Scripture: John 1:1-19
It’s often said that one difference between the gospel of John and the gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke, is that John contains no parables—no Prodigal Son, no Good Samaritan, no Eleventh-Hour Worker. And that’s true… But I think today’s scripture, from the last chapter of John’s gospel—which is often called the epilogue—is nothing less than an acted out parable.
Yes, this post-resurrection episode really happened, historically… But our Lord uses this historical event—symbolically—to teach us about spending the rest of our lives in this world as his disciples. And I want to focus on three things that he teaches us through this “acted out” parable: First, Christ is present and powerful in our lives. Second: Christ redeems our failures. Third: Christ gives us power to be “fishers of men and women.”
But first, Christ is present and powerful in our lives…
Let’s begin by clearing up one common misconception about today’s scripture… by asking ourselves why these seven disciples of Jesus are out fishing in the first place. Surprisingly, there is much disagreement among scholars and preachers on this question. And in my opinion, I don’t think there should be.
We know that prior to going into full-time ministry with Jesus, at least three of the seven men John lists were professional fishermen: Peter and the “sons of Zebedee,” James and John. Peter’s brother Andrew, who also fished, may have been one of the two unnamed disciples. Who knows?
Regardless, today’s scripture takes place within a month or so of the last event we saw in John chapter 20: Jesus’ post-resurrection appearance to “doubting Thomas.” Recall from last week that Thomas offers the boldest, most profound confession of faith in Jesus in all the gospels, calling Jesus “my Lord and my God.” 1
So here’s a question: Did Thomas, having had this profound encounter with the resurrected Lord no more than three or four weeks earlier… did Thomas forget about this encounter with Jesus… or minimize it… or dismiss it and think, “That was no big deal. It’s not going to change my life. So I’m going to go back to business as usual”? Or did these other disciples who experienced the resurrected Lord on at least two other occasions so far shrug and think, “We’re just going to forget about fulfilling the Great Commission, forget about the resurrection, and resume our old careers as fishermen”?
And that it’s only after meeting Jesus on the beach in today’s scripture that they changed their minds, repented, and got back on course?
That’s what some commentators and preachers would have us believe… that by going fishing these seven disciples were backsliding in their faith; they were disobeying Jesus; they were abandoning their call to ministry…
But I’m sorry… I don’t see it at all.
I mean, what’s wrong with fishing? We know that Peter had a wife and probably a family to support. Some of the others may have as well. So they needed to feed themselves and their families. And fishing was their trade.
And remember that Paul worked a full-time “secular” job as a tentmaker, even while preaching and teaching and planting churches. He was bi-vocational. Maybe these seven disciples were planning on being bi-vocational, as well. Regardless, earning some extra money today would surely help them fulfill the Great Commission in the future. Ministry costs money, after all.
My point is, despite what many people say, there’s no evidence they were doing anything wrong by going fishing.
But one thing we know for sure is, this isn’t the first or only time in the gospels that at least a few of these disciples—Peter, James, and John—had been witness to a miraculous catch of fish. It happened about three years earlier, at the beginning of Jesus’ ministry, way back in Luke chapter 5, just before Jesus called his twelve disciples. A crowd of people was crowding around Jesus by the Sea of Galilee, so he got into Peter’s boat and pushed off from the shore—so that he could teach the people on the shore without getting crushed. Let me read verses 3 to 7:
Getting into one of the boats, which was Simon’s, he asked him to put out a little from the land. And he sat down and taught the people from the boat. And when he had finished speaking, he said to Simon, “Put out into the deep and let down your nets for a catch.” And Simon answered, “Master, we toiled all night and took nothing! But at your word I will let down the nets.” And when they had done this, they enclosed a large number of fish, and their nets were breaking. They signaled to their partners in the other boat to come and help them. And they came and filled both the boats, so that they began to sink.
As in today’s scripture, these three fishermen, and others, had been up fishing all night. They hadn’t caught anything. And by following Jesus’ direction, these men caught a supernaturally abundant number of fish!
But there’s one important difference that I hadn’t noticed or thought about before last week: Notice that in Luke chapter 5, unlike in John 21, Jesus was with the fishermen on board one of the boats while they were catching these fish.
In John 21, by contrast, as far as these disciples knew, they were by themselves. I mean, sure, there was this strange man on the shore—a hundred yards away. But he wasn’t anywhere near them. As far as these disciples knew, Jesus was nowhere around…
And this… I think this teaches us something significant about what it means to be a disciple…
In a verse from last week’s scripture that we read but I didn’t preach on, John 20, verse 29, Jesus tells the formerly “doubting Thomas,” “Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.”
And that blessing, of course, is for nearly every Christian who’s ever lived—with the exception of the women at the tomb and the the other eyewitnesses of the resurrection that Paul lists in 1 Corinthians 15. Indeed, the blessing of John 20:29 is for us Christians living in the twenty-first century. We have not seen Jesus with our own eyes. We haven’t spoken with him in an audible voice. We haven’t shaken his hand or embraced him.
And maybe, as a result, we don’t feel especially blessed—at least in comparison to Jesus’ original disciples. I mean, c’mon! He was right there with them, physically present with them. If only Jesus were present to us like that!
Do you ever feel that way? What’s so “blessed” about not having the resurrected Lord with us, in the flesh? And we’re tempted to envy these first disciples!
And yet… I want us to recall a small and possibly confusing detail from Mary Magdalene’s encounter with the resurrected Lord in the previous chapter. I’ve rarely heard anyone mention it in an Easter sermon, but I’m referring to the first part of verse 17: When Mary realizes that this man she mistook for the gardener is actually Jesus, she gives him a very big hug. Which goes to show, of course, that Jesus’ resurrection was a bodily resurrection. Jesus wasn’t some kind of ghost or a spirit. But that’s not my point here… My point is what Jesus tells her next: “Do not cling to me…”
If there were “thought bubbles” above the heads of our two cats, Wally and Cash, I imagine they would be saying the same thing to me whenever I pick them up and try to hold them: “Do not cling to me!”
But Jesus isn’t like Wally and Cash. It’s not that Jesus doesn’t like being hugged or embraced. It’s just that he senses that Mary’s embrace betrays some confusion on her part. It’s as if she were saying, “Lord, I lost you once when you were arrested and crucified. I’m never going to let that happen again! I’m going to cling to you and never let you go. Because I never want to lose you again.”
And it’s in this context that Jesus says, “Do not cling to me, for I have not yet ascended to the Father.” That may sound strange, but what exactly will happen when Jesus ascends to our Father? He will send down his Holy Spirit. That’s why Jesus said, in the Upper Room the night of the Last Supper, “I tell you the truth: it is to your advantage that I go away, for if I do not go away, the Helper will not come to you. But if I go, I will send him to you.” 2
And that “helper” is the Holy Spirit. The Spirit is the One through whom Christ is present with us believers. As Jesus says in John 14:18, “I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you.” Christ comes to us through the Spirit.
So the reason Jesus says that it’s to our advantage that he go away by ascending to his Father is that he can be with all believers all at once. He can give all of his time and attention to each one of us. Even during these 40 days when he walked among the disciples in his resurrected body—even when he was with Mary Magdalene—he could only be in one place at one time! Now, through his Spirit, he can be with everyone all at once.
That’s one meaning of having the Holy Spirit within us. And that’s why he told Mary, “Do not cling to me, for I have not ascended to the Father.” Mary didn’t understand this at that moment, but by ascending to his Father she would soon have Jesus with her all the time. So there was no need for her to cling to Jesus!
And what’s true for her is true for us, too!
We have Jesus with us, each one of us. And God’s Word teaches we have even more of Jesus when we gather together as a church!
But we don’t just have all of Jesus’ presence with us. We have all of his power, too…
Listen to what Jesus says in John 14:12—again, on the night of the Last Supper in the Upper Room: “Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever believes in me will also do the works that I do; and greater works than these will he do, because I am going to the Father.”
“Greater works than these will he do…” Greater works than the works of Jesus! That’s a convicting statement if there ever was one!
I’ve told you before about my two trips to Kenya in East Africa back in 2012 and 2013. I went there to teach classes to indigenous Methodist pastors. These were among the best experiences of my life! Praise God! And while I was there, I got to preach and lead worship alongside another ordained Methodist pastor named Susan. And near the end of the service, after the sermon but before the closing hymn, a Kenyan pastor in our group invited sick people in the congregation to come to the altar… for healing prayers and anointing with oil—just like James 5:14 tells us to do—healing prayers and anointing administered, in this case, by the visiting pastors from America… i.e., Susan and me! Uh-oh. When he said that, we exchanged glances at one another as if to say, “Yeah, we’re Methodists… we don’t do that sort of thing… at least not in America.”
But why? What do we believe about power of the Spirit that prevents us from “doing that sort of thing in America”? Do we have less of the Spirit here in America than they had in Kenya? Do we not think that the Holy Spirit can do powerful things through faith and prayer here?
John Wesley, the founder of our Methodist movement, believed in the power of the Spirit! In his journal he recounts observing one miracle after another. He said that if it seemed like the Spirit was less active in his day than He was in the New Testament it was only because of the lukewarm faith he found in so many of England’s churches at the time! And this goes right along with what Paul says in 1 Thessalonians 5:19: “Do not quench the Spirit.” In other words, don’t put out the fire of the Spirit! Surely one way we put out the fire of the Spirit is by failing to expect the Spirit to show up on Sunday mornings!
Imagine people not wanting to miss worship on Sunday mornings at Toccoa First because they know the Holy Spirit is going to show up and do something powerful, supernatural, even miraculous in the lives of God’s people when they gather here! As good as Ken White’s music program is, as gifted as most of the members of the praise band are—with the exception of the bassist—these things cannot compare to what Christ can do through his Holy Spirit!
To say the least, I want us to be a church where we believe in the power of the Spirit to do mighty things!
That’s Point Number One… Christ is present and powerful in our lives.
Number Two: Christ redeems our failures.
I said earlier that these disciples were doing nothing wrong by going fishing. I’m sure they were doing everything “right,” based on what they knew at the time. But notice: they still failed. And I think another thing Jesus is teaching these disciples about living a life of discipleship is that failure will be a normal part of that life.
Failure has a way of getting our attention like nothing else, let’s face it. Sometimes I think I learn nothing at all except through failure! At least nothing important. Jesus has a way of getting our attention through failure like nothing else.
To put it another way: we don’t often hear Jesus very well when we’re successful and prosperous.
And I’m sure that’s true for the disciples. After all, it was through the disciples’ failure that Jesus got their attention. Verse 3: “But that night they caught nothing.” It’s easy to imagine their frustration. I don’t fish myself, but even I know that most fishermen wouldn’t like being asked the question Jesus asks in verse 5: “Children, do you have any fish?” They might have snapped back at him: “Mind your own business… and don’t call us ‘children.’” Or they might have lied about their lack of success in order to protect their pride.
By the way, suppose they had lied and said they caught something. At which point, suppose Jesus had walked on water the hundred yards or so to their boat and said, “Oh, let me see how many fish you’ve caught?” Boy, that would have been embarrassing! Can you imagine?
Instead, to the disciples’ great credit, they swallowed their pride and told Jesus the truth. “No… we haven’t caught anything.”
So that’s a good principle for living a Christian life: When we fail, we should be honest and confess our failures to the Lord… in prayer. And when we do so, we will be, like these disciples, in a unique position to hear Jesus speak to us… just like these disciples. They confronted their failure, confessed it to Jesus, and Jesus gave them the victory.
Maybe you’re failing in your life right now—in your family, in your marriage, in your career, in your finances… or indeed, in your life as a disciple of Christ. I want you to take your failure as a sign that the Lord is trying to tell you something… right now. He’s trying to speak to you right now about a change he wants you to make in your life. What is he saying?
Failure means that Jesus is trying to speak to you right now. Listen to him!
Imagine… every time you fail, and you’re heartbroken about it, saying, “Okay, Lord, what are you trying to tell me through this? You’ve got my attention. I’m listening.”
I like the way theologian Dale Bruner puts it in his commentary on this text: He says, “Failure is good manure.” 3That’s a clever way of putting it, because when we fail, we often feel like we stepped in it. And our failure may look like manure. And it stinks like manure. And of course, there’s even a word some of us use to describe this manure more explicitly. But… the Bible says repeatedly, in many different ways, that if we’re children of God through faith in Christ, God can transform every failure into fertilizer… every time! 4
Cavonna tells me the story of one refined lady she used to know, Miss Shockley, who used to buy gallon tomatoes from Cavonna’s mom. Miss Shockley said that fertilizer was the secret to success: “It’s the stinky stuff that makes them taste so good!” Also, with so many chicken coops around, many folks will tell you that the smell of chicken manure is the smell of money.
Failure, like fertilizer, is good and necessary.
As the best example of our Lord’s ability to redeem failure, take Peter, for instance: Notice verse 9: “When they got out on land, they saw a charcoal fire in place, with fish laid out on it, and bread.” In addition to teaching us the superiority of grilling with charcoal rather than propane—I mean, when it comes to grilling we can ask, “What would Jesus do?” Jesus would use charcoal, obviously!
But that’s hardly the most important lesson… It’s no coincidence, I think, that that word “charcoal” shows up in one other place in the New Testament: Back in John 18:18, when the author tells us that Peter was warming himself by a charcoal fire… in the courtyard of the high priest… when what happened back then? When Peter denied even knowing Jesus… three times.
It’s easy to imagine—especially given the distinctive smell of charcoal and the power of smell to evoke memories—that being here—by a charcoal fire, in the dark of early morning, with Jesus—reminded Peter of that event weeks earlier, when he was in the dark, by a charcoal fire, with Jesus… Remembering what he did back then… How he failed back then… Indeed, how he sinned… back then…
When Jesus asks Peter three times whether or not he loves him, he is not doing so to shame Peter. Rather, Peter already feels ashamed. Peter’s sin and failure is already on his mind… The charcoal fire made him feel ashamed! And Jesus knows what’s on Peter’s mind, and this is why he asks him three times and and reassures and encourages him three times that in spite of the sins of his past Peter will be empowered to do great things for Jesus, great things for the gospel, great things for God’s kingdom. His sins haven’t disqualified him!
In fact, Jesus made this point to Peter in the gospels—hours before he denied Jesus. Peter was overconfident in his ability to stand beside Jesus and lay down his life for Jesus. Jesus says to him, “Simon, Simon, behold, Satan demanded to have you, that he might sift you like wheat, but I have prayed for you that your faith may not fail. And when you have turned again, strengthen your brothers.”
Jesus implies that Peter’s failure—his spectacular failure on the night of Jesus’ arrest—will be used, somehow, to strengthen Peter’s fellow disciples. It’s easy to see how: when they remember Peter the scaredy-cat who quickly folded in the face pressure in the courtyard of the high priest and compare that man to the man who will later stand up to people who hold his life in their hands and say, “Whether it is right in the sight of God to listen to you rather than to God, you must judge, for we cannot but speak of what we have seen and heard.” 5 When other disciples think of the change in Peter’s life, they will surely be encouraged and believe that there’s hope for them, too!
That’s Point Number Two: Christ redeems our failures.
Point Number Three: Christ gives power to be “fishers of men and women.”
This is perhaps the most obvious point of the “living parable” of John 21. We recall that that’s precisely what Jesus told Peter and others in Luke chapter 4 after the first miraculous catch of fish—and he says it also in Matthew and Mark: “Follow me, and I will make you fishers of men.” 6
And I made the point last week that the responsibility to “fish for men and women”—which is another way of saying to “fulfill the Great Commission”—applies to all of us. As I said last week, churches in our community spend a lot of time fishing for the 15 percent of the population that is already active in churches in our community—and likely already saved—while ignoring the much larger 85 percent of people who, this very morning, are not in church… And it stands to reason, as I said, that a large percentage of the 85 percent not in church this morning need Jesus and his gospel.
And I am saying this with the full confidence and authority of God’s Word: our Lord is telling us—yes, even us at Toccoa First Methodist—“Go fishing in the lake where the 85 percent are.”
Indeed, when he gave us his Holy Spirit, he gave us a license to do so… a fishing license if you will.
And if we try fishing there and fail… What then? We take encouragement from the disciples in today’s scripture who also fail. But then we listen to Jesus as he directs us through prayer, and we do it again… And again… And again… But we don’t give up.
I told one of you after the service that I have a pastor mentor in Auburn, Alabama, who’s now retired… who told me that he prayed every day: “Lord, put someone in my life today whom I can witness to.” He said the Lord kept on answering that prayer in unexpected and sometimes inconvenient ways.
That’s a good prayer. If you’re wondering what you can do to fulfill the Great Commission at Toccoa First, start with that prayer. Amen.