John begins today’s gospel (John 21:1-19) by
telling us that Jesus “showed himself in this way.” Throughout this
post-Resurrection story, the Evangelist gives a lot of small, seemingly unnecessary
and even strange details, when he could have said just as easily: “While the
disciples were fishing, they saw Jesus on the shore. This was his third
appearance.” But John didn’t. Instead, he focuses on the details in which Jesus
showed himself; so maybe we should too.
First, the context: The disciples have returned
home. Discipleship, the upper room, the cross, the empty tomb, the house with
its locked doors are all now things of the past for them, and (more
importantly) these seven disciples seem to have lost sight of “resurrection” in
their lives. They’ve moved back to the familiar waters of the Sea of Tiberias, to
the place where it all began. They’ve traveled some 70 or 80 miles from the
place of Jesus’ resurrection and given themselves to their old routine of fishing.
They’ve returned to the same boats, the same nets, the same water, the same
work. And that’s when and where Jesus now “shows himself”—precisely in the
ordinary circumstances and familiar routines of their lives.
So, what
about us? It’s now two weeks after Easter Sunday, and I suspect we’ve all
returned to the routine of our lives. But according to this morning’s Gospel, that’s
just where we can expect Jesus to reveal himself to us. “Resurrection” does not
happen apart from the routines of life but in them. Resurrection is not about
escaping life but about becoming alive. This, I believe, is what comes across in
the little details John gives us in this morning’s scene. So, let us consider a
few of them.
First, we are told that Peter decides to go
fishing. He knows how to do that. It is familiar and comfortable. It takes him
back to life before Jesus. The others are quick to join him. But perhaps Peter
is not really trying to catch fish as much as he is fishing for answers. Simply
going back to his former life isn’t the answer.
We know
from our own experience that we can leave the places and even the people of our
life, but we can never escape ourselves or our life. Wherever we go, there we
are. Peter may have left Jerusalem, but he cannot so easily get away from three
years of discipleship, the last supper, the arrest, a charcoal fire, denials, a
crowing rooster. He cannot leave behind the cross, the empty tomb, the house
with its doors locked tight, the echoes of “Peace be with you.”
So, he fishes. Peter fishes for answers. “What
have I done? What were those three years about? Who was Jesus? Where is he? Who
am I? What will I do now? Where will I go? What will happen to me?” Peter is
searching for meaning, a way forward, a place in life. We find him “dark night
fishing,” and that’s not just because nighttime is the best time to fish on the
Sea of Tiberias.
We all
have spent time “dark night fishing”—asking the same questions as Peter, looking
for our place in life, seeking peace and some sense of understanding, meaning.
More often than not “dark night fishing” happens in the context of our
failures, losses, and sorrows. It happens when we come face to face with the
things we have done and left undone. We have all been there, fishing for
answers in the darkness . . . and coming up empty.
That’s the next detail that we are told: “That
night they caught nothing.” Their nets are empty. The empty net is not only
descriptive of their fishing efforts; it’s descriptive of the disciples
themselves. They are as empty as their nets. We know what that’s like. We work,
we do our best, but we still come up empty. In those moments we have come to
the limits of our self-sufficiency. We have nothing to show for our efforts,
and nothing left to give. We’re empty.
But that’s just when Jesus, still unrecognized by
the disciples, shows up and asks: “Children, have you caught anything to eat?”
That’s not so much a question as it is a statement. Jesus is not asking for a
fishing report. He is commenting on the reality and emptiness of Peter’s and
the other disciples’ lives. Perhaps Peter is living in the pain and the past of
Good Friday. He is fishing on the “Good Friday side” of the boat, and the net
is empty. There are no fish, no answers, no way forward. The nets of dark night
fishing contain nothing to feed or nourish life.
If now just
two weeks after Easter we too have gone back to our ordinary lives and feel
empty, maybe we should wonder if we have been fishing on the wrong side of the
boat. We know that when we become lost, confused, afraid, unable to deal with what
life throws at us, we tend to run away. We try to go back to the way it was
before – to something safe, something familiar, pre-Triduum. Often, we revert
to old patterns of behavior and thinking. Even when we know better and do not
want to go backwards, it seems easier than moving forward. Maybe this is what
Peter and the disciples were doing, and why they were fishing unsuccessfully on
the wrong side of the boat.
Notice now that Jesus doesn’t suggest that they
abandon their nets again, as they had done when he first called them. No, he is
about to show them that their present emptiness is not the end or a failure but
a beginning. Jesus shows up when the nets are empty; they are the very places
where he reveals himself. Only nets empty of self-sufficiency can be filled
with a “catch” that is sheer gift, nourishing, life-giving. This why he tells them from the shore: “Cast
your net to the right side of the boat and you’ll find something”—we might
think of it as the “resurrection side” of the boat. One commentator has
suggested that this movement of the net from one side of the boat to the other
symbolizes the disciples’ own experience of resurrection, a movement from death
to life in an ordinary circumstance of ordinary life.
“Jesus showed himself in this way”: Jesus revealed
himself in the empty nets that were suddenly filled with large fish (153 of
them!), in the darkness that gave way to morning light, in a charcoal fire of
denial that became a fire of welcome and invitation, in a last supper that
became a first breakfast, and in three disavowals that were forgiven with three
affirmations of love. (No doubt Jesus knew that Peter loved him, but Peter
needed to know that he loved Jesus. Peter needed to understand that he was not
bound to or identified by his past.)
Perhaps this, then, is the meaning of the “third
appearance” of the Risen Lord to his disciples. At an unexpected moment, having
retreated to their ordinary lives, the disciples recognize Jesus— “It is the
Lord!” In their daily ordinariness they encounter, experience, something of the
reality and power of the Risen Lord. A resurrection moment! Dark night fishing
is over. This is again Easter. Good Friday is real. Pain, death, sin are realities
of life. But the greater and final reality is Easter resurrection. The Good
News this morning is about Jesus rising and appearing in the darkness and
emptiness of the disciples’ lives, in the darkness and emptiness of our own
lives. Whatever darkness has overcome
us, whatever darkness we might be going through today, that darkness is the
circumstance in which Jesus will show himself to us. It is the very context for
our resurrection and is the raw material from which new life will be fashioned.
The resurrection happens not in some distant, heavenly future, but in the small
details of our everyday life.
The last two words of this morning’s Gospel are
simply: “Follow me.” “Follow me and live
as resurrected people. Follow me, and fish in a different place.” Follow me is
the invitation for us two weeks after Easter to examine where we are fishing.
On which side of the boat do we fish? On which side of the Cross do we live?
Good Friday or Easter?
This morning's homily by Father Dominic.
