Christ Is Risen! He Is Risen, Indeed! John 21:2-7 Simon Peter, Thomas (also known as Didymus), Nathanael from Cana in Galilee, the sons of Zebedee, and two other disciples were together. "I'm going out to fish," Simon Peter told them, and they said, "We'll go with you." So they went out and got into the boat, (This small gathering of disciples, a small brotherhood of believers, having actually seen and talked to the risen Jesus, had gathered back together. Their world-view, their experiences, their knowledge to this point, all of it, had been turned inside out, and they knew the world was different. Salvation has that kind of effect, one where we can never be the same again. When we look to the Risen Christ as Savior, our world is forever and awesomely different. Yet, here the men were, probably reeling still from all that had happened, not knowing what else to do, have returned to their former employment and were putting their hands to the work to which they had been trained. The disciples, with no clear direction about what to do next, not yet knowing what the Lord would purpose for them, even though they had seen the wondrous miracle of a Risen Lord with their own eyes, had returned to what they knew to do, what they are familiar with, perhaps a good lesson for us. When we are unsure about next steps, we should keep doing what we know to do until the Lord reveals Himself and the next phase to us.) but that night they caught nothing. (As so often seems the case, when we step out, just as the disciples experienced as they labored through the night, trying to do the next right thing, we come up short. We come up empty-handed. Because the Lord is ever present with us even though we are unaware of Him, even though our first efforts may have little or no result, that doesn't mean we will continue to experience disappointment or lack or failure.) Early in the morning, Jesus stood on the shore, but the disciples did not realize that it was Jesus. (After Jesus' resurrection, He had appeared to different people at different times on different occasions. Now, once again, He shows Himself to His disciples by stepping into their most mundane, everyday lives as they fished. Today, He still makes Himself present to us in our most commonplace activities. Although the men in the boat had been oblivious to Jesus' presence through the long night, nevertheless, He had been with them all along, even though they had not acknowledged Him, nor were even particularly looking for Him.) He called out to them, "Friends, haven't you any fish?" "No," they answered. (Even after they had earlier seen the Lord with their own eyes, they are still completely unaware of Who the Person is to Whom they are talking. How often do we, perhaps, keep busily focused on what is before us instead of looking to find Jesus in our circumstances. Though these men were expert fishermen, though they had fished for years before they met Jesus, now their attempts were not yielding results. When we encounter Jesus, our own efforts to achieve will not yield the catch that He can provide because He now guides us and our lives are no longer our own. We belong to the One Who has bought us with a great price and Who guides our efforts and the work of our hands.) He said, "Throw your net on the right side of the boat and you will find some." When they did, they were unable to haul the net in because of the large number of fish. (Now, they are being guided and directed by the Lord even though, at the time, they were unaware of the One Who was leading them. The Lord still leads us today even though we may be oblivious that it is He Who is directing our ways. He is on the shore, perhaps on the very edges of our busyness, calling out to us even when we don't even recognize His Voice.) Then the disciple whom Jesus loved said to Peter, "It is the Lord!" (Now, because John bases his relationship with the Lord, not on himself or even on who hesays he is in the Lord, but, rather, on who the Lord Himself says John is, the disciple whom Jesus loved, John is the first to recognize Jesus even from the distance from the shore. For us, when we ascribe to ourselves the title that the Lord gives us, the disciple whom Jesus loves, He gives us fresh discernment and insight to recognize His commands, His presence, and His provision, and to hear His still, small Voice in the midst of our work and activities, a Voice that brings us into a heightened sense of His manifestations to us and a renewed relationship with Him. When we try to be self-deprecating by saying we are unworthy, not only are we stating the obvious, but we are also disallowing the high price that the Lord placed on us and we risk denigrating the high title the Lord gives us as the disciple whom He loves. Although each of these disciples had earlier forsaken Jesus in His time of greatest need, they had since then been lovingly confronted by Jesus, and, because of the evidence of His Risen Presence, had joyously recognized Him as Lord. The Lord had graciously forgiven them for their fear, for their disloyalty, for their lack of faith, for their failure to believe Him, and, now, through this new miracle of the catch of fish, He seals the destiny He had pronounced over them when He first called them to become His followers. The Lord uses this catch of fish to testify to His friends that He would bless the new work of their hands to which He had called them and reconfirm His purpose for them to become fishers of men. He is saying to us today that no matter what the night has held, no matter what little we can produce on our own, He rules our lives and brings to us the destiny and purposes He has designed for us to fulfill, and He brings about the victory and the harvest where before neither a victory nor a harvest had seemed possible.) Christ Is Risen! He Is Risen, Indeed!
