Theme:
The nets were full..............
In his gospel John begins his
account of the third meeting of the Lord Jesus with His disciples with these
very simple words........ ‘Afterwards, Jesus appeared again to His disciples...
by the
The disciples, there are seven of them, now back in Galilee...... Simon Peter, John and James, Thomas, Nathanael, and another two. These men who had gone to fish that night are not so much saints worthy of a stained glass window all to themselves....... but real human beings.
Simon Peter - when it came to the pressures and dangers in Jerusalem on the night of Jesus’ arrest, Simon Peter said flatly to those who questioned him, I do not know this man Jesus !
Thomas also there in the boat, was the one who had said Jesus ? Risen ? I, for one, will not believe unless I actually see it.
Nathanael, when the morning
came when he was invited by the other disciples to come and follow Jesus, he
said - with a wry smile - can anything, can anyone good come from
James and John - the other gospels tell us that they once became so angry at the way they were all treated in a village, that they wanted Jesus to call for heavenly fire on the villagers....... So seven in the boat, and of the five we know about, none of them are saints.
Not a good night’s work...........
And then they have one of those nights. One of those times when nothing goes right. They are out fishing at night, when the fish come close into the shore..... so normally the night time should be just right for a good catch but instead - they caught nothing. We all have those times where a great deal of work, a great deal of effort and commitment ends up in not very much, well the disciples caught nothing.
But they are so busy with this fruitless task they do not recognise Jesus in the distance in the early dawn. In the midst of all this effort, they are missing the greatest reality there is - the risen Jesus Himself, there, one hundred yards from them.
Friends, He calls, throw your nets on the right side of the boat and you will bring in a great catch. Here is Jesus who knows the long hours they have worked, who knows the depths over which the disciples sail, guides them to a harvest, a great catch.
How we need that today !
You see, though our own efforts are frail, weak, empty .........
like the disciples, as a Church, we are less and less able for this work, it is the leading, guiding power of Christ we need. Jesus knows the depths over which we sail, it is Jesus who guides us to the great harvest, the great catch..........
When Jesus calls to them to shift the nets, to shift the boat and lower the net on the other side - the fruitlessness, the futility of the night’s work changes into its opposite - a full net.. They are left with the boat lopsided, nearly capsizing, unable to draw the nets in now. Unable to catch fish all through the night, now, they are unable to bring their full nets in.
In this passage, the gospel reveals to us three things about Jesus:
the faithfulness of Jesus,
the abundant life that Jesus gives,
the restoration that there is in Jesus
First, The faithfulness of Jesus
As Luke’s gospel shows us in so many rich and different ways, Jesus comes to seek and to save us, in His wonderful loving faithfulness. We see just that here in John’s gospel.
Jesus comes seeking the disciples, He comes to meet them where they are. And even though, as the very first chapter of John says: He came to His own but they did not recognise Him, here is Jesus, preparing for them, waiting for them, gathering them together once again......... blessing their work so deeply, so richly.
Archbishop William Temple,
reading this passage long ago, points out to us
the sheer wonder of this. That the risen Jesus waited there on the shore for
the disciples, came to meet them in the midst of
ordinary life – not in the
“The love that came to us
at
the love which through the Holy Spirit is for ever coming to us still, new every morning; is in fact coming to us at this very moment. God is passionately and eagerly, longing to take you by the hand to recreate your courage and your hope, to send you on your way rejoicing.
The risen Lord Jesus waited there on the shore for the disciples, to meet them in the midst of ordinary life. That is where He comes to meet us too.
The abundant life there is in Jesus.............
Back to the lakeside. In that early dawn, the disciples were taken up in the ordinary tasks of throwing the nets overboard, untangling the ropes, steering the boat….. as they had done so many times before….. But as the sun comes up, having spent the long hours of the whole night fishing, they have caught absolutely nothing. These are fishermen, remember, who had spent nearly a whole life doing this, they knew these waters, and every rock and contour of the shore, they had learnt their trade from their fathers…… But as the sun comes up, having spent the whole night fishing, they have caught absolutely nothing. All they have are empty nets.
Isn’t that just a true parable of life ? For so many ?
Spending long hours, spending life, but at the end for so many the net is empty. Like the disciples, many today feel that, for all their labours, they are drawing in nothing, that the hope they had, of landing something that would make everything worthwhile, has faded. As the gospel says: The nets are empty.
But here is Jesus, in the early dawn of a new day. He tells them to fish on the other side of the boat, and they make such a full catch, and the net is full nearly to breaking point.
In Jesus Christ, crucified and risen, is rich and abundant life far beyond the power of human telling. The gift of God in Jesus Christ is always more than we can receive. Our resources in the risen Jesus Christ are never exhausted.
The message of John’s gospel, is that for our emptiness, there is Christ’s fullness, without Him life is shallow like the waters of that lake, empty like the fishermen’s nets. But this is why Jesus has come: I have come that you might have life and life in all its fullness.
Eternal life is not something beginning only on the other side of death. It begins, for those who belong to Jesus, here and now. Yes, we are still pilgrims and strangers and travellers; but in Jesus Christ, we can know the fullness of life here and now, a first instalment, of what we look for when God’s Kingdom comes.
The restoration that there is in Jesus...............
The early Church fathers, the leaders of the Church in the early years
looked at John’s gospel 21. They looked at John 21 and wondered why it was that
it was John who recognised Jesus on the sea shore, but it was Peter who jumped out of the boat. John who says ‘It is the Lord’ – but Peter………. who jumps out and wades to the shore......
Perhaps there is a reason for that
Was Peter there in that boat, that early morning still dwelling on all the events of the past week – the arrest, the trial, his own denials of Jesus ? That’s what we do isn’t it, so often we dwell on things in the past, on our own mistakes, wishing and wondering if things could have been different…………..
That’s Peter, that morning, turned in on himself, his mind taken up with all the events of the past days…… burdened with the guilt and shame of it all, and the remorse........
We read that the boat was around a hundred yards from the shore – but Peter is much further away than that. Distant, isolated and far away from all the richness he had known in Jesus, caught up in himself.
But here, now, is Jesus – standing there on the beach. He has come to meet Peter..
And as Peter wades ashore, instead of distance – there is now closeness to the living Lord, instead of guilt and shame, Jesus offers Peter full forgiveness, Peter is completely restored……….
Sometimes we seem far away from all the truth and grace and love of Jesus Christ, separated from Him by our guilt, or our sorrow, or by a heart hardened by the pressures of life…. when our soul has become like stone……
perhaps that’s your condition this morning…. but listen at the Cross Jesus gave Himself for you, in your place, He took our place there, took our sin, and guilt, and condemnation on Himself. for us. And as Risen Lord He is here to restore each one of us, to that wonderful closeness to Himself. Instead of emptiness, we find fullness in Him, instead of guilt, shame and condemnation, we find full forgiveness, instead of hardness of heart, at His touch, the spring, the wellspring of life begins to flow again within us…