They went fishing. The coup had failed, the revolution was over, their leader had been killed, and they had to do something, so they did what they knew how to do – they went fishing. (See John 21:3-8 for the full report.)
They spent all night at it and – more misery – caught nothing. Then this stranger showed up on the shore to give them advice: “Cast your nets on the other side of the boat.” Oh, sure.
It was John who recognized him. At some heart-level, gut-level, John knew him and proclaimed it to the others: “It is the Lord!” Peter got so excited he jumped into the sea.
Scripture does not record what Jesus looked like at that point. Had he changed his clothes? Shaved off his beard? We don’t know. We do know that they didn’t recognize him and then they did.
Why? Because (my theory) they had spent time with him. They had spent three years learning his ways, getting used to how he talked, figuring out what he meant when he said this or that.
I think of the people with whom I have been in long relationships – how we know what the other will say before the other says it. The way in which we can predict how the other will react in a certain situation. What the sigh or the smirk means – no explanation needed. We know each other because we have spent time with each other.
Every practitioner of Christianity will tell you that if you want to know God, you need to spend time with him in prayer, in study of Scripture, and as part of a worshipping community. God is available to everyone, but those who see him are likely to have been looking for him. In his book Finding the Way Again, Brian McLaren points out that the gift of God’s revelation never stops being a gift, “But the gift ‘happens’ to those who are practiced in ways it doesn’t typically happen to those who aren’t,” says McLaren.
But notice another thing about the fishing story; notice that the disciples recognized God in their ordinary lives, doing what they ordinarily did. Christ was showing them what they were to do next ‑ take him into their commonplace, regular, day-to-day lives. The extended retreat, training, miraculous-revelation period was over; the disciples had to go back to work, although it would be a new kind of work, and they would see him there, too. As they shared a meal or walked down the streets of a dusty town, Christ would reveal himself. And they would see him because they knew him. They would know him because they had seen him.
If we want to be showered with God’s grace, we may have to stand in the rain with the umbrella closed and our eyes fixed on heaven. We may have to feel the rain, taste the rain, get soaking wet. Immersion Christianity. But revelation is always accompanied by a call to move forward, usually right where we find ourselves in life. So we also have to come inside and dry off and get on with our lives.
Jesus revealed himself to the disciples and fed them breakfast – fish on the barbie. Then he repeated the call they had learned from him oh-so-well: follow me into the rest of your life.
Lord, help me to heed the same call, and to know it when I hear it.
by Marjorie George, Communications Officer for the Episcopal Diocese of West Texas.
From Reflections magazine, Spring/Summer 2010. Produced by The Episcopal Diocese of West Texas. All rights reserves.
Read the entire spring/summer issue at http://www.dwtx.org/index.php/prayer/Reflections_Online