Sermon 4-11-2021 John 21, 1-14

Sunday 4-11-2021 John 21: 1-14 One week after Easter. The last Easter eggs are being sold off for a quarter of its original price. The celebration is over, checked off – maybe for us.

One week after Easter back then. Seven of the disciples ran from the cross, far away from this hostile city Jerusalem. They took flight away from the senselessness at the sea of Galilee, back to their work place. Catching fish seems to be the only thing left now. It is what they have learned and what they lived on before they met the bread of life.

But even here they experience a night of disappointment, a night where their powerlessness becomes evident once again. A circle closes. This is how their story with Jesus started, when he called them to become his disciples. And how we humans are sometime. They are blind. They don’t think about having experienced such powerlessness before. They do not notice anything, probably because what could happen is completely unimaginable. They do need help: The disciples are at their lowest, just as Jesus predicted when he said: “In the world you are afraid (John 16:32)… They ran away from the cross and into their fear.

Fear determines their actions- and lack of courage, lack of hope. There is nothing left that could strengthen them. There is no meaning in anything. Work, keeping busy is the only thing that can distract enough to not completely drown in feelings of despair.

Shortly before Easter I received a request for help by email. A young woman told me that she had the feeling that here connection with God was fading away. She could not feel God anymore, and she had the feeling that there was nothing she could do to stop this process. She could not stop thinking that it was somehow her fault. “Usually I heard birds sing, and when I saw a flower blooming, I thought: How wonderful, God is sending me this. However, now I am thinking: this has nothing to do with me, those things in nature are not for me and I should not see them as meant for me.”

I have to admit, at first I was a little helpless. I talked about times in all of our lives that God seems far away. But I did not know what else to say to her, as I did not have anything concrete and this woman was apparently in distress and could not give me the reason for her feelings of disconnection.

Shortly afterwards however, I read this story that I have known for a long time, and when I read it again, I thought: “This story might be helpful for this young

woman. There are also people who feel abandoned and left alone. The disciples lost courage and felt very insecure after the crucifixion happened. They are trying to get back to normal, but nothing is working. John 21:1-14 After this, Jesus appeared once more to his disciples at Lake Tiberius. This is how it happened. 2 Simon Peter, Thomas (called the Twin), Nathanael (the one from Cana in Galilee), the sons of Zebedee, and two other disciples of Jesus were all together. 3 Simon Peter said to the others, “I am going fishing.”

“We will come with you,” they told him. So they went out in a boat, but all that night they did not catch a thing. 4 As the sun was rising, Jesus stood at the water's edge, but the disciples did not know that it was Jesus. 5 Then he asked them, “Young men, haven't you caught anything?”

“Not a thing,” they answered.

6 He said to them, “Throw your net out on the right side of the boat, and you will catch some.” So they threw the net out and could not pull it back in, because they had caught so many fish.

7 The disciple whom Jesus loved said to Peter, “It is the Lord!” When Peter heard that it was the Lord, he wrapped his outer garment around him (for he had taken his clothes off) and jumped into the water. 8 The other disciples came to shore in the boat, pulling the net full of fish. They were not very far from land, about a hundred yards away. 9 When they stepped ashore, they saw a charcoal fire there with fish on it and some bread. 10 Then Jesus said to them, “Bring some of the fish you have just caught.”

11 Simon Peter went aboard and dragged the net ashore full of big fish, a hundred and fifty-three in all; even though there were so many, still the net did not tear. 12 Jesus said to them, “Come and eat.” None of the disciples dared ask him, “Who are you?” because they knew it was the Lord. 13 So Jesus went over, took the bread, and gave it to them; he did the same with the fish.

14 This, then, was the third time Jesus appeared to the disciples after he was raised from death.

Somehow this gospel story sounds like the report of a dream. Do you know these kinds of dreams? The most bizarre and absurd dreams suddenly contain very concrete numbers. And so in this story: For example the 153 fish. Who counted those? And then the 100 yards. But also the other things in the story: To fish so close to shore, no experienced fisher would do such a thing. And then

there is the stranger that gives advice to the seasoned fishermen. And everything a said was against any reason or fisher knowledge. And finally there is the net that is too full but that does not burst. Finally there is this strange reality that there is already a fire at the shore side and fish and bread get therejust out of nowhere. That all does not fit very well together.

The disciples at the time were probably confused after their teacher and Lord had first died and then several times appeared in strange encounters, without really being back with them. Psychologist would say that those confused dreams are possible during times of grief. Similarly people who think that the resurrection is nonsense would say that all of these reports of encountering Jesus after his death are not important. Some New Testament scholars even say that the whole event with catching so many fish had happened long time before the crucifixion. They say that John wrote things out of order and that this story belongs to the time when Jesus was looking to find disciples.

Be this as it may, let’s assume it was not a dream and nobody exchanged the stories in the gospel of John, but it happened just as it is being told.

The disciples returned to Galilea as they were told. Without Jesus they don’t know quite what to do. In the past they had been fishermen before Jesus had changed their lives. Peter can’t stand his grief without doing something, and so he suggests the practical and constructive idea to go fishing, and to return to their daily lives. “Rational” I would say, just like people sometimes say after a funeral “Life has to go on”. And so the disciples at night leave with their boat just as fishermen do, as they have done before and as their fathers did before them. They put out their nets far away from the shore. But there are no fish.

Nothing is working for them lately. Don’t we know this as well? When you are already feeling down, then many small things don’t work. The car won’t start, the washing machine breaks and it does not stop raining. You really feel that your depressed mood is justified for so many reasons.

And then there is a guy, a “know it all”, who interferes when those exhausted fishermen return without any success. He starts talking and mingling in their business, maybe only because he wants to have something to eat. He says: “Throw out your nets one more time…” Here, close to the shore and during morning hours, against all rational reasoning. Why the seven disciples listened to him, we do not know. They don’t argue with him. But only when the catch of fish happens, the disciple John suddenly recognizes: “It is the Lord”. Peter in his passionate ways throws himself without much thinking into the water to

swim and reach Jesus before anybody else can. The other five need a little longer to realize who this is. “Come and eat”. These are the key words that open their eyes at last. And there are many of those key words in this story, which for John is the third story of Jesus appearing before his disciples.

A clever number athlete figured out that 153 is 17x3x3. And when you put these numbers together with the letter of the Greek alphabet, then they constitute the initials of a name for Jesus “Bread of Life”. “Crazy” you might say, but some people need those number games to see their faith confirmed. The bible has many of those numbers that are not arbitrary but intentional, and especially in this particular story the numbers stand out: First of all the number three as the symbol for the Trinity, but also the number seven. It had to be seven disciples that found each other and went together, just as in seven days the story tells how the world was created.

I have to think about the woman who sent me the email and who feels like she is losing her connection with God. She surely would not be helped with such explanations or number games. Maybe she felt more like these disciples in the beginning: She does not recognize because she has given up to expect or because she is used to a certain way of encountering God and therefore expects God only in such and such a way. She needs others who will open her perspective. The disciples learn in this story a new way of living with Jesus: They realize that all those things that they learned with him radiates into their daily life, even if they return to their former profession and return into their life as they it had it before meeting him. Old patterns suddenly don’t work anymore.

What was the only reality before, namely that fish can only be caught at nights does no longer holds true when Jesus is present. Now things can work that seem impossible to our human mind. When Jesus wants to share a meal with his disciples, there will always be food. And this is what is worth trusting in. And where some are gathered in his name, there He will be in the midst. Back then and also today we all experience the presence of Jesus in different ways: Some of us feel him sooner than others, and they feel him in their hearts, just like John did. “It is the Lord” he thought when they caught the many fish. He cannot keep this knowledge for himself, he has to share it with Peter.

And he can’t wait, he has to seek the get closer to Jesus, as he is still bothered by feelings of guilt that only Jesus himself can take away from him. He only thinks about himself and his unresolved experience with God. And so he jumps into the cold water and swims towards Jesus. It is helpful that there are still five

others who bring the boat and all the fish safely to shore. This way their existence is secured for at least this day.

How would we have reacted? Let’s look at how our community here in this church functions. Surely in every congregation we have representatives of these three different ways of responding: There are those who have a sense, a feeling for Jesus and they are easily grateful for everything. Then there are those who still need to resolve some things with Jesus and therefore need to spend much time with him and with their inner life. And then there are those who take on the responsibilities for the building, budget and all other real needs of the church community. They often look first that all the external things are in order before they can relax and enjoy those things that God gifts us with over and over again.

And these different types of responders are needed in our community. One is dependent on the other. And this is what it means to be church: to complement each other, to strengthen each other and thus keep Jesus alive in our midst.

When one of us tells the other in a healthy community: “I don’t feel God anymore”, then he or she will hopefully find somebody who brings this person closer to the fire and points a direction out of the paralyzing loss and grief experience.

And today, we rely on the experience that the disciples had to learn in our story in a very new way: that Jesus is present with us and is in the center of our community. He sees what is missing and he offers us what we need to live. And even when we are too exhausted and too tired to do anything, even then Jesus prepares what we need: A fire is made and bread and fish are waiting for us.

Quasimodogeniti – this means “as newborn children”. Newborn are we when our life suddenly receives a new impulse, a new insight, a new meaning. Just as the disciples recognized in our story from today that there is a new beginning after death and that the resurrection of Jesus made the new beginnings of their community possible. Amen