A FISH MEAL BY THE SEA.
John 21:1-25.
JOHN 21:1 follows on from the earlier post-resurrection appearances of Jesus mentioned in the previous chapter. Thomas had been convinced, and there were other signs which John does not innumerate. Perhaps now it was time for the disciples to stop sitting around in Jerusalem, and to make their way to Galilee as Jesus had earlier instructed the women to tell them (cf. Mark 16:7).
JOHN 21:2-3. This may or may not account for the fishing expedition. Maybe it was just active men at a loose end with the urge not to be idle. Either way, led by Peter, seven of them (including Thomas) made their way back to the sea of Tiberius.
JOHN 21:4-6. They caught nothing all night, but in the morning a stranger appeared on the shore, and asked if they had any fish, as if He desired to buy from them. Then, strangely, He instructed them to try again, specifying where they would find their desired catch. Here they caught a “multitude” of fishes.
JOHN 21:7-8. It was John who first recognised the Lord. It was impetuous Peter who dragged on his coat and swam ashore, at first leaving his friends to struggle with the catch, then doubling back to drag the net ashore himself. It is as if he wished to make sure that he ‘caught’ the Lord, but was again drawn back to the task in hand (cf. John 21:11).
JOHN 21:9. Seeing Jesus through “a fire of coals,” perhaps Peter would be reminded of how he had himself been standing warming himself at ‘a fire of coals’ in the high priest’s house, watching the proceedings when Jesus was arraigned before the high priest (cf. John 18:18); and how ‘the Lord turned and looked upon Peter’ (cf. Luke 22:61). That had been the awful night when Peter three times denied his Lord, no doubt still painfully fresh in his memory.
JOHN 21:10. Jesus, of course, did not need them to catch fish for Him: He had already caught His own. However, the Lord graciously encourages our service, not because He needs anything from us, but because He graciously chooses to use means to accomplish His ends.
JOHN 21:11. It was almost inevitable that it should be Peter who would drag the fish to shore. John remembers painstakingly counting a total of 153 “great fishes,” and for all that “yet was not the net broken.”
JOHN 21:12. Jesus invited them to dine with Him. Meantime there was not one of them who doubted the identity of the risen Lord.
JOHN 21:13. As Jesus blessed the bread and fish, we are reminded of feeding of the 5000, and the feeding of the 4000. The blessing also reminds us of the sacrament instituted on the night when Jesus was betrayed, and of how Jesus was known the afternoon after His resurrection by the two on the Emmaus road in the breaking of bread.
JOHN 21:14. John points out this was the third appearance of Jesus to His disciples after His resurrection. The first had been on Easter evening, the second the following Sunday. And now he appears on a working day, when the disciples were busying themselves fishing for fish.
JOHN 21:15. The conversation between Jesus and Peter was a reaffirmation of the fact that the Apostle's business was no longer to be about fish, but about pastoral work. This was a gracious restoration which was both gentle and firm. The question remains: do we love the Lord more than the trappings of our secular employment?
JOHN 21:15-16. In the first two times of asking Jesus enquired whether Peter (who He called Simon, son of Jonas) had ‘agape’ love, that same kind of love which God has displayed towards us (cf. John 3:16), which is attainable only by the grace of God. This is the kind of love that loves God with heart, soul, strength and mind, and loves our neighbour as ourselves (cf. Luke 10:27). Both of these questions was answered with a different word for love: Peter would only admit that he had attained the kind of love that one might have for his friend.
JOHN 21:17. So Jesus brought the question down to Peter's level, and we can almost sense the Apostle's frustration. Are you sure you even have at least this love because God has great things yet for you to do?
Jesus restored Peter before six witnesses. All along the Lord was reiterating: feed my lambs, feed my sheep, feed my sheep. No more fishing, Peter, but after three years on the road with Jesus, the time has come for the fishermen to shepherd the flock of Christ.
JOHN 21:18-19. In the end Peter was commanded to get right back to basics, and to follow Jesus at whatever cost to himself. Jesus signified by what means Peter would die, and glorify God. Then He said, “Follow me.” We cannot minister to others if we are not following the Lord ourselves.
JOHN 21:20-21. Evidently at this point they arose from the meal, and Peter looked round and saw John following. It seems that Peter was already distracted, even so soon after his wonderful restoration, and looking back he asked, “What about him?”
JOHN 21:22. Jesus’ answer was hypothetical: “IF I will that he tarry till I come, what is that to you?” Jesus WAS NOT saying that He expected to return before John died.
Jesus’ imperative “you follow me” was, in effect, ‘Mind your own business.’ It was not for Peter, having received a prophecy about his own death, to know what death John was going to suffer. In this respect, we are all to mind our own business.
JOHN 21:23. As the writer of this Gospel, the Apostle John was at pains to debunk a tradition that had arisen in the early church. The rumour had soon spread that John was not going to die. ‘But Jesus did not say that!’ argues John.
JOHN 21:24. The disciple whom Jesus and Peter were discussing in the last scene of this Gospel is now identified as the writer of this Gospel. John speaks in the first person plural, “we know,” (much as he does in 1 John 1:3 – ‘that which we have seen and heard’). This Gospel is a faithful and true account of the things which Jesus said and did, as witnessed by John.
JOHN 21:25. The statement in the final verse of the book assures us that - to use the words of the Queen of Sheba in 1 Kings 10:7 - ‘the half was not told us.’
“And there are also many other things which Jesus did, the which, if they should be written every one, I suppose that even the world itself could not contain the books written. Amen.”
