Over the last several weeks, we have looked at the majority of the Gospel of John (chapters 13-20). So in this post, we are going to look at what happens in John 21. I felt that it would be good to finish off the book of John and his account of the life of Jesus. John 21 has something good for us to learn and it’s going to be amazing to see. It is also good that we finish the book of John because of the way we have been going through chapters 13-20. We have been walking through those chapters with the mindset and feeling what the disciples must have been feeling. If you haven’t checked out the series “The Last Night With Jesus”, the Good Friday, and Easter podcast episodes, the link for all of those is below [1].
As John 21 begins, the disciples have already seen the resurrected Jesus twice. They saw Him once without Thomas and then Jesus came back when Thomas was there. Now they are out fishing and Jesus is going to visit them for the third time and something amazing happens. Let’s see how the story unfolds.
“Later, Jesus appeared again to the disciples beside the Sea of Galilee. This is how it happened. Several of the disciples were there—Simon Peter, Thomas (nicknamed the Twin), Nathanael from Cana in Galilee, the sons of Zebedee, and two other disciples. Simon Peter said, ‘I’m going fishing.’ ‘We’ll come, too,’ they all said. So they went out in the boat, but they caught nothing all night.” - John 21:1-3 NLT
So in the first three verses of John 21, we see that the disciples are still lost in what they are supposed to be doing without Jesus. So, they returned to what they knew. Well, Peter, Andrew, James, and John, were returning to what they knew and the other disciples just went along because they didn’t know what else to do. As the text says, they fished all night and didn’t catch a thing. But here is where the story gets good.
“At dawn Jesus was standing on the beach, but the disciples couldn’t see who he was. He called out, ‘Fellows, have you caught any fish?’ ‘No,’ they replied. Then he said, ‘Throw out your net on the right-hand side of the boat, and you’ll get some!’ So they did, and they couldn’t haul in the net because there were so many fish in it.” - John 21:4-6 NLT
When Jesus told them this, John realized that it was Jesus standing on the shore and told Peter. Peter then jumped in the water and swam to shore! The others in the boat took care of the nets and brought the boat to shore. When they all got to shore, Jesus had breakfast waiting for them - which was fish and bread [2]. This is an interesting event. This was all done with purpose. Jesus knew exactly what He was doing and what He was saying to them. Let’s explore what I mean a little bit.
First, this was not the first time Jesus had told them how to catch fish. When Jesus first met Peter, He told him to go out deeper and cast out the nets. In this first meeting, they had also fished all night and didn’t catch anything at all. Peter was probably a little bit miffed at Jesus for telling Him how to fish. After all, Peter did this all the time and Jesus was a carpenter. But Peter did as Jesus asked him to do and caught many fish [3].
So when Jesus called out to them and told them to cast their nets out again, John remembered the events of the first meeting and reminded Peter. I can imagine Jesus snickering on the beach as He watched this all unfold. I bet Jesus was almost waiting for the epiphany light bulb to go off in their heads.
The second thing from these first nine verses that I want to mention is the breakfast Jesus served. This is something that I hadn’t noticed before. I have looked at this chapter many times and I never noticed this little detail. Jesus fed them bread and fish. This may not seem all that significant. But to the disciples, this was another reminder to them that it was indeed Jesus there with them. By feeding them bread and fish, Jesus called back to when He fed 5,000+ people with just five loaves and two fish. When Jesus was done feeding the 5,000, He told the disciples to collect what was leftover. There were enough leftovers for each of them to have a basket full of bread and fish [4].
These two events on the beach that morning let the disciples know that it was indeed Jesus there with them. They didn’t even ask Him who He was (John 21:12). They sat and ate breakfast with Jesus there on the beach. After breakfast, Jesus called Peter aside to have a conversation with him.
During the conversation, Jesus asked Peter three different times if he loved Him. Peter hurt by these questions answered Jesus by saying “Lord… you know that I love you.” After each time that Peter answered, Jesus, told him to “take care of my sheep” or “feed my sheep” [5].
Jesus had a plan for Peter from the very moment he called him to be a disciple. Jesus was going to have Peter lead the ministry after Him. Jesus told Peter that He was going to build His church on (through) Peter (Matthew 16:17-18). This event on the beach was Jesus passing the ministry to Peter. Even though Peter had messed up big time and turned his back on Jesus when Jesus needed him most. Jesus still kept His word and turned the job of starting the church over to Peter.
The takeaway I get from John 21 is that Jesus doesn’t give up on any of us, even though we give on him sometimes. Jesus came to them on the beach because they had returned to fishing and had given up on what Jesus had taught them. Jesus didn’t want them to be fishing after His death. Jesus wanted them to continue fishing for people (Luke 5:10).
They ran away from what Jesus had done for them. We can do the same thing. A circumstance in life comes up out of nowhere and changes everything. We can find ourselves running away from what Jesus had done for us and what He has taught us. Jesus wants the same thing for us that He wanted for the disciples - LIFE TO THE FULL [6].
But we can only find this full life in the One Who is THE LIFE [7]. We can’t find the kind of life Jesus wants to give away from Him. We need to be connected to the Vine [8]. Because in the Vine is where we have life and have it to the full!
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[1] https://www.thepointoffocus.com/podcast
[2] John 21:7-9
[3] Luke 5:1-11
[4] John 6
[5] John 21:15-19
[6] John 10:10
[7] John 14:6
[8] John 15:5
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