You may have found yourself in conversation in recent times, about the hugely popular film The Passion of Christ. If you have seen it, or have an opinion about it, it may well have caused you to question the meaning of the Christian Gospel - perhaps unconsciously. For me, the undoubted but in no particular way unique suffering of Christ at his death, is an important part of the story - but not the meaning of the Christian Gospel. The Christian Gospel is about life, and precisely not about death.
Most scholars would agree that John's gospel would have originally ended with chapter 20, and there clear conclusion of vs 30-31 'These things have been written that you may believe that Jesus is the anointed one, the Son of God, and that believing you may have life in his name.' The Christian Gospel is about life, and precisely not about death. Chapter 21 comes by way of an appendix, an afterthought. It would seem that its purpose is to demonstrate once and for all, the reality of the resurrection - the risen Lord was not a mere vision/hallucination in the wishful thinking of a few distraught confidants - but a real person - with physical form, physical wounds. The witnesses were convinced of his flesh and blood... and he ate and drank with them as one in the flesh... (perhaps this is connected with the turn of phrase we often use, in the flesh).
(by way of a digression - this reminds of playing in Christian rock bands many years ago when this was regarded by many in the church as an edgy and dangerously radical idea... friends of mine went to play in a small Scottish town and clearly gave a performance that was too close to the edge of respectability - and subsequently received a letter of complaint from one concerned local elder, saying that this had in his view been music for 'fleshly ears'. My friend (now a well known Radio Scotland presenter) immediately renamed the band 'The Fleshly Ears').
John 21 is a beautiful story about Jesus in the flesh. God in the flesh. As he had always been - from lowly stable, to carpenter's shop, to physical contact and emotional solidarity with the realest of needy people, eating and drinking with those who were socially despised, adopting an itinerant lifestyle of companionship with his friends whom he loved, owning nothing, and ultimately facing up to the fearful violence of those who would ultimately kill him. Jesus in the flesh. And here on the beach, the risen Christ (so modestly risen he was not obvious or recognised at first) among his fisherman friends - in the midst of their real lives - affirming their reality - their need to make a living - confirming the actions of the disciples in the material world and thus emphasising his presence in it.
Do you remember the vultures in Disney's classic jungle book - who hung around, with beatles-like scouse accents, saying 'what d'you wanna do?' And the recurring refrain is 'I dunno, what d'you wanna do?'. I think that's the scene at the Sea of Tiberias - 'I'm going fishing' says Simon Peter. 'We'll come with you' say the others, apparently keen to engage in some good old fashioned reality. The technique we know was to go out at night, or the half light, and throw the nets sideways, and often an experienced 'spotter' on a vantage point on the shore could direct the boat and direction of the throw, because to the experienced eye the movement of the water would betray the presence of a shoal beneath the surface. That's what the risen Jesus does here - something real and skilled and rooted (not something divine or metaphysical). And as always in John's Gospel we have to look for the symbolism of the story - the miraculous catch, at this final physical engagement with his friends, this moment of commissioning - something amazing that is intimately connected with something ordinary. The Christian Gospel is about life - God's abundance in the midst of ordinary life. Jesus doesn't say 'don't bother about fishing, get on with the important business of mission' - but meets them in the midst of their ordinary, real lives. And when they act on his prompting, thing go well. What is important is not the sacred or secular aspect of their actions, but that Christ informs the action. Christ becomes integrated with all aspects of the disciples' lives. 'Fishermen?I'll make you fishermen' he had said when he'd first met them. 'I'll make you fishers of people'. And we can imagine that they remembered this when they looked back on this last great catch - so great that they would have expected the net to tear. Jerome, the fourth century biblical scholar and translator, reckoned that there were 153 species of fish in the Sea of Tiberias, so the number caught is a clear symbol of the kingdom's inclusiveness. The net was not broken, says the Gospel writer - the kingdom of God is for everyone - for every wierd fish - God's kingdom, (for which the disciples of Jesus, like their Lord, are now commissioned to cast for - and in another contemporary image to shepherd) - that kingdom is big enough to hold them all.
Three inspiration for us here:
1) Jesus' threefold question to Peter is a mirror of Peter's threefold denial before the crucifixion. The challenge of the risen Jesus to his friends is to love the world - to shepherd it as he has - and it is to Peter's weakness that Jesus entrusts this message. And Peter, still smarting and devastated by his betrayal of Jesus doesn't plead unsuitability when Jesus charges him to feed the sheep - his willingness in the face of his unsuitability, is what God chooses to work through. Peter accepts Jesus' forgiveness and commits himself to care for those whom Jesus loves - even though this will involve a cost. Like Peter, we find ourselves before a risen Lord who offers forgiveness and encourages us to move on.
2) Hand thrown fishing nets are, by definition, of limited size. All of us have our own shoals of fish, to the right or to the left - or lambs that are in our care - unique to our lives - concentric circles of people that we find around us - for whom we are charged to care - not the task of fixing the whole world all at once, but the task of reaching out to touch the part of the world that is within our reach. Feed my sheep.Tend my sheep.
3) The disciples had returned to fishing because that was their life, their skill, their gift. Acknowledging the giver of our gifts, brings God into the present moment and integrates our spiritual and everyday lives. Just as Jesus appeared to the disciples in the reality of their working lives, the risen Jesus calls us in the midst of our real lives. Are we fishing from the wrong side of the boat? Or are we listening for Jesus' call to care for the world, to centre on Christ and let love inform the decisions and actions we take in our work, in our daily lives, so that our routine is no longer separate from our worship - so that we recognise the sacred in the everyday.