Third Sunday of Easter, April 10, 2016
All biblical scholars are convinced that John's gospel once ended in chapter 20. Today's passage is from chapter 21: an addition to his original gospel. There are certainly reasons for the fact that someone tacked one more chapter onto the first 20. Again, most of these biblical scholars defend the idea that today's story of Jesus' appearing to his disciples at the Sea of Tiberias comes from one of the oldest early Christian traditions. They say that this story of a post-resurrection appearance of Jesus predates those found in Matthew and Luke, and predate even those in the preceding chapter 20.
John, the evangelist, connects this story in chapter 21 to the preceding on by words like "again" and "third time". If you remove these words from today’s gospel, it appears that the friends of Jesus returned to Galilee after their disastrous Passover pilgrimage to Jerusalem. They returned there because they didn’t know anything about his resurrection, the friends of Jesus sat around for some time. They recalled their time with Jesus and constantly brought up their disappointment that things hadn't turned out the way they had planned. Eventually Peter makes the difficult decision to go back to work. As we know, Peter and most of Jesus' disciples fished for a living.
Joined by six other followers of Jesus, "they went off and got into the boat" – says the gospel. Soon they are completely absorbed in their work – and they are frustrated by their lack of success. This is when they notice Jesus; he is "standing on the shore" says our text. They are unable to be certain it is really Jesus; they have problems recognizing him. John, the evangelist, may tell us that the friends of Jesus are experiencing the "new creation" of the risen Jesus, not the old historical Jesus they had known as their friend. John makes certain that his readers don't miss this point – Jesus is a new creation. Then, John has Jesus invite the startled fisherman to share a meal with him. Share a meal – this is the place and action in which those same readers 2000 years ago most frequently experienced the risen Jesus.
Let us imagine the friends of Jesus – they had lost a dear friend, a master, a teacher. They mourn, and in the beginning of this phase to "go back to work" does not seem appropriate. In the beginning of the mourning, we may feel that by returning to what we did while that special person was alive, we are saying something like: "See, even without you I can still do what I used to do when we were together. You weren't as important to me as you thought. You're dead."
This is the first phase, it may paralyze us, but then the next phase must come. We finally must go back to work. Only if we go back to work, we can experience that our deceased loved one is present in our everyday life in a new and meaningful way. The deceased person in present in our everyday life in a new and meaningful way… John, the evangelist was a good psychologist it seems. John was convinced that it is in the most common parts of our working lives that we most notice the presence of Jesus.
You remember the reading from the book of revelation we just heard? There, the author of this book is granted visions of angels surrounding Jesus on his heavenly throne. The author of this book hears all creatures in heaven and on earth and under the earth and in the sea sing the praises of Jesus. Yet, for most of us, that is never going to happen. Neither will we ever have an opportunity, like the apostles in today's passage of the Acts of the Apostles, to dramatically proclaim the message and person of Jesus in the face of great opposition.
Most of us will simply spend our lives of faith doing those ordinary things all people are expected to do. Yet, because we - like Peter - deeply love Jesus, we will constantly be aware of those little and big "calls" which Jesus - time and again - extends to all his friends.
To summarize what I tried to say: You need to admit that your loved one is really dead. Then you return to your daily work. And then you will actually experience that person alive in a new way in everything you do. “Experience this person alive in everything you do” - even if that person happens to be Jesus of Nazareth. cf: www.fosilonline.com - Roger Vermalen Karban
Fr. Wolfgang Felber SJ