing all around Galilee like he was doing before his arrest and crucifixion. These disciples who have been following Jesus around and sharing his ministry for three years are probably feeling a little lost. And so now, the story sort of comes full circle.
It’s possible that the disciples are making their first attempt at getting back to normal. That might explain why they are back out in the boats fishing again. Perhaps their families have been telling them it’s time to get back to work and starting getting bread on the table. But I think it’s also possible that the disciples were looking for Jesus. They were hoping they could hear his guidance one last time; that he would tell them “what now,” and the path before them would be laid out clearly. Whatever the case, they went back to the familiar. They went back to the life they knew before Jesus, but they also went back to the place where they had met Jesus so many times before—the place where he had called them, the place where he had calmed the storm and called Peter to walk across the water, the place where he had multiplied the loaves and fish and fed 5,000 people. The disciples surely remembered those things as they shoved off for another fishing adventure on the Sea of Galilee.
Maybe it wasn’t a conscious decision by the disciples, but I believe that somewhere deep down, they were longing to encounter Jesus again, and that meant going back to the place they had encountered him before. And the same has to be true for us, too. A great deal of the maintenance and growth of our relationship with Christ comes from having encounters with Christ, and going to that place where we know his presence in the most tangible ways. That’s part of the reason we are here in worship, is it not? Through this “set-aside” hour each week, we enter God’s midst in a special way and encounters with the living Christ that cannot happen in any other way or in any other place. But there’s other places we go to encounter Christ, too, right? Like for some of us, its nature, a hike in the woods that allows us to meet Christ anew. Or maybe it’s through music—one of the most powerful ways I know of to encounter Christ in my life is to find a nice, quiet, secluded place, and to get out my guitar and play and sing songs that remind me of God’s power, and presence, and blessing in my life. Wherever your “place” is, wherever you need to go to meet Christ and bask in his presence, be sure to go there often because that is how your relationship with Christ is nurtured and sustained.
As much as this passage reminds us of our need to go regularly to the places where we encounter Christ, it is also an assurance that when we need Christ, he will make his presence known. Here the disciples are, back in the fishing boats again, and yet again they’ve fished all night without any luck. And even if their underlying purpose was something besides fishing, when you get out on the lake with your nets, you want to catch something! So once again, as the sun peaks over the horizon, they are bemoaning a laborious night with nothing to show for it. These men are probably feeling frustrated, tired, discouraged, maybe even afraid, and empty, and worthless. When, all of a sudden, a mystery man on the shore calls out, “Hey little boys, didn’t you catch anything?” We get the sense that maybe Jesus is razzing the disciples a bit, but we need to remember that at this point, the disciples don’t know who this man is, he is a stranger and they didn’t recognize him at first. When we are seeking Christ’s presence and guidance, we always have to pay attention and listen carefully because we may very well be surprised, Jesus often works in mysterious ways.
And sure enough, what is the next thing Christ says to the disciples? He tells them to cast their nets on the right side of the boat. It’s like standing on the shore watching the dolphins going fishing and knowing to look for the glint of the school of fish swimming about. Perhaps, from his perspective on the shore, Jesus could see just such a glint in the early morning light on the Sea of Galilee. That would certainly be a logical explanation, but logic doesn’t really matter here. Because what’s important is to recognize that when we feeling alone, and frustrated, and discouraged and we go to Christ looking for guidance, Christ will help us. His appearance will be unexpected, it might not even be obvious at first, but Jesus wants to be our guide. He wants to be the one who encourages us, prepares us, equips us. He wants to guide us in the kind of life that gives life. And the thing is, Jesus knows exactly what we need. Maybe even better than we ourselves know, Jesus knows where we need to cast the nets, he knows how to give nourishment and fulfillment.
How many fish had the disciples caught before Jesus came? 0. How many did they catch with Jesus guiding them? 153, so many they couldn’t even pull the net into the boat. There’s lots of speculation about the significance of that haul, 153 fish. For John, numbers are always symbolic. Scholars have many explanations for this number; at the time of Jesus' ministry, it was thought that there were 153 nationalities. It's also possible that there were 153 different kinds of fish in the net, which would represent all the different people. There's some thought that perhaps this number is symbolic of the new, young churches that had grown up all around the empire by the time John wrote his gospel in about 80 AD. We really don't know, but what is clear in all this is that this is about our mission; our call to be fishers of people, to seek those who have no church home, or no relationship with Christ.
This is what it has been about all along, isn't it? Three years ago, Christ was standing on the shore of this same Lake, the disciples were busy fishing but had caught nothing, and he said to them, "Follow me. I will make you fish for people." A lot has happened in the last three years, it has not always been easy, but no one ever said it would be. The great reminder of this passage is that Christ's promises remain true; Christ loves us, his presence always surrounds us, especially when we are most discouraged, and Christ guides us every step of the way. And when John, the beloved disciple, realizes who it is standing on the shore and yelling out to them, guiding them as he always has, he doesn’t say, “It’s Jesus!” No, he says, “It’s the Lord.” If we are going to know the life-giving guidance of Christ, we have to always say, “Jesus, you are my Lord; lead me, guide me, help me to do your will.”
