Our Risen Lord Provides John 21:1-14 by Michael G. Lilienthal He is risen! He is risen indeed! Alleluia! The Holy Spirit, through the apostle St. John, has a specific lesson to teach us in this recorded event in Scripture. The first part of this lesson is to be found in the words: Jesus revealed himself again to the disciples, and: This was now the third time that Jesus was revealed to the disciples after he was raised from the dead. The first was on Easter Sunday, and the disciples were hiding away in a locked room because of their fear. And then, Jesus was there! He didn t pass through the door like a ghost. He didn t open the door and walk through. One moment the disciples were alone, shaking with fear, and the next, Jesus stood there, showing them the scars on his hands and side and saying, Peace be with you (John 20:19). The second appearance was a week later. The disciples were once again in the room, but Thomas was with them, who doubted the Lord s resurrection, and again, in the same miraculous way, Jesus stood there! He said to them all, once again, Peace be with you, and to Thomas, Put your finger here, and see my hands; and put out your hand, and place it in my side. Do not disbelieve, but believe (John 20:26, 27). Now, with this third time that Jesus revealed himself to the disciples, he demonstrates precisely what we say throughout the Easter season: He is risen! He is risen indeed! Alleluia! With these three appearances, the disciples can have no doubt that their Lord is indeed arisen!
John 21:1-14 2 The second and third parts of this lesson demonstrate that our risen Lord is exalted, filled with power, so that he can cause a miraculous catch of fish! and yet that he is still a servant, providing for the needs of his disciples and helping them with their work. See in what a blessed way our risen Lord provides! I. Jesus, Now Exalted When the Son of God became a man, he set aside the full use of his divine power. God is omniscient: he knows everything; he is omnipotent: he can do anything; and he is omnipresent: he is everywhere and is not bound by physical limits. In Luke s Gospel, however, he describes the boy Jesus, and how he increased in wisdom and in stature and in favor with God and man (Luke 2:52). For him to increase meant that he did not have all knowledge. He was not omniscient according to his humanity. He had to grow. Likewise, rather than exercising any omnipotence, Paul wrote to the Philippians that the Son of God made himself nothing, taking the form of a servant humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross (Phil. 2:7, 8). And neither was he omnipresent, but he bound himself in the limits of human flesh, so that one could point to the man and say, The Son of God is here, and point to a synagogue where Jesus was not to be found and say, The Son of God is not here. For those thirty years or so, while Jesus was on earth, he was humiliated, made low, humbled: yes, he was both God and Man, just as he is now, but he did not exercise the fullness of his Godhood. Now, all that has changed. One week after the resurrection, when Jesus appeared to Thomas and the others, he knew the doubt that was in Thomas heart, and that Thomas had said, Unless I see
3 Our Risen Lord Provides in his hands the mark of the nails, and place my finger into the mark of the nails, and place my hand into his side, I will never believe (John 20:25). So when he appeared he said to Thomas: Put your finger here, and see my hands; and put out your hand, and place it in my side (John 20:27). In his omniscience, Jesus sought Thomas faith. When he revealed himself again, on the shores of the Sea of Tiberias, Jesus demonstrated his omnipotence: all night the disciples had caught nothing. Now, these were career fishermen. When Jesus called many of them, he had found them in their boats and said, Follow me, and I will make you fishers of men (Matt. 4:19). But even though these expert fishers had themselves been unable to catch anything, when the threw their net to the side that Jesus told them, they caught a haul of 153 fish! This was nothing short of a miracle performed by the one and only God who challenges man: Who then is he who can stand before me? / Who has first given to me, that I should repay him? / Whatever is under the whole heaven is mine (Job 41:10-11). What, in fact, caused these career fishermen, who no doubt had a better view of the water from their boat than this stranger on the shore did, nevertheless to obey this outsider when he said, Cast the net on the right side of the boat, and you will find some? Was it because they were so frustrated by this point that they were willing to try anything? Or was it because these created beings had to recognize the power of their Creator? Again, as God had sarcastically challenged man: Can you draw out Leviathan with a fishhook / or press down his tongue with a cord? / Can you fill his skin with harpoons / or his head with fishing spears? (Job 41:1, 7). These men knew
John 21:1-14 4 that they could not control God s creatures, but God could. And he did. Jesus, the Son of God, is omnipotent. And as demonstrated by these miraculous revelations after the resurrection, he is also omnipresent. When he came into the locked room those two times, it was by his divine ability to be anywhere and everywhere. When he appeared on the shore while the disciples fished, he did not walk there, he was there. In the resurrection itself, Jesus did not wait until the stone was rolled away to walk out of the tomb. Rather because he is God, Jesus was already outside the tomb. The angel of the Lord descended from heaven and came and rolled back the stone and sat on it[, and he] said to the women, Do not be afraid, for I know that you seek Jesus who was crucified. He is not here, for he has risen, as he said (Matt. 28:2, 5-6). Even in his humanity, Jesus is omnipresent. At his exaltation, and at his ascension to the right hand of God, God and Man did not divide in the person of Jesus, but came to an even closer bond, for now the humanity was assumed into the divinity, man became godlike in Christ, so that now, when he says, For where two or three are gathered in my name, there am I among them (Matt. 18:20), And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age (28:20), this is not just the divinity of Jesus that is with us; it is the whole Jesus, it is the God-Man, it is the flesh that was scarred for our sins, the blood that was shed for our salvation. II. And Yet a Servant What must the disciples have thought when a strange man appeared on the shore and asked them, Children, do you have any fish? Was he interested in purchasing fish? This would have been the logical conclusion. And no doubt the
5 Our Risen Lord Provides disciples were frustrated. All night fishing, and they had caught nothing, and now someone comes making demands! When your boss gives you a task to complete, and because of the distractions of life you have been unable to finish, aren t you frustrated when he asks you about it? Or your parents, if they have asked you to do a chore or your homework, and you simply haven t gotten around to it, doesn t it seem bothersome when they ask if you ve done it? The disciples were annoyed at the question about what they d caught, so the responded with a terse, No. But then, following this man s direction, they hauled in 153 fish! They dragged it in with the boat, working hard to carry it in, perhaps thinking that they would provide a portion of this catch to the helpful man on shore, maybe he would purchase some from them. But now did you notice what they found once they reached the shore? When they got out on land, they saw a charcoal fire in place, with fish laid out on it, and bread. Jesus said to them, Bring some of the fish that you have just caught. Come and have breakfast. It was then that the disciples recognized Jesus as the Lord. Why did Jesus ask them to go through the work of catching 153 fish, if he was already planning to provide a meal for them? The rationale of the disciples, when the man asked them about their catch, was that they were expected to provide something for him. They were weary, they had worked fruitlessly all night, so that they could not even live up to the standards of a mortal man. Had they realized that this was the Lord, they would have been even more agitated at their failure. This is the attitude that has been instilled into man s conscience since mere moments after the Fall. Adam and Eve were evicted from the Garden, and when we
John 21:1-14 6 meet their first children, they are occupied in making sacrifices. No one told these people that they had to appease their God or give him thanks for anything. They simply knew, because they were filled with sin and lacked the blessing of Paradise which they had once had, that sacrifices were necessary. But for Cain and his offering [the LORD] had no regard. So Cain was very angry, and his face fell (Gen. 4:5). Man is embittered over the fact that his sacrifices are inadequate, especially because we convince ourselves that we re doing our best! Cain brought some of his fruit, thinking that that was enough. The disciples worked all night, thinking that no one could expect more from them. You try your best each day, don t you? You think that you ve done enough if you simply try to live by the standard of kindness to men and the faith within your heart in the only true God. You tell yourself that you ve done all you can, and no one can expect more from you. Look at how fruitless such life is. A full night s work, and nothing to show for it. Can you feed yourself from this, let alone show kindness to your fellow man, or make a sacrifice in faith to your God? If you have failed to generate even the smallest fruit, what good is anything to you? The disciples are about to go out into the world: the Holy Spirit will come on them and they will receive authority to preach the Gospel. Jesus wants them to know that the fruit of their labors is not on their shoulders. What caused this net to be filled with fish? The Lord s Word and his promise filled it, these and nothing else. 1 Recall how strange it was for expert fishermen to obey a stranger on 1 Lenski 1415.
7 Our Risen Lord Provides the shore but Jesus instructed them with a strangely compelling authority: the work is done not by man s will, but God s. Therefore the fruit or the lack of fruit is not man s responsibility, but God s. Jesus demonstrates for the disciples and for us that what applied to this great catch of fish applies also to all the work of God s people. See this progression in Paul s letter to the Ephesians: And you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind. But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ by grace you have been saved and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast. For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them. (Eph. 2:1-10) The good works are not the cause of salvation. They are the result. This means that in their mission work of sharing the Gospel with each person they meet, the disciples should not be worried if their message is rejected. Nor should they do other than what is commanded by God in the work. If the Gospel succeeds in creating faith, it is because God s Spirit is working through his Word. If it fails to create faith, it is because sinful man has rejected it. The work is God s. This is the first blessing Jesus provides as a servant in this text: he blesses the work of his pupils. As he blessed their work, so he
John 21:1-14 8 will bless your work. Wherever you work in your life, the Lord is working in you, through your faith, to accomplish his purposes of saving souls. The second blessing is the providence and reward given. With the miraculous meal of fishes and bread, the disciples no doubt would remember the feeding of the 5,000 and of the 4,000. When he came and took the bread and gave it to them, they would have recalled the last Passover meal in the upper room, when Jesus gave them to eat and drink his body and blood. Jesus acts the part of the host on this occasion also. 2 Yes, even the exalted Lord with all the power of heaven and earth at his fingertips is concerned to feed his friends. He tells them here, by his actions, that there is nothing that people need to give to God. He has given and continues to give all to us. He has given us his Word, which strengthens our faith, which creates faith in others: when we share the Gospel, we don t need to invent the words to say. We use God s. He has given us the waters of Baptism, so that we need not reason our way into faith. It washes over us in an unstoppable flood from God. He has given us his body and blood, so that he feeds us as often as we will receive it. It is not something that we must provide. The altar of sacrifice is now the altar of sacrament. We no longer need to provide anything to God. God gives all to us. This is the power of the resurrected, exalted Lord, who in mercy serves us. Amen. 2 Ylvisaker 775.