“I am going fishing,” Peter said, and the six with him said, “We’ll come too.” (John 21:1-22, I encourage you to read it yourself)
Physically we have the ability to move forward, backward, and sideways, but not up and down like a hummingbird. In life, however, we are familiar with forward, backward, sideways, and up and down. I don’t know if three years earlier Peter parked his fishing boat in a boathouse, left it in a slip at the pier, turned it upside down at the beach, or covered it with a tarp in his back yard or driveway.
The last few months and particularly the past weeks had been crazy for them, a confusing rollercoaster ride, an incredibly stressful, challenging, and difficult stretch of life, lacking clarity, familiarity, and stability. So, they went backward, back to the old and familiar, that which their families had done for generations. They turned the pages of their lives back to before they heard Jesus say, “Follow me, and I will make you fishers of men” (Mark 1:17).
What did you walk away from when you heard Christ calling you to follow him? What life did you leave behind? What did you set aside, put under a tarp, park in the backyard of your life? But now you’re back to it after your life with Jesus ran into hardship, tragedy, stress, suffering, and overwhelming challenges, leaving you confused, disoriented, yearning for familiarity.It was a mirage, because we somehow clean up the old life in our minds. We forget how difficult it really was, how devoid of real and lasting meaning, how many nights you come from fishing with nothing, nothing but business worries, nothing but weariness, nothing but frustration.
“Did you catch anything?” Jesus yelled from the shore.
“No,” came the grumpy reply.
Somehow, they didn’t remember the grumpy of the old life either. “Try the other side,” Jesus sent back across the water. “What the *@#&^!” Somehow, they forgot how rough, even vile, the old life could make you.
“What the *@#&^! Where did all these fish come from?” Somehow, they forgot how glorious was when Jesus interrupted your old life, when he spoke to you, directed you, surprised you. “It’s the Lord,” one of them connected the dots.
“Do you love me?” “Do you love me?” “Do you love me?” Jesus asked gone-back-to-fishing Peter.“I do,” “I do,” “You know,” were Peter’s replies.“Feed my sheep,” “Tend my sheep,” “Feed my sheep,” Jesus let him know (sheep being people, believers, his followers). Peter might have remembered that Jesus’ first invitation to follow him included that he would make him a “fisher of men,” but not the old life, the old boat, who he once was with just a little Jesus in it. Not the kind of living that is filled with the old but doesn’t concern itself with Jesus, his kingdom, his sheep.
Jesus told Peter again, “Follow me,” because he had gone back to fishing. Peter was going backward instead of forward; he had revived the old regardless of how unsatisfying and spiritually impotent it was. He, like you and I, needed to come to grips with that loving Jesus and the old life are incompatible, that following Jesus and living the old life are mutually exclusive, that he had to sell out and sell the boat.
To God be all glory. Love you, Pastor Hans