Dennis Tuuri

# Sermon Transcript: John 21:1-14

To thank those of you that participated in yesterday’s PRC Walk for Life. I know there was significant work done by the Meerdt family and I’m sure others. So, thank you so much for taking your faith into that event to help support the work of the PRC.

This morning’s sermon text is found in John 21, verses 1-14. If you have one of the handouts, you can follow along in the manner and translation that I will use when we talk about this text in a couple of minutes. If not, you can just listen or you can turn in your own scriptures, of course.

John 21:1-14, please stand for the reading of God’s word.

After these things, Jesus showed himself again to the disciples at the Sea of Tiberias. And in this way, he showed himself: Simon Peter, Thomas called the Twin, Nathanael of Cana in Galilee, the sons of Zebedee, and two others of his disciples were together. Simon Peter said to them, “I am going fishing.” They said to him, “We are going with you also.” They went out and immediately got into the boat, and that night they caught nothing.

But when the morning had now come, Jesus stood on the shore. Yet the disciples did not know that it was Jesus. Then Jesus said to them, “Children, have you any food?” They answered him, “No.” And he said to them, “Cast the net on the right side of the boat, and you will find some.” So they cast, and now they were not able to draw it in because of the multitude of fish. Therefore, that disciple whom Jesus loved said to Peter, “It is the Lord!”

Now when Simon Peter heard that it was the Lord, he put on his outer garment, for he had removed it, and plunged into the sea. But the other disciples came in the little boat, for they were not far from land, but about two hundred cubits, dragging the net with fish. Then, as soon as they had come to land, they saw a fire of coals there, and fish laid on it, and bread. Jesus said to them, “Bring some of the fish which you have just caught.” Simon Peter went up and dragged the net to land, full of large fish—one hundred and fifty-three. And although there were so many, the net was not broken.

Jesus said to them, “Come and eat breakfast.” Yet none of the disciples dared ask him, “Who are You?”—knowing that it was the Lord. Jesus then came and took the bread and gave it to them, and likewise the fish. This is now the third time Jesus showed himself to his disciples after he was raised from the dead.

Let’s pray. Oh Father, we love your scriptures. We love your word, and we love this wonderful account of our Savior in his resurrection body ministering to the saints. Minister to us now, Lord God. Reveal Jesus to us this morning, that we might have a meal with him, our breakfast as well. In Jesus’ name we ask it, for the sake of his kingdom. Amen.

Please be seated.

Placing this text in a little bit of context: there are—you’ll remember that we talked a couple of weeks ago on the incident in John 20 involving Thomas the Twin. And it seemed like the text could have ended there—the gospel—because remember, it was then Thomas the Twin was related to us, and that “these things were written that we might believe and have life.” And that was sort of, you know, could have been an ending of the gospel.

But this last chapter, this addendum some might call it, is put on, and there are three specific things that occur here. They don’t, you know, it sort of is all recorded together, and yet there are these breaks. The breaks we saw in the text we just read are these accounts of the revelation of Jesus. So this epiphany of himself form the bookends of this particular narrative we just read.

The next little narrative is connected to this one through the charcoal fire, I might add. But Jesus has his interchange with Peter, you know, “Do you love me?” and “Feed my sheep?”—you’re familiar with that account. And then the third little narrative that happens in John 21, in this addendum to the Gospel of John, we could say conclusion or summary at the end, is the discussion of the beloved disciple, which, you know, most commentators believe was John, the writer of the gospel, and him and Peter and their interaction with Jesus about what will happen to John or not happen to John.

And so there is that kind of thing going on. And in a sense, we could see these three incidents—and I have this for you on your outline today—that in the first narrative that we just read, it seems like the big thing, one of the big things that’s going on, is a restoration or at least a picturing of mission—a mission to the Gentiles, to the fish, the sea—and they’ll be successful in that endeavor.

So, and Peter, the charcoal fire is this reminder of his forgiveness. And we’ll talk about that as we get into the text. So, you know, forgiveness, the restoration, glory at the beginning of our service—is also at the same time an empowerment for mission, to do things for Jesus.

The second narrative, where Peter and Jesus go back and forth about “Feed my sheep” and loving him, this seems like now we have a dialogue, an interchange with Jesus that is aimed at shepherding and discipling people. And the middle of our worship service is what we’re doing right now. Jesus comes and brings words to us through his scriptures, and he disciples us and kind of builds us up.

And then the third narrative involving difficulties in relationships between Peter and John and the relationship to Jesus in community seems like its goal or its kind of subject is community life together. So there’s a sense in which we could, at least by application, of these three narratives, see this three-fold movement again of the great commission—to go and to make disciples—and “he’s with us always.”

The three-fold movement of our worship service, mirroring as it does the three-fold movement of the Levitical offerings, beginning with purification and going to ascension, and finally ending up with peace at community at the table. So this narrative is in that context, and in that context, I think that it right away sort of points us to the idea of mission in what it is about here.

So the disciple that’s mentioned in all three narratives is Peter. So he’s kind of the focus. And in the first and third narrative, you have what we believe to be John mentioned as well. But Peter is in all three, and he becomes the central figure in what’s being discussed. And he is in today’s text as well.

He’s the leader, right? He says, “Let’s go fishing,” and they say, “We will fish.” He comes toward Jesus after Jesus is revealed, and they follow him to Jesus. So Peter is the leader, as it were, although a troubled one as well, in terms of his narrative and what’s happened in his life over the couple of weeks leading up to this revelation of Jesus—his three-fold denial of Jesus.

So that’s kind of the placement of this text.

Now the text begins and ends, and if you have the handout for today, it again, it kind of shows us these bookends—is that there’s something going on here that God wants us to see as a revelation of who Jesus is. Now, on one level, he’s simply showing himself in resurrected form, right? So he’s manifesting himself in that way. But it seems like, with these bookends, we’re to look at this text and try to think through what Jesus is revealing about himself in this particular narrative. And that’s what we’re going to do today.

And the text has this arc to it, right? So they begin with, you know, no success, and they end up with great success. And they begin with no food and they end up with food. There are four sayings of Jesus, and in the structure I’ve given you, those sayings are kind of again bookends leading toward a center in the middle. Let’s talk about these specific elements, then, and discuss them just a little bit.

Now, in addition to telling us that these things are the revelation of Jesus in verse one, it also tells us that these events happen at the Sea of Tiberias. And, you know, on your handouts, “Manifestation at Gloom.” What does that mean, Dennis? Well, Tiberias was Caesar at the time. He was the emperor and had been for a while. And he was described as the gloomiest of all men—a dark man, you know, maybe accomplished at administration, but personally dark, troubled, portrayed in the histories of being very troubled, actually, in his general personality. He’s a dark, gloomy sort of guy.

Now, the sea in the scriptures, in the Old Testament, is kind of a dark and gloomy place. And I don’t know if you’ve ever lost a loved one at sea, but you know, there’s something strange about it and troubling. The sea is this kind of unknown out there which we don’t have much control over. And in addition to this, in the second section, we’re told specifically that the disciples are fishing all night.

So Jesus’s manifestation comes in a place that’s identified—not by another name—and we clearly had a name other than the Sea of Tiberias before. Tiberias was the Emperor, right? The name was changed to reflect that. It’s up there in Galilee where Jesus’s ministry was happening at this point, but specifically, it’s related to the Roman Emperor—a dark, gloomy man. And the Roman Empire is darkness of course too, at this point. And it is the cultural context into which the bright light of Jesus and the light of the gospel will shine.

So, you know, don’t ignore the details of a text. And the details of this text show us that the manifestation of Jesus Christ is in darkness.

Now, again, I say this a lot these days, but it’s true. Some of you are in darkness. Some of you are going through difficult times. Some of you are in bright times. But we’ve kind of, you know, by way of an analogy of the weather, the weather has been not what we would normally like this time of year—warm, bright, and sunny—it’s been kind of dark. And our lives go through seasons like that.

And so this text is one of those texts that, you know, we can turn to when our lives seem to be happening in gloom and ask for Jesus to manifest himself as light in that gloom.

Second part of the narrative, verses 2 and 3: we have the named five of the seven disciples here are named, which is interesting in and of itself. Of Simon Peter, Thomas called the Twin. Now, commentators point out that this draws us into the narrative. Why? Because if we’re reading through the Gospel of John, we just read John 20, which I preached on a couple of weeks ago, and there is this relationship between Thomas the Twin. Who’s he twin of? Sort of us, because Jesus connects him up: “Blessed are you who have seen and believed. Blessed are those who haven’t seen and yet believed.” And that’s us. So, we’re brought into the narrative when this reference to Thomas the Twin happens after John 20.

Interestingly then, Nathanael is now identified as being of Cana in Galilee. And as we read this text, “Cana,” okay, that’s interesting. And you know, it’s where he’s from. But of course, in John’s gospel, this is the first miracle, a manifestation of Jesus. And he comes to, at this stage, a gloomy wedding party where the wine is exhausted. And he does his first miracle by giving them overflowing wine. And the text will go on. Of course, it’s the same thing happening here, right? They have no fish, and then they have all kinds of fish. And so that reference seems to set us up for what Jesus will do in Cana of Galilee. And so when we’re in darkness, these stories are important for us to remember and to draw hope from.

And then, two others of his disciples are there. Now, the two other disciples—why doesn’t it name them? Well, John doesn’t want to name himself. That’s one reason. But then, who’s the other disciple that isn’t named? Again, I think the text is inviting us into it here. The unnamed disciple, you know, we can identify with that person. The rest of the Christian church, you know, can be sort of seen as represented in an unnamed disciple because that’s who we are. It’s a way of bringing us into this text. So we’re not reading about somebody else. We’re reading about the body of Christ, and God has inserted us into that body. And we’re in these narratives, then, in the person of these disciples.

Now, the next thing that happens is controversial. Well, it’s not controversial from my perspective, but it’s strange what people make of this narrative. So they’re there, and they say, “Well, I’m going to go fishing,” Peter says, and the others join him. Well, first of all, we see Peter and his leadership capability, as I mentioned.

But it’s amazing, you know, you hear fishing stories, and this is going to be quite a fishing story. But it’s amazing that this fishing story has been the most maligned of all fishing stories. This fisherman, Peter, who was vocationally a fisherman, right? He, you know, he’s seen here as apostatizing from the faith. He must have left Jesus. He’s got no faith anymore. He’s just doing this kind of desperate, sort of stupid thing by wanting to go fishing, you know. Where is that in this text? It’s not in this text.

And in fact, a careful analysis of the post-resurrection accounts of Jesus shows Peter knows that Jesus has been raised. He’s not faithless. He’s been brought the good news. And we see here that immediately, as soon as Jesus is manifest on the shore, Peter leaps into the water to get to him. This isn’t an apostate.

Now, I know why that’s being said, because there does seem to be, you know, sort of a mission creation for Peter here that is involved with forgiveness. But it’s not forgiveness for going fishing. These disciples needed to eat. They had lives to live. They were like you and I. And I think it’s a wonderful thing that this beautiful narrative comes to us in the context of vocation—men going about doing their normal vocations.

Now, Jesus is going to, you know, remind them of their vocation to be fishers of men. Surely, yeah, of course, that’s there. But don’t blow by this and assume that Peter is doing something bad. What do you do, men, tomorrow morning when you get up and say, “I guess I’m going to go to work this morning. I guess I’m going to go put a roof on somebody’s house. I guess I’m going to go, you know, plant, do some landscaping for somebody this afternoon. Are you apostatizing? No. I don’t think that’s what’s going on here at all.

I think, when that is said—as I said—it really misses our connection to the text. This wonderful manifestation of Jesus happens in the context of men doing their work. Men doing their work. So I think that’s what the narrative is about.

They catch nothing. Now, this is interesting too. This is the curse of God, you know. They’re apostates. That’s why they’re catching nothing. And people will bring in the text, and it’s certainly relevant, where Jesus says, “You can do nothing without me.” But did you ever think about the oddity of them catching nothing? They’re fishing at night vocationally because that’s the best time to catch fish. And this is what these guys do, okay? They’re not amateurs. This is what they know how to do. They’ve been trained to do it. They’ve done it to provide a living for themselves. They know what they’re doing, and they have no fish all night.

Why? Well, I think that—and I think this is important for us—I think it’s because Jesus didn’t want them to have any fish that night. He was setting them up for the revelation of who he was. He wasn’t angry at them.

There are relationships between this text and John chapter 6. You know, Jesus in John 6 gives the people—the feeding of the 5,000. What does he feed them? Fish and bread. What does he feed his disciples? It says specifically in John chapter 6 that he gave his disciples fish and bread. And what does he give them here? Fish and bread.

There are these connections between John 6. After the feeding of the 5,000, what happens next? Do you remember? We have the special presence of Jesus, and then after that, in John 6, we have the special absence of Jesus. He goes off by himself. The disciples get in a boat and go out on a lake by themselves at night, and it’s trouble, right? And they’re thinking they’re going to drown, and bad things are happening. But what we find out if we compare the narratives of the gospel about that event is that Jesus has been watching them in their struggles, praying for them, and then comes to them.

It was a special absence. He knew it. He deliberately withdraws himself from them after the feeding of the 5,000. Why? Because he’s training them. He wants—and interestingly, this gloomy idea—they go down to the sea, down to the gloom, down to the darkness. They go down, you know, to a storm in the middle of the night, right? And Jesus comes to them.

Jesus wants you and I to know, among other things, this is what he’s revealing to us: that when we have dry spells, when we don’t catch any fish, when we’re in a storm in the middle of the night, tossing and turning in our beds with worries and concerns, feeling that Jesus is a thousand miles away, Jesus wants us to know that his eye is upon us, that he’s caring for us. He will come to us in good time and make our lives full again.

So I think that’s what’s happening here. It’s this—as Jesus was the special absence from the disciples after the feeding of the 5,000, and here the order is reversed. They start out on the sea and then they come to the meal. So this is kind of a chiastic thing if we put John 6 and John 21 together. And at the center of it is our trouble, our being on the sea—the troubled sea named after a gloomy, dark, perverted Roman emperor. That’s where we find ourselves. Amen. I do. That’s where I find myself, you know, lots of times. I know you do, too, even if you don’t admit it to each other. You admit it to me usually.

So that narrative is really nice for us. It’s important for us to see that God, you know, is sovereign, and in his providence, he’s caring for us.

So Jesus is on the shore, right? Then they don’t know Jesus. And that, you know, the matching text of verse 4 will be down in the outline where they know Jesus. So, you know, we don’t know who it is that is there in connection to us. But it turns out that it’s Jesus.

And look what Jesus says to them in verse 5. This is the first—you know—the second saying of Jesus. What does he say? He says to them, “Children, have you any food?” They answered him, “No.”

Once more, you know, a beautiful verse. Might be a nice life verse actually. Why? Because when we’re in these times, Jesus comes to us. And how does he address them? Does he say, “You rebellious men who have abandoned the faith?” Does he treat them sternly? No. He calls them children, boys.

You know, I was listening to a song by Arcade Fire on the way in with Elijah this morning. And you know, their best songs—Pink Floyd’s, I think, best songs—they’re sort of probably the easiest to write are songs about lost childhood, right? “The grass was greener,” and we move into adult life and our hearts get colder, right, as we get older.

Well, you know, that can be the narrative. But God addresses adult, burly fishermen here as children or boys. Jesus loves us. You know, a simple, significant truth to remember in the midst of our darkness and our difficulties and our dry wells, as it were, our inability to produce things.

Jesus reveals himself here right out of the shoot, you know, as being tender-hearted toward us. Right now, what he does is he also reveals himself as the one who reminds us of our difficulties. “You have any fish? You have any food?” Rather, “No food.” He brings them to an awareness of their need for him, right? I mean, he lets the storm happen after the feeding of the 5,000. He lets them get troubled. He wants us to know our dependency upon him.

So there’s nothing unkind about reminding each other, as we speak for Jesus to others in the body. There’s nothing wrong with reminding each other of failures, difficulties. Because I don’t—I don’t think women are as bad at this—but I think men are very good, you know. It can be stormy, no fish, whatever it is. And we can just sort of paper it over. You know, men make a plan. “Well, I’ll get out of this by X.” And somehow, you know, men think we’re God. And so we’ve made a plan. We’ve spoken it into existence, and it’s a done deal. We don’t have to worry about it. Now, the fish are still not in the boat, and the storm is still raging, but somehow we just whistle past the graveyard.

Jesus doesn’t want us to do that. He wants us to meditate on our emptiness because if we don’t do that, then we won’t turn to him, and we won’t bless him for our abundance.

So you see, it’s a wonderful little verse because, on one hand, he’s reminding them of their shortcomings, their difficulties, their problems, and trouble. He comes to you today, and he says, you know, “Don’t ignore your problems. They’re real.” In fact, sometimes he wants—in the sermon—to tell you, “This is the problem you have.” And God speaks to you individually through his spirit and brings troubles to your mind as you’re sitting here. That’s Jesus doing that.

The other side of it is Jesus doesn’t do that to torment you. He does that in tenderness, with love. He calls you children, beloved children. So that narrative about lost childhood really is a pagan narrative to the Christian. We actually grow in childlike trust and reliance. What did our Savior tell us? “Unless we have the faith of little children, you know, we can’t enter the kingdom of heaven.”

So that narrative is true of the world, but it’s not true of us. You’re beloved. You’re tenderly treated and addressed and cared for by King Jesus, the sovereign of the world, loves you, addresses you as children, even while addressing your need.

So he then says something else to them, and he tells them to cast their net on the right side of the boat, and they’ll find some fish. In other words, “So they cast, and now they were not able to draw it in because of the multitude of fish.”

Now, we could talk about this as well, and remembering that, at least my take on this, is Jesus is coming to people in the midst of vocation. I do think that tomorrow morning when you go to your job and your vocation, whether it’s in the home or in the workplace, I think that the idea here, by way of application, is that Jesus is the one that you’re dependent upon to have success, to exercise dominion, right?

So we are to be dependent upon Jesus for our vocation and how we conduct it. Now, I hope you don’t think I’m making too much of this, but that’s what he does. He tells them, “You’re fishermen. I’m going to tell you how to fish tonight. Fish like this.” And when they do it, when they look to Jesus for direction and guidance in their vocation, then they’re tremendously blessed. They’re so blessed they can’t bring the net in.

And they bring it in later. Odd. You can’t bring it in here. They bring it in later. Why? Well, maybe we’ll see as we go along. But Jesus reveals himself first as a tender—representing the tender love of the Father—in bringing us to an awareness of our difficulties so that we might then turn to him for guidance in our vocation and in our emptiness and in our storms and troubles on the gloomy sea, as it were. That we might turn to him.

And Jesus reveals himself as the one who can turn our efforts into great blessedness as we bring him into our vocations, our callings, our places of employment.

Well, John then knows: “Oh, it’s the Lord. For sure, it’s the Lord.” And now we have what I think is the center of the text. If I’ve structured this correctly—and I may not have—but if I have, then the center of the text is the narrative that happens in G on your outlines, of verses 7b and 8.

Simon Peter heard that it was the Lord. He put on his outer garment, for he had removed it, and plunged into the sea. But the other disciples came in the little boat, for they were not far from land, but about two hundred cubits, dragging the net with fish.

So, at the center of this is Peter’s leap into the sea. Plunged into the sea. It’s like he’s thrown into the sea, right? He whoosh, and he’s gone. But he does it with his robe. This is strange. This is a curious thing, right? Normally, you take your robe off to get in the sea and swim across even a short span of water. He does the reverse. He puts it on.

Now, again, some of you may not follow me here, but it seems to me that, at the center of this text, is the sort of thing that happens to us every Lord’s day, formerly in the liturgy, when we confess our sins. We acknowledge again our baptism and union with Christ, and he empowers us with investiture from on high to do the mission he’s called us to do.

Peter is being empowered, I think, to bring in the nations of the world, represented by these one hundred and fifty-three great fish. He’s being empowered to lead the disciples again. He leads them, right? He jumps in. They follow him. He had gone fishing. They followed him. He’s to lead them in taking the gospel into all the world.

And Peter, by leaping into the water, you know, we can see water, of course, in the scriptures as this baptismal imagery. And Peter is invested with this robe of authority, and now he moves in terms of power and enabling.

Now I think that’s sort of the narrative behind the symbols and the elements of this, which really happened, of course. But I think that’s interpreting them the way they are. It’s an odd account.

It’s also, I think, difficult not to see an association here between Peter and Jonah. Jonah is supposed to go and bring the nations in and bring blessing and conversion to Nineveh, but he doesn’t do it. And so God plunges him into the sea, right? And then after that, he ends up doing what he’s supposed to do.

Peter has denied Jesus three times a couple of weeks prior to this. And Jesus—or, rather, Peter has denied Jesus, and Jesus is indicating here the re-empowerment of Peter. Robes are in the scriptures robes of authority and power for particular work. I think that’s what’s happening, and his particular work—we think of Peter as, you know, the guy to the Jews, and Paul to the Gentiles—but Peter, of course, begins the mission to the Gentiles. And so, and so Peter will do that, and he’ll lead the disciples, and actually leading, by way of example, Paul in this as well.

Now, if you know your Bibles very well, you also know that he will again fail in his task. He’ll again be a rebellious Jonah with the Gentiles, right? With the Galatians, he breaks off table fellowship with the Gentiles because of the Jews. So Peter will sin again and again.

Isn’t this delightful? Isn’t this wonderful for us? We know that we’re those who commit ourselves to Christ. We do things for him, and then we fail and we sin. And the delightful thing here is that God is using this figure who has sinned grievously by denying our Savior three times—even having been warned by the Savior that he’ll do it and steeling himself not to do it—yet he sins.

And who will sin after this, what I think is a scene of investiture with power and authority to bring in the Gentile nations. He’ll sin again. And yet he’s God’s man for that task, and he does it. And so Peter again brings us into the story. You know, we have times of emptiness created by God in which we turn to Jesus. He empowers us. We receive new power and authority to do the things that we’re called to do. But we’re going to sin, and God will forgive us of those sins, and he’ll bring us to increasing work for the Lord Jesus Christ in spite of those sins.

So I think that the center of this is this narrative of a re-empowered Peter. And, by way of imagery, you know, he’s re-empowered in the context of baptism to then bring in the nations of the world from that gloomy sea of the Roman Empire.

Then we have what I call, in your outline, “Peter’s Fire.”

Next: “Then, as soon as they had come to land, they saw a fire of coals there, and fish laid on it, and bread.”

Well, so now we have fish and bread, and we have the beginnings of those resonances with John chapter 6, the feeding of the 5,000, which Jesus interpreted, by the way, as sacramental, right? I mean, after they come again to him after the feeding of the 5,000, he gives the Bread of Life discourse in which he interprets the meal sacramentally. And I think we should as well. It has significance for what we do here today.

But the thing—the reason I call it “Peter’s Fire”—do you know why? Maybe you do, maybe you don’t. But it’s because it’s called a charcoal fire, a fire made of coals. The Greek word is the basic root word for our anthracite coal. So it’s a particular kind of thing being described, and it’s only used twice in the Bible in the New Testament.

Once here, and the only other occurrence, you can see where I’m going, surely, was Peter’s three-fold denial at a charcoal fire in the courtyard of the high priest. Only two places it’s used. And I think we just have to make those associations.

We’re not going to talk today about what happens next in John 21, where Jesus asks Peter three times if he loves him, you know, mirroring the three-fold denial. I mean, that would make it, you know, lock tight. But here, what we have is a reminder of what the center is: that Peter is this forgiven guy, and he comes to this fire, this charcoal fire, which immediately in the text associates it back to Peter’s denials. And so it’s Peter’s fire. It’s the fire that reminds us of sin, repentance from sin, and forgiveness by Jesus, by the kind Savior who forgives us as well.

And then, not just forgives us, right? I mean, again, we hear this narrative here at RCC over and over again. But the point of Peter’s forgiveness isn’t just that he’s forgiven and then gets to go to heaven. That’s not salvation. I mean, it is from one sense. But Peter is forgiven, brothers and sisters. You and I are forgiven to be empowered for mission—vocation—and there is this relationship.

Yes, these will become, you know, ecclesiastical men. We could say they’ll become pastors, apostles, et cetera. They are that already. But we’re also—the text ties us to vocation. And I think it’s very significant to remind ourselves that you’re sitting here forgiven, assuming you confessed your sins with everyone else this morning and received the assurance of forgiveness, not on your own merits, but on the merits of Jesus Christ.

You’re sitting here as forgiven saints who are being empowered for mission. And you know, nine people out of ten, that mission is specifically tied to your vocation. And when you use your vocation and invite Jesus into your vocation, you’re the means of evangelizing the world and spreading the palace—the city of God—that always moves in opposition to the city of men. That’s what you’re called to do.

Your forgiveness, pictured here—Peter’s fire—is to the end that you have mission and purpose.

Whose fish was Jesus frying? By the way, it’s important to notice this. Jesus’s fish. Because now he tells them, Jesus speaks again, and he says, “Bring some of the fish that you’ve just caught. Bring your fish.”

Now, I mean, what we have here: you don’t bring the bread and the wine. This is Jesus’s bread and wine, you know, symbolically, ritualistically. What you do bring, after the sermon, is your tribute offering, right? So you come to a meal with Jesus, and Jesus says, “As you come to this meal, bring what the accomplishments you’ve done in the world, which are really my accomplishment. Of course, he tells us where to fish. He tells us what to do. So there is work. But he’s using us, and we’re converting the world, and we’re bringing the world in tribute to Jesus Christ.

And that’s what Jesus’s revelation here is: that he desires—Peter—he addresses him as children. He can’t do anything without him. He brings them then to his meal. He empowers them for mission. And he tells them here that he wants that mission to be acceptable on his altar. He’ll accept tribute from them, and in fact requires it, that they might bring some of their fish.

So Peter went up and dragged the net to land. Well, isn’t this a funny thing? At the beginning, when the net becomes full, none of them could drag it in. Now, Peter himself is said to drag the net with the fish into the land.

Now, that’s the difference, you know, with empowerment for mission and purpose from God. Peter, newly invested with the power and authority of God for his mission, is able to fulfill it in a way that he couldn’t before. Now, that’s not—he wasn’t sinning by not being able to drag the net before. But by way of analogy, it’s telling us that we’ll go through these cycles so that we might invite Jesus in a fuller sense into our vocation so that we might be able to drag that big net with one hundred and fifty-three great fish.

“Yeah. Yeah. Some of you are saying, ‘Oh, I know where he’s going with that one hundred and fifty-three.’”

Why one hundred and fifty-three? Well, we don’t know. There are some theories. Jerome said that the naturalists tell us there are one hundred and fifty-three species of fish. Augustine said that one hundred and fifty-three is the triangular of seventeen. I need a whiteboard. If you take seven—one to seventeen, right? You add one to two to three to four to five to six, up to seventeen, you end up with one hundred and fifty-three. It’s the addition of all the whole numbers between one and seventeen.

Okay? And it’s called the triangular—in ancient language, or even today—because if you represent this by a series of dots, the one at the top, two, three, down to seventeen, it’s a triangle. And so this number—and, you know, we don’t believe in anything anymore. So we don’t really think about these things. Numbers are just random things to do things with. But people who were a little deeper than us, I would say, they understood it was not uncommon to know what triangulars were. It was significant. And when you heard “triangular,” you would associate it with its base, the seventeen in this case.

And so seventeen is related to one hundred and fifty-three. And you know, Augustine—and this goes back to Augustine. This isn’t, you know, Jim Jordan doping or something. Now, this is Augustine, right? Now, Jim does advance the theory a bit because Augustine then goes into all these symbolic values of seventeen and what they mean. And what Jim says is, “Well, seventeen is the sum of seven and ten. And the product of seven and ten is seventy. And seventy is the number of nations that God has given us the list for in Genesis.”

So, seventy nations—although there are more now—but seventy nations is the idea of the fullness of the world. And so it seems like that could be related to the one hundred and fifty-three.

One other reference is in Ezekiel 47. It says that when Messiah comes, the water will start coming out of the temple of God. It will run into the dead sea—not the same sea, but it is a dead, gloomy sea. And the sea will come to life, and men will be fishers, and they’ll catch fish from En-gedi to—I can’t remember the name or how to pronounce it. Anyway, the second place—En-gedi. The En-gedi has a numerical significance in the Hebrew. And this was common, again, of seventeen. And the other city has a significance of numerical equivalent of one hundred and fifty-three.

So one hundred and fifty-three takes us back to Ezekiel 47. Even if you don’t buy the mathematics of it and the numerical significance of the names, surely we can see a relationship between Ezekiel 47 and this text.

Now, the gospel—the water of life is coming out of the temple of God. The new world is in place, and the new world goes into dead places, whether it’s the dead sea or the gloomy sea of Tiberias—the gloomy Roman, perverted emperor—and it brings life. And the life is represented as now fishers of men, right? That’s what Jesus said he would make these people: fishers of men.

Old Testament, who are the prophets? They’re primarily farmers, because the thing is Israel-based. Yeah, there’s a mission to the Gentiles, but it’s not emphasized. New Testament, these apostles are fishermen. What’s the difference? We move from land to sea with the coming of Messiah. Paul knew that now the gates were opened. Now, at last, the world of Jew and Gentile—the nations of men—would all be gathered together. There would be a new world order formed on the basis of union and communion with the Father through Jesus.

The church would be this new creation that grows in the midst of the old and displaces it. And Ezekiel 47 prophesied that. And what we have here is an indication that it’s coming to pass. These great fish—huge number of great fish—are now being caught. And that shows that the nations are coming into the Lord Jesus Christ’s kingdom.

So it’s a beautiful reference, even if we can’t figure out exactly what the one hundred and fifty-three means. This idea of the fullness of mission and the success of it is no doubt there.

Then, in the next thing that Jesus says—and this is the last thing—and this is a wonderful way for the text to come to its conclusion in terms of the revelation directly of Jesus by his words. He’s revealed himself, you know, to be kind and yet probing. And he’s revealed himself to be this provider for us. He’s revealed himself as the one who demands that we bring tribute to him of the work that he’s empowered us to do.

And now he reveals himself to us as the provider of our needs.

Jesus says to them, “Come and eat breakfast.” It’s that simple. That’s what Jesus said to you this morning. Come eat breakfast. Have a meal with me and with my people, with the rest of the disciples.

Jesus is kind and loving. He empowers us for mission, and he feeds us with grace from on high, with community and fellowship around food—in a wonderful way that is touching, simple, yet, of course, set in the context in which it’s set here, very profound.

And then they actually have the breakfast in verse 13. Jesus comes, takes the bread, and he gives it to them, and likewise the fish. And so the revelation of Jesus as the provider of all things, going back to his provision of food—bread and fish—to the five thousand and his disciples, that connection is made clear. And the movement from emptiness (no food, no fish) to fullness (provided first by Jesus, then by his enabling of our work, of food and tribute to him) this arc of the story is wonderfully tied off by Jesus saying, “Come and eat breakfast.”

And he’s a guy that keeps his word. If you come, he’ll feed you. You’ve come here today to be fed. And he assures you that is his very intention for you.

Let’s pray.

Father, we thank you for our wonderful Savior. We thank you for this wonderful picture and revelation of who he is—not just to them, but to us. Thank you for including us in this story in so many ways. And bless us, Lord God, at the bottom of our souls with a knowledge, a sure knowledge of our Savior’s love and tenderness to us, even though he brings an awareness of our difficulties.

Thank you, Father, for him inviting us—and him wanting us to invite him into our vocations—that they may be further blessed by him. Thank you for him providing, Lord God, for us breakfast today. Thank you for us being able to feed on his fish, on his body as it were, as we prepare to do that.

Bless us, Father, with an awareness of his love and provision for us in the ministries that he’s called us to do. Thank you, Lord God, ruler of the universe and yet lover of your people. In Jesus’ name we say we pray. Amen.