Now What?

[Below is both the live stream video of the 11:00 AM worship service with the people and friends of Living Water Lutheran Church, Centerville, Ohio, and the text of the message presented during worship. Ordinarily, I would also link to our 8:45 AM service, the traditional worship service, but we had technical difficulties that prevent that.]



John 21:1-19

Today’s gospel lesson, John 21:1-19, is part of the epilogue of John’s gospel. John’s gospel, of course, has a prologue. It starts out, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” (John 1:1) 

John’s prologue prepares us to hear Jesus when He says things like, “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.” (John 3:16) 

Or, “I am the resurrection and the life. The one who believes in me will live, even though they die; and whoever lives by believing in me will never die…” (John 11:25-26)

But now, after taking us on this dizzying journey with Jesus, John comes to today’s Gospel lesson. The rest of the gospel poses questions like, “Who are you, [Jesus]?” (John 8:25) Or, “How can someone be born [that is, how can someone born in sin start all over again in the righteousness of God] when they are old?” (John 3:4) 

But, today’s lesson asks the question, “Now what?” 

After I’ve come to believe in Jesus as “my Lord and my God,” like the once unbelieving Thomas, and so have eternal life with God, now what? How do I live my life from now until the resurrection?

The opening of today’s Gospel lesson finds seven of Jesus’ disciples hanging out together. That in itself is healthy. We Christians need each other. This is why the New Testament book of Hebrews tells the Church: “to [not neglect to] meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another…” (Hebrews 10:25) 

So, here we meet those seven disciples of Jesus, gaining strength from their fellowship around God’s Word, but still not clear about what they should do now.

Then, Peter announces, “I’m going out to fish…” (John 21:3) Friends, the call to follow Jesus and the call to gather with His Church, is not a call away from the world or its mundane pursuits. Part of the call of Jesus is, as we’re regularly fortified and challenged by God’s Word through the Church in worship, the Church in study, and the Church in service, to go into the everyday places of life, fulfill our daily duties, and be Christ’s witnesses “out there.” 

We can’t share the Gospel with others if we spend all our time with the people in our church family who agree with us about Jesus. Imagine a football team that spent all of their games in a huddle. Not much would happen.

Jesus has sent us into the world. That’s why I told Trish a few weeks ago during our staff meeting that I want to personally devote two nights a week this summer to doing kindness outreaches. 

Peter decides to go fishing and the other disciples, even the ones who weren’t formerly fishermen, say, “We’ll go with you.” (John 21:3)

The disciples spend the night fishing and catch nothing. Life can be like that, even when you’re following Jesus. You seek to be faithful, maybe faithful in sharing Jesus with others, and nothing happens, no one is interested. At times like these, the life of discipleship seems futile and meaningless.

Early in the morning following this futile fishing venture, someone calls the disciples from the shore. They don’t recognize the risen Jesus at first. Jesus doesn’t say, as our translation puts it, “Friends, haven’t you any fish?” (John 21:5) Rather than “friends," the word Jesus uses here to address them is Παιδία (paidia). It means children. It’s the Greek word that gives us the English words pediatrician and pediatrics. Jesus tenderly calls out to the disciples who have been seeking to be faithful in spite of the challenges of this world, “Children, you don’t have any fish, do you?” No, they don’t have any fish, the disciples admit.

So, echoing a similar incident that occurred near the beginning of His earthly ministry recounted in Luke, chapter 5, Jesus tells the disciples, still unaware of His identity, to throw their net to the right side of the boat. No one says as Peter did in that earlier incident, “We’ve been out all night. There aren’t any fish to be had.” Instead, like little children, credulous and unmarred by cynicism, they toss the net over the side of the boat. The net becomes so heavy with fish that they can’t haul it in. 

This is a picture of God’s grace. There is no end to it. He loves us. His Son died to free us from our sin, from death, and from our idolatries. He covers those who trust in Jesus with His abundant forgiveness and new life, even in the midst of life’s frequent futility.

I’d been called to the hospital room of a twenty-one-year-old who had been fighting cancer for seven years. She had taken a turn for the worse. On the car ride, I prayed I could get there before she died. I walked into her room to find her sitting in a chair, eating a chicken dinner her grandmother had sent. I just looked at her, a bit shocked. She smiled at me and said, “I know. I’m complicated.” After that rally, she did, some weeks later, die. But I reflected later that while her life had been complicated by cancer and this life, she wasn’t complicated at all. She trusted in Jesus and was committed to taking the next step in His rich grace even in the midst of great pain and uncertainty. 

The rich, abundant grace, love, and favor of Christ are on offer to us all, no matter how complicated (or futile) our lives can become.

John is the first to recognize the man on the shore as the risen Jesus. On hearing John say, “It is the Lord,” Peter throws himself into the water to meet Jesus. 

This incident provides another contrast between that earlier miraculous catch of fish Luke talks about and this one. There, you’ll remember, after Jesus caused Peter’s nets to fairly burst at the seams, Peter fell on his face and said, “Go away from me, Lord; I am a sinful man!” (Luke 5:8) But now Peter can’t wait to get to Jesus. 

This is the difference between life under the Law and life under the Gospel. 

A life lived under the Law is one in which we labor under the delusion that we can or must be good enough or work hard enough to gain God’s favor and forgiveness. That was the life that Peter was living earlier. God’s Law is good because it describes the life of righteousness. But it’s pure egomania for us to think that we can keep God’s Law. As the layperson (not the comedian) Steve Martin, wrote on Twitter the other day, “The job of God’s Law is to obliterate any confidence that you might have in anything outside of Jesus Christ.” Martin Luther said that the function of God's Law is to drive us to despair over our sin to the foot of Jesus Christ, to the only One Who can set us free from the debt for sin we owe our Maker!

But now, after Easter Sunday, Peter understands that despite his sins, he lives life under the Gospel of Jesus Christ. As Christians, we still sin. That’s why Jesus calls us to daily acknowledge our sin so that its power over us can be covered in the grace of Jesus. 

This is what Peter experiences now as he comes into Jesus’ presence. 

On the shore, Peter finds that Jesus has lit a charcoal fire, “burning coals” in our reading translating the Greek word, ἀνθρακιὰν (anthrakian), from which we get the English word, anthracite. The only other time we encounter this word in the whole Bible is in John 18:18, where Peter warms himself by a fire set by Roman soldiers in the place where Peter denied knowing Jesus three times. As Peter sees the burning coals, he no doubt remembers how he had abandoned the Lord on the night of Jesus’ trial.

Peter doesn’t run away though. He already knows that Jesus has forgiven him and sent him into the world, as he sends us, despite our sins and imperfections, to point others to Jesus as the way and the truth and the life. 

Jesus then, in a reversal of Peter’s three denials of his Lord, underscores His forgiveness and His sending of Peter, when, three times, He asks: “Simon son of John, do you love me more than these?” “Feed my lambs.” “Take care of my sheep.” “Feed my sheep.” (John 21:15-17) 

When we live under Christ’s Gospel, not only are our sins forgiven, we also have a mission, to feed the Church and to feed the world on the truth of the same Gospel that has saved us from sin, death, and darkness for everlasting life with God.

Following Jesus isn’t easy. Jesus tells Peter that his life is no longer his own, that he will die as one sent into the world to fish for people. But, you can be sure that as he walked with the risen Christ for the rest of his life, Peter, knowing that he lived under Christ's gospel, would always say, “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life.” (John 6:68) 

Jesus has died and risen for you. That's an accomplished fact. 

So, now what? 

How should we live each day? 

Simply in this way: By turning to Jesus each day, confident that wherever we may go and whatever the duties of our lives may call us to do, we live under His gospel, set free to be God’s people now and always. 

Amen

When Your World is Turned Upside Down

[This message was shared during worship with the people and friends of Living Water Lutheran Church in Centerville, Ohio,  this past Sunday.]

John 21:1-19
What do you do when your world has been turned upside down? 

This is a pressing question whether your life has been overturned by the positive and joyous or by the painful and difficult.

At the outset of today’s gospel lesson, John 21:1-19, we meet seven of the apostles sometime after they had all seen the risen Jesus. 

By now, they know that Jesus is the promised Messiah. 

They know that Jesus has risen physically from the dead. 

They know that the prophecies have been fulfilled. 

They know that God has conquered sin, death, and the devil. 

They know that the old order of the old creation has been overturned by Jesus, God the Son. 

But that still leaves the apostles with a question: What do they do now?

Peter decides that he’s going to return to his old job of fishing. When your world is turned upside down, the comfortable old ways of life can be alluring. 

Take a look at our lesson, starting at verse 2: “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.’” Their world is so upside down that even the non-fishermen, knocked off their pins by what it meant to live in the light of Easter, decide to go fishing with Peter!

Look, starting in the middle of verse 3: “So they went out and got into the boat, but that night they caught nothing.” 

Here’s the deal: When your world has been turned upside down, it’s no good trying to do the same old thing. In every instance of radical change in our lives, there is a call from God to live differently. And when you follow Jesus, everyday is a call to radical change: our decisions, our priorities, our way of life. 

The disciples caught nothing through a night of casting their nets. It’s a vivid demonstration that after Easter, nothing would be the same for them.

Verse 4: “Early in the morning, Jesus stood on the shore, but the disciples did not realize that it was Jesus. He called out to them, ‘Friends, haven’t you any fish?’ ‘No,’ they answered. 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. Then the disciple whom Jesus loved said to Peter, ‘It is the Lord!’ As soon as Simon Peter heard him say, ‘It is the Lord,’ he wrapped his outer garment around him (for he had taken it off) and jumped into the water. The other disciples followed in the boat, towing the net full of fish, for they were not far from shore, about a hundred yards. When they landed, they saw a fire of burning coals there with fish on it, and some bread. Jesus said to them, ‘Bring some of the fish you have just caught.’ So Simon Peter climbed back into the boat and dragged the net ashore. It was full of large fish, 153, but even with so many the net was not torn.”

Coming back from their night of futility, the disciples see a stranger on the shore. When the stranger tells them to cast their net off to the right side of the boat, they bring in a haul so enormous that, together, the whole lot of them can’t bring in the net. 

John later says there are 153 fish. Divisible by three, that’s a perfect catch; the haul was always divided by three: one for the boat, one for the individual fishermen on board, one for the person who provides the net.

John understands this miraculous event is a sign performed by Jesus. He pronounces that the stranger on the shore is Jesus, the risen One.

Peter, stripped down for work, is overwhelmed with excitement. He puts on his clothes to jump into the water, although the boat is just a football field’s length from the shore. 

The others sensibly stay on board as the boat drifts to the beach. Once they all get there, Jesus asks them to bring some of the fish they’ve just snared. 

In his enthusiasm, Peter reaches into the boat and drags the full net to Jesus, even though just a few moments before, seven grown men had struggled to haul the same netful of fish onto the boat. 

The word enthusiasm is a word we’ve taken over from the Greek language and it literally means to be in God, to be so full of God that God enables us to do things we cannot do on our own. Here, Peter is so filled with the Spirit of Jesus that he’s empowered to bring an offering--a net full of fish--to Jesus that he never could have brought in his own power. 

Jesus had spoken with the disciples not long before about this power He gives believers in Him to do more than we can do on our own. “I am the vine; you are the branches. If you remain in me and I in you, you will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing... If you remain in me and my words remain in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you. This is to my Father’s glory, that you bear much fruit, showing yourselves to be my disciples.” (John 15:5, 7-8) 

Some Christians are so obsessed by the things they can’t do--like offering to pray for a friend, getting involved with a mission ministry, telling someone the good news of new life through Jesus, spending quiet time in God’s Word and prayer each day--that they forget what the God we know in Jesus can do through those who are willing to offer themselves to Him.

As we'll see in the next section of our lesson, it’s not that Jesus needs our offerings of time, prayer, devotion, or money. Jesus is the omnipotent, omniscient, self-sufficient God the Son, the conqueror of sin, death, and Satan. Jesus doesn’t need us or our offerings. But when we empty ourselves of ourselves, letting go of our desire to be in control, to have everything figured out, Jesus can fill us with life, forgiveness, and peace. 

This is why the apostle Paul could say, “...for Christ's sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong.” (2 Corinthians 12:10) 

Jesus wants us to empty ourselves of ourselves so that He can fill us up with Himself! So, even when we are weak, we are filled with His strength, His power, His peace, His love, His courage.

Verse 12: “Jesus said to them, ‘Come and have breakfast.’ None of the disciples dared ask him, ‘Who are you?’ They knew it was the Lord. Jesus came, took the bread and gave it to them, and did the same with the fish.”

Jesus already has fish cooking on the charcoal fire He’s started! And this, along with the bread Jesus also has prepared on the fire, may be why all the disciples now see that this stranger is Jesus. 

• Ancient Jewish teaching said that when the Messiah established His kingdom, the leviathan, the dreaded sea monsters who, in some parts of the Old Testament, gave their name to the devil himself, would be on the menu of the great heavenly feast. Fear, sin, and death would be conquered by the Messiah and served up to believers who had once lived in sin, fear, and foreboding. 
• The bread that Jesus offers the disciples is like the manna from heaven with which God once fed His ancient people. 

What are you afraid of today? We need not fear; Jesus has everything in hand. Jesus has YOU in hand. The Risen Jesus has won an eternal victory for all who trust in Him! No obstacle can bow us when we belong to Jesus!

But there was more to this meal than a foretaste of the eternal feast to come. To be restored and reassured, the disciple who had denied Jesus three times while warming himself over a charcoal fire in the outer court of the high priest’s home on the night of Jesus’ arrest had to be confronted over this charcoal fire with his sin and granted forgiveness for his repentance. 

In three different ways--echoing Peter’s three denials--Jesus asks Peter if he truly loves Him.

It’s the same question we’re called to answer every time we come into God’s presence and know the need to confess our sins: Do we love Jesus more than we love our sins? Is the risen Jesus what and Who we love the most? 

Cut to the heart, Peter says with simple desperation, “Lord, you know all things; you know that I love you” (John 21:19). If that’s true, Jesus tells Peter, “Feed my lambs,” “Take care of my sheep,” “Feed my sheep.” “If you love me,” Jesus tells Peter--and us--”take care of others, love others, even [as Jesus puts it elsewhere] ‘other sheep that are not of this sheep pen,’ those not yet part of His Church.” (John 10:16)

After assuring Peter of His forgiveness and giving the disciple his mission, Jesus reminds Peter that, Peter’s life no longer belongs to Peter. 

And if we are disciples of Jesus Christ, the same is true of us. “You are not your own” the apostle Paul tells Christians, “you were bought at a price.” (1 Corinthians 6:19-20)

Jesus paid the ransom for us, offering His sinless life on the cross to set us eternally free from our slavery to sin. And believers are called to share both in Jesus' Good Friday and His Easter Sunday. 

Jesus tells Peter, “...when you were younger you dressed yourself and went where you wanted; but when you are old you will stretch out your hands, and someone else will dress you and lead you where you do not want to go.” (John 21:18) When we follow Jesus, He may take us anywhere in this fallen world. But as we live for His will and not our own, there is nowhere we go that He won’t be with us: in joy and in grief, in successes and  failures, in moments of clarity and seasons of bewilderment. Always, Jesus will be with us.

What do you when your world is turned upside down? 

You turn away from sin and you turn to Jesus each day. 

You run to Him when He calls you. 

You offer your whole self, all you are and all you own, to Jesus because, while He doesn’t need us or our gifts, when we yield ourselves to Him, He can reconstruct us in His image. 

You confess your sins to Jesus so that their power to send you to hell is erased by God’s grace given only in Jesus. 

You turn to Jesus so that He can give you, people who no longer belong to yourself, your missions. 

When our worlds are turned upside down, we turn to Jesus: He sets us right with God. He makes us new. 

Even in uncertainty, Jesus empowers us to live in the certainty that only comes from belonging to Him forever. Amen


[I'm the pastor of Living Water Lutheran Church in Centerville, Ohio.]