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Simon Peter went up and drew the net
to land, full of large fish, a hundred and fifty-three; and although
there were so many, the net was not torn.
(John 21:11)
Why did John specifically mention this
detail that the net was not torn? And why was it important to include
the exact number of fish that they caught?
Likely it will be impossible to know
the full answer to these questions until we have opportunity to ask
John or Peter personally. But since these details were included in
the Word I strongly suspect God does have blessings and insights for
anyone caring to go deeper. So I want to look deeper into it myself.
I began thinking about connections to
other references in the Bible related to nets and the first one I
thought of was near the beginning of Jesus' ministry when He called
these very disciples to follow Him. When I went and checked out those
stories I found some interesting clues.
Jesus was walking along the shore one
day and came across two sets of brothers who were all fishermen. The
first set was Peter and Andrew. These two were in the process of
casting their nets into the water in the very act of fishing. After
calling them to follow Him with the promise of teaching them to fish
for men instead of fish, He went on down the beach and came across
John and James.
Interestingly this second set of
brothers were not actively fishing but rather were mending their nets
in the boat with their father. Upon calling them to follow Him it
says they immediately left the boat and their father to follow Him.
All sorts of possibilities exist just
within this short account of the background of these men. Whether
they are provable is not quite so important as to what the Spirit
might share with those who have ears to listen. Other places mention
that James and John were known as Sons of Thunder, a rather colorful
nickname likely related to their quick tempers and violent reactions
under provocation. In the fishing business there were probably plenty
of opportunities to be triggered which might explain why their father
had them so close to him, to keep an eye on them and try to keep them
out of as much trouble as possible.
Was there competition between these two
groups of fishermen? I can't imagine there wasn't. Commercial fishing
can be a very rough and tumble business even today, especially when
fish start to be sparse or the compensation is not good. Times were
harsh for the working people of that day and the social dynamics were
not exactly very fair. The religious/political elite generally owned
most of the land and controlled most of the commerce of the country
which made for plenty of potential for hard feelings. Exploitation
was common among the rich and powerful as well as by the Roman
occupying forces who would not hesitate to resort to violence to
squelch any hint of insurrection.
I find it interesting that Peter and
his brother were fishing in the daytime when Jesus encountered them.
I also recall that this was not the first time these men are
mentioned in the story of Jesus. Andrew and John seem to have been
involved very early around the time of Jesus' baptism when others
were being invited to join them including Peter. It seems that Andrew
and John may have been disciples of John the Baptist which is how
they came to follow Jesus when the Baptist pointed Him out as the
Messiah.
But evidently they had not become
full-time disciples yet; maybe they were more like groupies.
They started hanging around Jesus in their spare time when they were
not required to work in the family business. But when Jesus looked
them up on their jobs and called them to follow Him full-time, for
whatever reasons they seemed more than ready to dump their old
occupation and join Him in this new adventure curiously called
'fishing for men.' I wonder how that went over with their families.
Other implications come to mind from
these details. Was the equipment in the business of John and James so
inferior to that of Peter and Andrew that they had to spend extra
time mending their nets? That is impossible to know from the text,
but it is something to consider. I also wonder why Peter and Andrew
were fishing in broad daylight when later it seems they preferred to
fish at night. Had hard times becoming so pressing that they were
forced to work extra hours to squeak out an existence for themselves?
And given the competitive atmosphere that surrounded this occupation,
I wonder just how much latitude these two sets of brothers gave each
other. Maybe they had a good relationship but they could have had
their times of sharp exchanges.
I find it interesting that it was one
out of each set of brothers that were originally disciples of John
the Baptist and that their other brothers joined after them. Peter,
originally Simon, was almost immediately invited to become a disciple
of Jesus when his brother Andrew (the compulsive inviter) asked him
to come join the growing team. As soon as Jesus met Simon the very
first time He gave Him the nickname Peter, for evidently up to that
time he had only been known by the name Simon. Peter means something
like 'a rolling stone,' but given that Jesus had early insight into
Simon's character He gave him this nickname by which most people know
him today.
I have found it quite informative to
pay attention to which of these names Jesus used on various
occasions, for the name with which He addressed Simon Peter very
often if not always had significance related to the circumstances as
well as to the attitude of Peter at the time. Like many names
throughout the Bible, particularly contrasting ones like Jacob and
Israel, which both apply to the same person, the context in which the
names are used and the meanings of the names carry important
inferences and give insights to the surrounding text and the message
being presented.
In Luke 5 I notice that the story
begins by consistently calling him Simon only. But when he falls in
amazement at the feet of Jesus after coming to see that this is no
ordinary man, he is then referred to as Simon Peter. Similar clues
can be found by looking at many other encounters between Jesus and
Simon Peter where the name Jesus chooses to use for him is highly
significant as to what is going on at the time.
There is another clue here that has
interesting connections in this story that took place early on in the
disciple's relationship with Jesus. This is found in another story
recorded by Luke in chapter 5. In this instance Jesus was teaching
crowds of people on the shore. Evidently space was getting so tight
that Jesus was being backed into the water, so He climbed into a
fishing boat that belonged to Simon and asked him to shove off a
little from the beach to give Him a better vantage point so everyone
could see and hear Him clearly. (Was this the first instance of a
pulpit?) Evidently Simon, as he is called in this story, unwittingly
becomes a captive audience for Jesus even though he had just been up
all night working. Now he had to wait politely until Jesus was
finished speaking to the crowds. Of course I'm sure that Jesus was
quite interesting, and given Peter's enjoyment of attention he may
have felt rather proud to have his boat be the one selected by this
new popular teacher.
Again, in this story details are
mentioned about nets and the best time to fish. It was now obviously
daytime when Jesus was speaking to the crowds, and while I don't know
if He had used up all the daylight in speaking and finally had to
quit, or He simply decided to not share with the people too much and
let them go when it started getting too hot, we cannot be sure. But
when Jesus asked Simon to push into the deep and go fishing, Simon
makes the protest that they had already been fishing all night and
had caught nothing.
Again, there are a number of clues here
that I find quite interesting. If Simon had already been working all
night with no results, he may not have been in the best of moods to
be staying awake even longer after listening to a sermon. Of course
sermons as we hear them now are very likely nothing like the words
Jesus spoke to people. (I wish that today we could return to the
style of interaction that marked the lives of the early followers of
Jesus, for everything connected with how we do church today is quite
foreign to how the early disciples experienced the gospel. But that
is another issue.)
When Simon Peter chose to humor this
carpenter-turned-teacher obviously inexperienced in fishing who
thought He knew more about it that Simon – the seasoned
pro-fisherman, I doubt that he had any clue that anything would come
of it. But being at least a little polite and maybe taking a liking
to this new teacher, Simon probably felt that it would not hurt to
stay up a little longer to show this carpenter how nets were cast,
even if it would be a waste of time for himself and his now captive
crew.
From this perspective it is no wonder
that Luke reported the intense reactions of both Peter and his
companions in the boat when instantly their nets were filled to
overflowing the moment they hit the water. This was very clearly
something they had never encountered in their whole life before and
they realized that something supernatural was taking place. Luke
reports that this was one of those times when Simon Peter was so
overcome with emotion and amazement at the power and superiority of
Jesus that all he could do was throw himself down at His feet and cry
out at the contrast between his own character and what he was
beginning to see in Jesus.
It seems that many of the most
compelling events that took place between Jesus and Peter often
involved experiences around fishing and the lake. This was the life
that Peter knew well and was his love. Yet unknown to Peter, Jesus
was beginning to take him through a long, intentional process to
transform his focus from providing for himself and his family by
fishing, toward living a life of selfless service for others as Jesus
had come to live. In each of these encounters with Jesus, Peter had
rather intense reactions and sometimes his reaction was to simply
throw himself at Jesus' feet lost in wonder and amazement. Other
times he chose to act quite out of the box – or at one time out of
the boat as in the case of water-walking with Jesus during a violent
storm.
Notice how this story is a very close
parallel to the experience recorded in John 21, and that in the first
instance when they caught an amazing amount of fish, it says that
their nets began to break. (Now Peter would have the same problems as
his competitors James and John had if he wanted to stay in the
fishing business much longer.) But Jesus followed up this miracle by
immediately assuring Peter that he should not be afraid, for
from now on Peter would be catching men instead of fish. I find this
response from Jesus pregnant with insights.
After the resurrection we find Peter,
likely feeling too disgraced to consider himself a legitimate
disciple any longer, deciding that the best thing for him to do is go
back to what he knows best and get into the fishing business once
again. But other disciples were keeping a close eye on Peter,
possibly fearing he might do something impulsive – like committing
suicide as Judas had done – so they insisted on going with him.
Again they spent a whole night fishing, but all for nothing. Again
someone asks them to do the absurd and fish the wrong way and again
with similar stunning results. But interestingly this time it is
particularly noted that though there were so many fish (these guys
seemed to be experts on knowing how much nets could handle), it
specifically says that the net was not torn.
I believe that this phrase had great
significance, especially for Peter at this critical time in his life.
The first time Peter had experienced this kind of miracle, Scripture
says his nets had begun to tear apart and Jesus then asked him to
start fishing for men instead of fish. Now three years later Peter
has decided to turn away from the work Jesus had begun training him
to do and go back to fishing for fish. But instead of censuring him
for giving up on the original invitation, Jesus instead again repeats
that first miracle, only this time the difference is that the nets
can somehow handle the extreme load without tearing.
I believe this detail was very
important to Peter and also John who recorded this for us. John was
one of the guys who had spent many hours mending nets, so he would be
expected to notice when fishing nets acted out of the ordinary. I
also believe that Jesus intentionally caused this difference as a
signal to all the disciples that God can be trusted to take care of
everything, even to the smallest details. Now it was time to fully
take seriously the original invitation of Jesus to walk away from
fishing and instead to focus on saving people instead of going back
to a life of commercial business for themselves.
How does this apply to me today? Is God
going to make it plain when it is time to move away from dependence
on my line of work to living in full-time faith on Him, to switch to
helping Him reconstruct lives that are falling apart? I have wondered
this for some time but don't have any clear answers yet. Maybe it is
not time, or maybe I am not listening carefully enough, or maybe I am
being resistant like Peter was because I feel so weak or ashamed or
fearful or doubting.
I remember when I was invited recently
to share with a group of people this good news I have been learning
about God. In responding I experienced the presence of the Holy
Spirit guiding and using me in ways I have seldom known before. A
couple nights ago I had opportunity to share this truth with a deeply
hurting family who were surprisingly open to hearing new revelations
of how God feels towards them. I was quite encouraged as they had
previously been rather resistant to hearing anything from me.
Through these experiences I feel that
this is something I would really like to get more involved in. But at
the same time I don't want to invent my own plans or try to run ahead
of God. I have been learning that God wants me to trust Him daily to
unfold His plans for me instead of creating great plans and trying to
get Him to endorse and bless them. I think I prefer it this way for I
am convinced that if I seek to cooperate with His plans instead of
trying to get Him to cooperate with my plans that the likelihood of
success will be exponentially greater.
Yet it is a delicate learning process
to practice tuning in to the Spirit's guidance system each day
instead of falling into old patterns of taking things into my own
hands. I am beginning to learn the importance of intentional
listening as well as seeking God in my morning times of meditation
and study with Him.
There is one last link that I
discovered that may have interesting potential in this story. I heard
this from one of my favorite teachers recently and it really
resonated as I saw fascinating connections to an Old Testament
prophecy connected to fishing. I wonder if Peter and John knew about
this passage.
Why have You made men like
the fish of the sea, like creeping things without a ruler
over them? The Chaldeans bring all of them up with a hook, drag
them away with their net, and gather them together in
their fishing net. Therefore they rejoice and are glad.
therefore they offer a sacrifice to their net and burn incense to
their fishing net; because through these things their catch
is large, and their food is plentiful. (Habakkuk
1:14-16)
I know that this prophecy sounds
strange and maybe even opposite from the kind of fishing Jesus
invited Peter to practice with Him. But on closer examination of the
context there are fascinating implications that may bring insights to
those with open minds. This prophecy speaks of fishing for men just
as Jesus did. It involves worship connected with a very large catch
which occurred at least two times with Peter. And there is much more
that could be unpacked from this passage, but at this point I must
leave that for another time.
Does Jesus use a person's familiar
occupation to connect with them, to speak the language they relate to
best? I believe so. If Jesus came to me and wanted to relate to what
I understand well, He would not get very far by talking about fishing
or asking me to go catch fish. I don't know anything about throwing
nets and very little about even casting a line. For me Jesus would
make far better connection using analogies with things I am involved
with in my life. And I confess that many times He has done just that,
bringing to mind analogies related to electricity or construction
techniques or other areas of interest to me. Farming or sheep or
fishing were all areas familiar to most people in Jesus' day and even
some today. But for me it is easier when God relates to me in ways
that make sense for me.
But whatever the background that each
of us is coming from, I suspect that as we respond to the drawing of
Jesus in our hearts that He will at some point ask us to trade in our
previous occupations and interests for something far more fulfilling
just as He did with Peter. There comes a time when it becomes clear
that a decision has to be made as to who will be in charge of our
life. We then have to decide if we will trust Jesus to provide for
all our needs and our families without our stepping back in to try to
take over when things appear to be spinning out of control.
Will we come to fully trust Him in any
and every situation so that we too might be empowered to walk on
water during a storm without sinking? Will we trust that God can do
any number of miracles to provide for all of our needs? He is eager
to empower us to do what He needs done, to gather as many as possible
into a saving relationship with Himself if we will allow Him to be
our Mentor.
God is faithful, and He can do what He
says He can do in and for me if I will only give Him permission by
trusting fully in His heart.
