Tuesday April 23, 2019: John 21:2-6

Krissa Lox

Active Member
John 21:2-6

21:2 There were together Simon Peter, and Thomas called Didymus, and Nathanael of Cana in Galilee, and the sons of Zebedee, and two other of his disciples.
21:3 Simon Peter saith unto them, I go a fishing. They say unto him, We also go with thee. They went forth, and entered into a ship immediately; and that night they caught nothing.
21:4 But when the morning was now come, Jesus stood on the shore: but the disciples knew not that it was Jesus.
21:5 Then Jesus saith unto them, Children, have ye any meat? They answered him, No.
21:6 And he said unto them, Cast the net on the right side of the ship, and ye shall find. They cast therefore, and now they were not able to draw it for the multitude of fishes.

How many times when we don't get the results we're looking for are we tempted to just stubbornly keep trying harder, even when there's no rational reason to do so? After all, when there's no fish, there's no fish, no matter how much effort you put into trying to catch them. But a little time spent with the Lord to get His guidance is likely to be much more profitable.
 
I also think there's a lesson here about faith.

Imagine you're sitting on that boat, you've been at it all night long and you have nothing to show for it but an old shoe and bags under your eyes. You're tired, you're grumpy, and now somebody is telling you to throw the net back in on the right side of the ship. Wha? What difference would that make? I'd imagine they may have even done that earlier in the night. That must seem like a waste of time.

But they did it, and they did it without argument.

It was only after that, in verse 7, when they realized who it was who said it. Still pondering the meaning of that.
 
I also think there's a lesson here about faith.

Imagine you're sitting on that boat, you've been at it all night long and you have nothing to show for it but an old shoe and bags under your eyes. You're tired, you're grumpy, and now somebody is telling you to throw the net back in on the right side of the ship. Wha? What difference would that make? I'd imagine they may have even done that earlier in the night. That must seem like a waste of time.

But they did it, and they did it without argument.

It was only after that, in verse 7, when they realized who it was who said it. Still pondering the meaning of that.

Very true. Seeking and receiving guidance would also be a wasted act without the faith to follow through on it.

But you also make a good point that in this particular case, they didn't know it was Jesus talking to them until after they acted, so their action at the time may have been based more on respect than on faith (like how we might respect the opinion of an elder enough to try something out even if we don't see it as likely to work). They probably didn't really expect it to work out since the fact that it did is what made them realize this must be Jesus and not some random passerby.

As for the disciples not recognizing him in the first place, this was a recurrent theme in most (maybe all, but not 100% sure offhand) of His encounters with them after the resurrection, but it's never elaborated on so I've always figured that it was likely some issue of physical circumstance rather than of spiritual significance. Pure speculation on my part, but I've gathered that the time between the crucifixion and the ascension was a pretty awkward time with a lot of weird stuff going on while the relationship between heaven and earth was in a transitioning phase. I mean, you also have the case of some unknown number of previously deceased saints who came back from the grave after Jesus' death (Matt 27:52-53), so maybe it wasn't an uncommon thing during that time for strange people to be standing around giving enlightened advice.

But more practically speaking, Jesus wasn't preaching openly to the public during that time. He seemed mostly focused on just connecting with His disciples then, so he may well have been purposely concealing his identity while out in public. And -- a very important point I think many forget -- the Holy Spirit wasn't yet in the world, so the disciples only have their earthly senses to go by. (well, technically they were given some measure of the Holy Spirit in John 20:22-23, but it seems implied to not be complete since John 16:7-16 indicates the Spirit won't fully come into the world till after Jesus' ascension and He commands the disciples at His ascension in Acts 1:4-9 to wait afterwards in Jerusalem for the Spirit to come)

As modern believers, I think it's very easy to forget the ramifications of that context of being without the Spirit. The Spirit's benefits can easily become taken for granted as being part of our own nature rather than correctly identified as being God intermingled with us, which can then make it difficult to relate to the experiences of people in the Gospels and Old Testament and the unsaved world of today.

But it's a very critical point I think that goes too often overlooked that the purpose of Christ's sacrifice wasn't just to get us to heaven, but also to get more of God in the earth by purifying us to be able to receive the Spirit so that He could communicate and inter-operate with us more fully. The world before the Spirit was an entirely different world than we experience now. To be a mere mortal living in the middle of a battlefield of divine warfare far beyond your means of comprehension seems like it would be a rather unpleasant and frightening experience, even if you are on good terms with the winning side, and that's the world the disciples were still living in at the time.
 
As for the disciples not recognizing him in the first place, this was a recurrent theme in most (maybe all, but not 100% sure offhand) of His encounters with them after the resurrection, but it's never elaborated on so I've always figured that it was likely some issue of physical circumstance rather than of spiritual significance.

I agree. I mean, in our day, how many people do you know who do NOT wear glasses? I bet back in those days the fact that they could see someone standing there at all was probably above average, in a world where glasses didn't yet exist.

And I also agree about the modern times being so different, though the way I see it I think we have so many things competing for our attention every minute that it just becomes so hard to just listen to the Spirit and understand.
 
And I also agree about the modern times being so different, though the way I see it I think we have so many things competing for our attention every minute that it just becomes so hard to just listen to the Spirit and understand.

That is true, too. These days we might struggle more with the temptation to seek guidance and comfort from the convenience of our cell phone, looking for an app to help fix the problem or lamenting about our frustrations on social media, that we don't even look up to the shore to notice Jesus there in the first place.

Not to diss technology as I think it's great to overcome challenges and increase positive impact (like the example of glasses you mentioned), but even the greatest product or program is still going to be limited by the human capabilities of its developer and thus needs to be kept in its place as a tool to be used in the service of God, not as a substitute for Him.
 
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