7 May 2022 - the difficult sayings of Jesus

Today's Readings

(Audio)

“This saying is hard; who can accept it?”

Jesus asks us to believe in things that are hard to accept on a human level. The mysteries of faith are not opposed to reason, but reason itself does not contain the true inner logic by which the mysteries make sense and are revealed as fitting. Indeed, human reason can present an obstacle when one demands that everything should be readily intelligible according to one's own intellectual capacity. Reason can remain closed to even consider the question of what God himself is teaching and open only to the conclusions it can reach unaided.

Since Jesus knew that his disciples were murmuring about this,

he said to them, “Does this shock you?

The followers of Moses murmured in the desert, expressing their dissatisfaction with the manna that God provided through Moses. Here too, the crowds grumbled because the way Jesus offered to solve their hunger and thirst was not according to their preference. They desired only more of the food and drink that would leave them again hungry and thirsty. They did not desire and did not know how to desire that which they truly needed and which alone Jesus himself desired to give: life, life of which Jesus himself was the only source. It was not to be merely life marked by a span of days or years, but a life which, after the Jesus himself rose, could never die again.

What if you were to see the Son of Man ascending to where he was before?

When we see that Jesus has defeated death and risen victoriously we have more of the necessary context, given to us by faith, wherein we can find the inner logic of the Eucharist. We can see more truly how and why it is the very flesh and blood of Jesus that is itself lifegiving for those who receive it. 

And he said, “For this reason I have told you that no one can come to me

unless it is granted him by my Father.”

But, as we see, Jesus sometimes presents a teaching before time and faith have presented the full context. We must remain humble when this happens. In order to come to terms with the hard teachings of Jesus we must let ourselves be drawn by the Father. This, significantly, as opposed to letting ourselves be drawn by lesser things. He draws those who are willing to find higher pleasures in him even when they are at the expense of lower pleasures of the flesh. To those who delight in him he himself gives the desires of their hearts (see Psalm 37:4), those desires having been purified to find fulfillment in him. 

"But there are some of you who do not believe."

Jesus knew from the beginning the ones who would not believe

and the one who would betray him.

There is a real risk when we try to proceed only by what we are able to understand, and insist on accepting only what seems fitting according to our understanding. The point is not that we throw out reason entirely, but that our reason is meant to be open in humility to the supernatural truths of revelation, to being drawn by the Father, taught by Jesus, and open to the inner confirmation given by the Spirit. When we cannot understand we must not for that reason harden our hearts. Just because we can't understand doesn't necessarily mean there is a contradiction in the truth. It may mean there is a contradiction within us, a knot that needs untying. When we hit on difficulties we ought to open ourselves upward rather than fortifying our hearts and closing in our ourselves.

It is the Spirit that gives life, while the flesh is of no avail.

Faith is above reason, and cannot be attained if we insist on reason strictly and entirely. Faith is a gift whereby we respond to God teaching truths which we could not attain on our own, even had we the greatest minds in all of history. Faith dodges the dangers of rationalism by remaining open to the transcendent as revealed by God. It avoids the dangers of credulity by remembering that reason too was a gift given by God that, in proper proportion, when used with humility, could point to truths beyond itself. Peter demonstrated that he did not yet understand what Jesus was teaching, but that even his reason recognized the need to remain open to what faith alone could reveal.

"Faith and reason are like two wings on which the human spirit rises to the contemplation of truth;" 

- Fides et Ratio, Saint John Paul the Great

Simon Peter answered him, “Master, to whom shall we go?

You have the words of eternal life.

We have come to believe

and are convinced that you are the Holy One of God.”

We need to attune ourselves more to being drawn by Father, to learn to delight in him more and more. The words Jesus himself is speaking to us today are Spirit and life, and we need to be open to his Spirit to receive them, or receive them to a greater degree, for there is always more. What does this look like? We spend time prayerfully listening, pouring over the Word of God, allowing God himself to reveal himself and to delight us as he does so. Faith is something that grows when we surrender to the grace of putting it to use. The more we do so the more able we are to believe that which to reason only seems impossible. 

Peter sent them all out and knelt down and prayed.

Then he turned to her body and said, “Tabitha, rise up.”

She opened her eyes, saw Peter, and sat up.

He gave her his hand and raised her up,

and when he had called the holy ones and the widows,

he presented her alive.

Kutless - All Who Are Thirsty

Selah - Oh Draw Me Lord

6 May 2022 - the blood of the lamb

Today's Readings

(Audio)

The Jews quarreled among themselves, saying,

“How can this man give us his Flesh to eat?”

They Judeans quarreled because they began to realize that Jesus was suggesting something more the mere metaphor, more than, say, profoundly internalizing his wisdom and his teaching. The Torah nourished, and in this sense it could be bread. But Flesh?

Amen, amen, I say to you,

unless you eat the Flesh of the Son of Man and drink his Blood,

you do not have life within you.

If they had been following along to this point the crowd may now have felt as though the ground shifted underneath them. They may well have recognized the inherent sacrificial overtones of the words flesh and blood. But they understood well what such terminology meant when applied to animals, what it meant to eat the flesh of animal sacrifices. They had no sense for how this was to apply to the one the Baptizer had called the "lamb of God". They certainly had no sense that the very death which many of them would go on to insight and champion would be the occasion for that sacrifice. Even his chosen twelve did not immediately grasp Jesus meant, but decided to nevertheless hold fast to their trust in the one who had the words of eternal life. 

"For the life of the flesh is in the blood ... Therefore I have said to the people of Israel, No person among you shall eat blood" (see Leviticus 17:12).

The animals of the Old Testament sacrificial economy were offered in some sense so that human life could be spared. The flesh of the sacrificial animal was consumed to bring together in communion those who received it together. But what could this mean for Jesus, even if he was to be a sacrifice somehow? This was to be something above and beyond any previous sacrifice, in proof of which was his teaching that his Blood was true drink. For in all previous sacrifices the blood was reserved for God himself, containing as it did the "life" of the animal. We were not to debase ourselves by trying to build ourselves up with the power of animal spirits, nor of human conquests, as some pagans were known to do. But for Jesus himself things were different. He was not offering merely food and drink, not merely dead flesh and lifeless blood.  Rather, he was offering himself as a means for receiving divine life. His life was in the blood and it was this very life that he intended to give.

Just as the living Father sent me

and I have life because of the Father,

so also the one who feeds on me will have life because of me.

Jesus did die the death we were meant to die. But his sacrificial banquet did not end at the slaughter of the lamb. It would not, will not, be complete until we are all restored to communion with the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, until we are filled with life.

This is the bread that came down from heaven.

Unlike your ancestors who ate and still died,

whoever eats this bread will live forever.

Jesus offered wisdom and a teaching, but also more than that. Those who believed that he alone had the words of everlasting life would continue with him even when faced with a "difficult teaching" that caused many who had previously followed him to turn aside. Embracing his Word would thus be consummated and completed by receiving his Body and Blood. And this, as we know, describes the Mass exactly.

On his journey, as he was nearing Damascus,

a light from the sky suddenly flashed around him.

He fell to the ground and heard a voice saying to him,

“Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me?”

In the Eucharist we encounter Jesus himself. Because this is so he can reorient us and give us new direction even as he did for Saul. He can make of those formerly the most guilty of persecution and destruction into chosen instruments, ready and willing to suffer for the sake of the Name. Indeed, for us, it is only when we truly realize what we have been given, especially in the Eucharist, that we are able to count all else is loss as Saul learned to do. 

Immediately things like scales fell from his eyes

and he regained his sight.

He got up and was baptized,

and when he had eaten, he recovered his strength.

We need to come together around the table of the Lord, at the banquet of the lamb's sacrifice. For it is there that we are taught the truth and the scales that blind us fall from our eyes. It is there that we eat the true heavenly food and receive a strength that is not at all about our level of nutrition or physical fitness. It is from there that we are empowered and impelled to go forth just as was Saul.

He stayed some days with the disciples in Damascus,

and he began at once to proclaim Jesus in the synagogues,

that he is the Son of God.

Matt Maher - Because He Lives (Amen)

Andrea Bocelli - Panis Angelicus

5 May 2022 - praise the Paschal victim

Today's Readings

(Audio)

No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draw him,

and I will raise him on the last day.

Jesus had already emphasized that his Father would be the one at work drawing people to himself. Now he confirmed that there was no other way to come to him. It wasn't as though some people would figure it out on their own or be so spiritual as to recognize Jesus unaided. Everything depended on grace. This did not mean that the Father would draw some and not others. He would draw anyone who allowed herself to be drawn because he himself "desires all people to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth" (see First Timothy 2:4).

Jesus wanted his listeners to attune themselves to the reality of the Father drawing them toward himself. He did this as a preface to a difficult teaching, a teaching that was very difficult, indeed impossible to receive on a human level (see John 6:63). If his hearers relied only on their own resources to understand what Jesus was going to reveal about the Eucharist they would not succeed, but would only be scandalized. 

Everyone who listens to my Father and learns from him comes to me.

Not that anyone has seen the Father

except the one who is from God;

he has seen the Father.

Those who are teachable in this way, and who are obedient to what they have been taught, truly have all that is necessary for eternal life. The ancestors of the crowds ate manna in the desert and it gave them some strength to continue their journey. But it could not repair the fundamental problems present because in the absence of faith tending toward obedience. The manna helped in a temporary way as they journeyed to the promised land. But by its very help it revealed the limitations of all merely earthly blessings. The manna itself was no guarantee of obtaining the promised land. Even those who did manage to enter it eventually succumbed to death.

Your ancestors ate the manna in the desert, but they died;

this is the bread that comes down from heaven

so that one may eat it and not die.

Jesus had bread to give that was not only bread for the journey, though it was that. It was bread that strengthened the obedience of faith for the pilgrimage through life. But even more than that, it was itself "medicine of immortality and antidote to death". It was as though Jesus himself was promising to provide access to the tree of life in the Garden of Eden, to which access had long been barred, due to the sin of Adam and Eve. This was indeed something greater than Moses provided in the desert. And the gift was shockingly inseparable from the giver. 

I am the living bread that came down from heaven;

whoever eats this bread will live forever;

and the bread that I will give

is my Flesh for the life of the world.

The bread that Jesus gave was somehow more than mere teaching of Torah, eating it was more than interiorizing the wisdom with which he spoke. It was somehow tied up in his very flesh, precisely because that flesh would be offered as a sacrifice for the sake of the life of the world. But partaking of a sacrifice was something greater than partaking of a teaching. For a sacrifice was meant to establish one thing: Communion.

The cup of blessing which we bless, is it not the communion of the blood of Christ? The bread which we break, is it not the communion of the body of Christ? (see First Corinthians 10:16).

Paul made the leap for us if we didn't fully understand. The sacrifice of Jesus was a Passover sacrifice. The way we now participate in that sacrifice is precisely the way Jesus himself established at the Last Supper. We consume the lamb, but under the appearance of bread and wine.

For Christ, our Passover lamb, has been sacrificed. Let us therefore celebrate the festival, not with the old leaven, the leaven of malice and evil, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth (see First Corinthians 5:8).

The fact that we "shall all be taught by God" should give us confidence in our mission of evangelization. This is because we ourselves are not responsible for making difficult teachings easily understood. The Father is already at work before we begin, preparing hearts for whatever meager contributions we ourselves can make.

Philip ran up and heard him reading Isaiah the prophet and said,

“Do you understand what you are reading?”

Although the Father himself was drawing this Ethiopian eunuch he still desired Philip to be the one through he was brought to conversion. At the center of this conversion was the truth about Jesus, the lamb of sacrifice, now risen from the tomb. We who know this truth do indeed have something to tell the world, something so good that it will cause those able to receive it to continue of their way rejoicing. Individuals like this eunuch, upon whom society looks down, those who feel they cannot find spiritual completion on their own, are probably passing by all around us day to day. Is it not selfish of us to withhold from them that for which their hearts long? Let us heed the Spirit as he himself offers us the directions we need.

Bless our God, you peoples,

loudly sound his praise;

He has given life to our souls,

and has not let our feet slip.

Victimae Paschali Laudes

4 May 2022 - day of the living bread

Today's Readings

(Audio)

Jesus had shut down one temptations of the Devil with the response that "Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God" (see Matthew 4:4). He just so fully internalized and lived this dependence on the Father that he could say, "I have food to eat that you do not know about" which was "to do the will of him who sent me and to accomplish his work" (see John 4:32, 34).

Wisdom was said to prepare a feast of meat and wine, inviting individuals to "Come, eat my bread and drink the wine I have mixed" (see Proverbs 9:2, 5). Seeing this convergence of how Jesus himself lived with the Scriptural precedents we can understand why Paul called him "Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God" (see First Corinthians 1:24). It is with this background that we can approach the teaching of Jesus as he tells us that himself is the bread of life.

I am the bread of life;

whoever comes to me will never hunger,

and whoever believes in me will never thirst.

Even before the Sacramental realism of the teaching made the crowd stumble we ought to see the degree to which Jesus identified himself with God's wisdom was surprising. It was as though he was implying here that he himself was living wisdom. It was as though the word of the Father once solidified in the law was now himself present and speaking to the crowd.

But I told you that although you have seen me,

you do not believe.

Already the crowds took issue with his claim. Already it seemed like he was saying far too much about himself, more than any man ought to say, no matter the mighty deeds he might perform. It was one thing to say it was important to depend on God's word. It was another thing to say that Jesus himself must be the focal point of this dependence. In spite of this, Jesus suggested if the crowd desired the blessings promised to those who heard the word of God and obeyed, if they wanted the fruits of wisdom, these could only by found by coming to Jesus and believing in him. And this was not to be seen as at odds with what Scriptures had previously said on the subjection, but rather as the culmination of it. 

Everything that the Father gives me will come to me,

and I will not reject anyone who comes to me

Coming to Jesus is not primarily something that we do, not a work that we ourselves initiate through our effort. Faith in Jesus is not first and foremost something that we figure out with our own cleverness, reason, or earthly wisdom. Faith in Jesus is rather a response to the initiative taken by the Father himself. If we seek him we should realize it was because he first sought us. The paradigm case for this was the revelation Peter received about the identity of Jesus.

Simon Peter replied, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.” And Jesus answered him, “Blessed are you, Simon Bar-Jonah! For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father who is in heaven (see Matthew 16:17).

Peter didn't achieve faith by his own efforts but rather by his openness to the Father. He was drawn by the Father to Jesus, and, though he was a sinful man, full of liabilities and limitations, Jesus did not reject him.

because I came down from heaven not to do my own will

but the will of the one who sent me.

Jesus wasn't seeking to fulfill some need of his own by his mission. He was already perfectly content with the life he shared with the Father and the Spirit for all eternity. Because he did not stand in need, and had nothing to gain, he was entirely free to love and embrace all whom the Father would draw to him. Because he was not in competition with created reality there were no limits in the way he himself could love it, as though it were a zero sum game.

And this is the will of the one who sent me,

that I should not lose anything of what he gave me,

but that I should raise it on the last day.

If we imagine Jesus as something less than he actually is we might worry that if we don't live up to his expectations or hurt his feelings he will eventually give up on us, eventually throw us away so that he can build a following worthy of his majesty. But Jesus has nothing to gain from us but our loving response to him. No matter how many times we fail, even drastically, like Peter, as long as we return to him he will embrace us. He himself will guarantee that nothing, save our own willful and continuous resistance, can keep us from the promise of the resurrection and eternal life, that nothing can separate us from the love of God in Christ.

There broke out a severe persecution of the Church in Jerusalem,

and all were scattered

throughout the countryside of Judea and Samaria,

except the Apostles.

We can have great confidence that we have a God who is more than able to work through apparent setbacks and failures, who does not depend on only polished and pristine stories of success. He does not make use only of the perfect, whoever they may be, as though his own pride depends on it. It is rather the case that he delights to work through means that the world regards as unseemly and unworkable. Because it doesn't depend on us we should have great confidence when we receive the invitation to come to him. The Father himself is inviting us to an ever deeper relationship of dependence on his Son, offering us the living bread that alone can satisfy our hearts forever. May we have the grace to respond.

John Michael Talbot - I Am The Bread Of Life

3 May 2022 - of first importance

Today's Readings

(Audio)

Jesus said to Thomas, “I am the way and the truth and the life.

No one comes to the Father except through me.

If our destination is to be the Father then the only path to get there is Jesus himself, his is the only name given under heaven by which we are to be saved (see Acts 4:12). Faced with this fact we tend to protest, desiring freedom to choose our own paths, to define our own truth, and to live our own lives. The taint of sin in our minds makes us believe that reality should then conform to what we have subjectively chosen and arbitrarily decided. We think that different paths and alternative truths that we prefer ought to be able to fulfill us precisely because we prefer and choose them. But when we rightly realize our destiny it is easier to understand why there can be only one path. Even if that path is narrow, or not what we ourselves would have chosen, that there should be a path at all to the Father should not be assumed as a given. Having lost access to his presence in the Garden of Eden we could not then erect a ladder or a tower to the infinite height of heaven where he dwells. Creatures with finite resources are utterly unable to cross the boundary between us and the Father by effort on our side. Only the one who himself came to us from the Father was able to stoop down and lift us up.

If you know me, then you will also know my Father.

From now on you do know him and have seen him.”

Philip said to him,

“Master, show us the Father, and that will be enough for us.”

Do we desire to see the Father? Have we realized that to see him will truly be enough for us as well? Or are we, even though we may be Christians, content to seek a generic religious fulfillment or enlightenment? Do we prefer to believe that the path is broad and easy, and to imagine  the whole world is taking, though many may not know it? Once we realize that only the one who made all things is also the only one who can give them meaning and fulfillment we can begin to surrender our insistence on self-definition. We begin to trade maps we ourselves have made from the middle of the terrain to maps given to us by the one with a bird's eye view.

Jesus said to him, “Have I been with you for so long a time

and you still do not know me, Philip?

Whoever has seen me has seen the Father.

Jesus is utterly unique because of who he is, defined by his relationship with the Father and with the Holy Spirit. Only his way of life shows us the way to the Father, only his teaching reveals the Father's mind, and the depths of the Father's love for us. 

How can you say, ‘Show us the Father’?

Do you not believe that I am in the Father and the Father is in me?

The words that I speak to you I do not speak on my own.

The goals we create for ourselves, the solutions that merely human religion proposes are of such inferiority to what Jesus himself proposes for us as to be laughable. There is more for us than mere peace of heart or endless length of days that any religion might propose. Jesus himself desires to live and work through us just as the Father lives and works through him. He desires that our human nature participate in his own as he lifts it up and unites it to the Father himself. The lesser things with which we content ourselves are more easily understood and more readily intelligible, but, we should also realize, quick to lose their savor, insufficient to fulfill the deepest yearnings of our hearts. Only looking at Jesus himself do we even begin to realize what might finally give us this fulfillment. As we look, Jesus himself reveals the Father to us, and we become sons and daughters. As children, we realize that the home about which we have always dreamed but never experienced can be found only in the heart of Father, in the family life of the Trinity.

Amen, amen, I say to you,

whoever believes in me will do the works that I do,

and will do greater ones than these,

because I am going to the Father.

When we begin living in accord with our deepest purpose the power of God is unleashed. He no longer has to hold back for fear that we would squander it selfishly. More and more of what we ask is asked in the name of Jesus, for the sake of his mission and goals, and more and more is therefore received. We become, as we grow, step by step, transparent to the presence of Jesus himself within us. One day we may even hope to say with Paul, "It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me" (see Galatians 2:20).

Because Jesus is the only way to the Father, and because being united to the Father is the only thing that will finally satisfy us, the truths handed down to us about Jesus himself are "of first importance":

that Christ died for our sins

in accordance with the Scriptures;

that he was buried;

that he was raised on the third day

in accordance with the Scriptures;

Sin was an obstacle to union with the Father, and a gap we ourselves could not cross. Our end, on our own, no matter the path we chose was death. But Jesus took our sins and nailed them to a tree. He died in our place so that death itself would lose its sting. Jesus is risen, sin is conquered, and death itself has been rendered impotent. Creation is now being flooded with the grace of the third day, making it possible for everything that had once gone so wrong to be set aright. We too are meant to be witnesses of these things. We too are now called to make Jesus known so that he in turn can reveal the Father.

Day pours out the word to day;

and night to night imparts knowledge.

Morgan State University Choir - Lead Me, Guide Me

Rich Mullins - Sometimes By Step

2 May 2022 - the work of God

Today's Readings

(Audio)

“Amen, amen, I say to you, you are looking for me

not because you saw signs

but because you ate the loaves and were filled.

Those in today's Gospel who seek Jesus because of what he does for them, or the way in which he is useful to them, find him to be elusive. This is a bit troublesome since our motives are seldom based solely on the love of God. We're moved by fear of the pains of hell and the loss of heaven, and often by concerns even more mundane than these. We may even sometimes slip into treating him like a cosmic Santa, whose purpose is to provide for our desires, arbitrary happiness on our terms. Sometimes there is some overlap between these desires and what we receive, we eat the loaves and are satisfied. But, lest we believe that the satiation of physical hunger is itself the point, Jesus leaves us on our own, or perhaps we are simply not able to see him when he doesn't follow-up by doing what we think he should do next.

Do not work for food that perishes

but for the food that endures for eternal life,

which the Son of Man will give you.

Yes, we do need food. But our primary work, our focus as human beings, needs to have a more expansive vision than merely the repeated satisfaction of our physical or emotional needs. If these hungers are our primary concern they will own us, and we will be slaves to the highest bidder. Whoever we depend on in this way can indeed become someone we forget how to do without, as though they have somehow taken the place of God in our lives. Jesus calls us be elevated above the cycles of hunger and satisfaction and so experience the true freedom that is the beginning of eternal life even in the here and now. 

“What can we do to accomplish the works of God?”

If, as Jesus said, we often work wrongly, seeking temporary things with a zeal that should be reserved for ones that endure, how ought we to work for that which the Son of Man desires to give us? His answer is such an upset to our paradigms, such an explosion of our typical ways of thinking, that it can be hard to receive.

Jesus answered and said to them,

“This is the work of God, that you believe in the one he sent.”

Our work must therefore be to surrender our control, our insistence that meeting temporary needs has eternal weight, and to seek first Jesus and his Kingdom (see Matthew 6:33). Only then can we receive all else besides. Only then can we safely eat and drink and enjoy the blessings of this world without being subordinated to them, and through them to the forces that control them.

For on him the Father, God, has set his seal.

Things in this world sometimes have a seal of quality, foods, for instance, claim to be natural or organic. Machines sometimes have their safety indicated by UL or ISO certification, indicating certain expectations we should have about them. And we rightly prefer quality goods to those which are inferior. How much more, then, should we be concerned about the one on whom God himself has set his seal? He alone is able to speak the wisdom of the Father and perform his works. He alone is our safe guide to eternal life. If we care more about him we will be free in regard to others, just as was Stephen.

but they could not withstand the wisdom and the Spirit with which he spoke.

Concerned more about the Son of Man than the opinions of men Stephen was able to keep his heart open to the promise that the Spirit himself would give him the words he needed, empowering him answer his accusers. It was as though, in spite of the fact that he was surrounded by these accusers, his gaze remained fixed primarily on God himself, his face radiant like the face of Moses.

All those who sat in the Sanhedrin looked intently at him

and saw that his face was like the face of an angel.

And so, having concluded some lofty and more abstract points, here is a simple test. When we are opposed or accused, or when we face difficulty, does our face remain like that of an angel? Or would we have to contort our expressions with all our strength and inject some Botox to keep our faces in such an expression? Stephen wasn't working hard to do this, because he was concerned above all about the work of God, belief in the one on whom God set his seal.

Yes, your decrees are my delight;

they are my counselors.

Graham Kendrick - We Believe

Maranatha! Music - Seek Ye First

1 May 2022 - and to the Lamb

Today's Readings

(Audio)

Simon Peter said to them, “I am going fishing.”

Peter and the others tend to get a bad rap for this decision to return to something as apparently ordinary and unimportant as fishing. We imagine that after having encountered the risen Lord more than once they should have known better, their lives should have been forever different, that there was some new work that they should be about. But what would that have been exactly? It certainly wasn't clear to them. They did know for sure that the way they used to follow Jesus before his resurrection didn't work anymore. It wasn't a matter of walking with Jesus from one town to another. He hadn't given them command to go out two by two to proclaim the Kingdom or any other such command after his resurrection.

They said to him, “We also will come with you.”

This conundrum of what how to integrate an experience of the resurrection into daily life is one we all face. If we have a new experience of the glory of Jesus from, say, a retreat, or a Life in the Spirit seminar, once we return from a mountaintop experience we still have to find a way to return to our daily lives. We sense that the resurrection is meant to change everything, us and the whole world. But we still have to dust, do dishes, buy groceries, work for a living, and so on. Have all things been made new? Or are they still they same as always?

So they went out and got into the boat,

but that night they caught nothing.

Peter was not merely returning to his trade, nor merely filling time with a familiar occupation. These motivations certainly played a part. But it was only because he didn't understand what ought to come next that he may have desired distraction. The first time Peter had encountered the Lord Jesus was in a similar situation, fishing all night with no catch. At that time Peter had asked, "Depart from me Lord, for I am a sinful man" (see Luke 5:8). Now, after having betrayed Jesus, Peter knew even more deeply the truth of that statement. Had he rendered himself useless in the Lord's service? Had the Lord finally taken his advice and departed? In any event, in addition to his confusion about Jesus after the resurrection, Peter was no longer so sure of himself, no longer so bold, not ready to charge ahead to whatever came next. But it seems that he came back to the familiar sea shore to fish not merely as a return to what came before his life with Jesus but as a test or an experiment to see if the initial call on his life was still valid. It was as if he thought that he might return to this place where he first found the Lord's call on his life to discover it again, and what it meant now for his life after all that had happened.

So he said to them, “Cast the net over the right side of the boat

and you will find something.”

So they cast it, and were not able to pull it in

because of the number of fish.

The risen Lord, it seemed, would still need and make use of those willing to become fishers of men. Although he came and went unpredictably, appeared and disappeared in ways that seemed to defy the laws of physics, although he was difficult to recognize and found only when he wished to be found, yet he still desired shepherds to draw sheep to himself, fishers to put out in the deep for a catch. His apparent elusiveness did not mean that he was hiding or that he did not wish to be found, nor that he was an ethereal spirit only partially part of this world, and seemingly fading with each moment. The supernatural aspects of the resurrection might have worried the disciples and made them suspect that he was done with this world that had failed to recognize him and now only cared for the life of heaven. But Jesus revealed that this was not the case, that nothing could be further from the truth. But what was Jesus about now, or how were the disciples to follow him in this new reality of his resurrection? The secret was the same as it had been during Peter's first encounter with Jesus while fishing. It remained true, and was in fact more true than ever, that apart from Jesus the disciples could do nothing. This was a fact that Peter had now seen both in his discipleship and his fishing ability. 

When Simon Peter heard that it was the Lord,

he tucked in his garment, for he was lightly clad,

and jumped into the sea.

Peter had not invalidated his vocation by his betrayal. That Jesus was here on the shore at all was proof to Peter that Jesus was not finished with him, that his original vocation still had some kind of meaning for him. He clearly had not abandoned hope that Jesus would still use him, would still love him. For had he been in doubt or despair he would not have rushed headlong toward Jesus. That he did was proof that the main reason he was fishing at all was because he held this hope.

So Simon Peter went over and dragged the net ashore

full of one hundred fifty-three large fish.

As Peter became confident in his own ongoing role in the story of Jesus he found himself filled with strength, with supernatural gifting suited to the task. A net with which the other disciples struggled was pulled by Peter alone and untorn onto the shore of the sea.

Jesus said to them, “Come, have breakfast.”

And none of the disciples dared to ask him, “Who are you?”

because they realized it was the Lord.

Jesus seemed constantly to be making this point that he was not yet done with earth, with creation, with physical reality. He had wounds, could be touched, could be held, and delighted to restore his disciples to full table fellowship with him. Yes, the mode of his existence had changed. Yes, it took a new kind of faith to recognize him and follow him after the resurrection. But it was fundamentally still him, still the same friend they had known before. He was indeed leading them to a mission the greater part of which would now be spiritual and unseen. But it was still Jesus himself who would lead them. And this was true in spite of their own failures.

“Simon, son of John, do you love me more than these?”

Jesus called him not Peter, but Simon as he recreated the scene around the charcoal fire where he had been anything but rock solid. Peter had previously boasted, "I will lay down my life for you" (see John 13:37), suggesting that even if all of the other disciples betrayed Jesus Peter would remain faithful. Jesus seemed to ask, 'Was it so?' but without malice or resentment. What Jesus desired was not to berate Peter, nor even to make him dwell in the failures of his past, but to elevate him through this passage of self knowledge to a new confidence that could be built only on the mercy of Jesus himself.

Peter was distressed that Jesus had said to him a third time,

“Do you love me?” and he said to him,

“Lord, you know everything; you know that I love you.”

Jesus said to him, “Feed my sheep.

The threefold affirmation undid the threefold denial and restored Peter fully to the Lord and to the mission. To be clear, it was Peter himself who needed this most of all. It was not a punishment, but a path, and a restoration of what Peter was able to believe about himself, so that he could move forward. We should remember that Confession is always meant to be thus for ourselves as well.

Peter's boast that he would die for the Lord would indeed come to pass, but only in the light of this new and mature discipleship, that grew from a new self-knowledge viewed in the light of the resurrection and of the mercy of Jesus himself. As proof of this we can see how he and the other disciples of the early Church came to see that suffering did not mean failure or that they were abandoned by God. Jesus was making his own resurrected life present through disciples who suffered for his name.

So they left the presence of the Sanhedrin,

rejoicing that they had been found worthy

to suffer dishonor for the sake of the name.

We see that the blessings due to God himself in heaven were now also shared with the Lamb seated on the throne. Whereas we tend to think of failure and suffering as signs that things have gone wrong, the disciples learned that suffering out of love for God and neighbor was not now something that ever need be wasted. We too can learn to move forward, not needing to be strong in ourselves, not needing to be without wounds or scars, because of our confidence in Jesus, and the fact that his resurrection really is at work restoring all things, precisely as we choose to let him love the world through us. Integrating this truth into our daily lives does not necessarily imply anything dramatically different, such as setting off for distant mission fields (though we should be open even to that if the Lord desires). This sharing of the mission of the Lord to make of all things new by the power of the resurrection is something we can begin even in the minutia of our lives. Indeed this is the only place we can begin. The more we understand the unshakable nature of the love of Jesus himself in spite of our imperfections, the more we receive ourselves the hope and confidence to which Peter was restored, the more we will find ourselves ready to feed the sheep of his that are in our sphere. 

To the one who sits on the throne and to the Lamb

be blessing and honor, glory and might,

forever and ever.

Debbye Graafsma - To Him Who Sits On The Throne

Brian Blum - Song of Peter (Lord, You Know)