Resurrection 101 - Peter the Distracted

 

For years I’ve been scratching my head over the 21st chapter of the Gospel of John. Not that I ever argue with the word of God, but it feels like the Gospel should have ended with John 20:30-31. Nice little bow to tie around the amazing story of God’s redemption of His hopelessly straying, sinful mankind.Chapter 21 makes it … kind of messy…? It opens a new can of worms…. It would have been much easier, much neater to finish off with a Christian version of happily-ever-after.

Unfortunately - or not! - John disagrees.  There is some unfinished business that needs to be taken care of… and Jesus doesn’t leave it undone.

And so we find ourselves on the shores of the Sea of Tiberias with seven disciples who have been with Jesus for three years, day in, day out. That’s almost 9000 hours of living in the presence of God incarnate! They’ve seen what no eyes have seen, they heard what no ears have heard, they saw their Lord betrayed, crucified and…  risen from the dead, eating with His nail-pierced hands.  They went beyond the shadow of a doubt regarding the convincing evidence in the reliability of Christ’s resurrection.  

And yet, within just few weeks of Easter morning, Peter announces:

I am going fishing!

Huh??? You are going fishing?!!! You gotta be kidding me, Pete!! After everything that happened, after all you’ve seen and heard, you want to go… fishing????

But, nobody says that. 

In fact, Peter being the natural leader that he is, in addition to being previously endorsed by no less than Christ Himself as a spiritual leader of the brand new living species, gets immediate following.  Nobody probes. Nobody questions.

However, deep inside Peter’s heart there is a nail.  Or, perhaps, a gaping bottomless black hole. A gnawing sense of failure.  Regret.  Self-doubt.  The scene from the courtyard is replayed on the back of his mind over and over again… It haunts him during the day.  It torments him during his fitful sleep.  How he wishes he could turn the clock and undo that night.  At least, undo his part during that awful, dark night.

But he can’t. Even with the resurrection, the past can’t be changed. And the burden of that reality makes Peter question everything he learned from the day Jesus set His eyes on him... his suitability as a disciple of Christ. His calling. His future.

So Peter goes back to what he knows best. To what is familiar, where his past successes reside.  Where he is an expert. And he takes half of the apostles along with him.

That night the seasoned fishermen caught nothing.