Other translations of the sermon:
(Text for sermon: Joh 21,1-14)
Jesus Appears to Seven Disciples
1 After this Jesus revealed himself again to the disciples by the Sea of Tiberias, and he revealed himself in this way.
2 Simon Peter, Thomas (called the Twin), Nathanael of Cana in Galilee, the sons of Zebedee, and two others of his disciples were together.
3 Simon Peter said to them, “I am going fishing.” They said to him, “We will go with you.” They went out and got into the boat, but that night they caught nothing.
4 Just as day was breaking, Jesus stood on the shore; yet the disciples did not know that it was Jesus.
5 Jesus said to them, “Children, do you have any fish?” They answered him, “No.”
6 He said to them, “Cast the net on the right side of the boat, and you will find some.” So they cast it, and now they were not able to haul it in, because of the quantity of fish.
7 That disciple whom Jesus loved therefore said to Peter, “It is the Lord!” When Simon Peter heard that it was the Lord, he put on his outer garment, for he was stripped for work, and threw himself into the sea.
8 The other disciples came in the boat, dragging the net full of fish, for they were not far from the land, but about a hundred yards1 off.
9 When they got out on land, they saw a charcoal fire in place, with fish laid out on it, and bread.
10 Jesus said to them, “Bring some of the fish that you have just caught.”
11 So Simon Peter went aboard and hauled the net ashore, full of large fish, 153 of them. And although there were so many, the net was not torn.
12 Jesus said to them, “Come and have breakfast.” Now none of the disciples dared ask him, “Who are you?” They knew it was the Lord.
13 Jesus came and took the bread and gave it to them, and so with the fish.
14 This was now the third time that Jesus was revealed to the disciples after he was raised from the dead.
Dear congregation!
What fascinates me about this multi-facetted story filled with allusions is this: the disciples are actually not returning from a feast to their daily life, they have not had a happy celebration of Easter. Quite the opposite applies. They have long returned to their daily life and are caught up in the middle of it – as though Easter had never happened. Disappointed and disillusioned, similar to the disciples returning home on their way to Emmaus, they have already returned to what had characterised their daily life, their reality in life since their early childhood: the profession of fishing. Incidentally, they are not very successful at this either: their first nightly attempt at fishing yields absolutely no results. It is in this highly unsatisfying and highly ambivalent daily life that Jesus appears and that Jesus gives them a completely new direction and focus. It is worth our while to follow the tracks of this encounter – an Easter experience in the middle of daily life.
It is indeed not a situation of Easterly joy that John is reporting on here. It is a story of disappointed and disillusioned people. As had the Emmaus disciples, the disciples had also placed all their hope in Jesus – and now it all seems to have disappeared and they are again where they had been before Jesus.
Eric-Emmanuel Schmitt describes this very vividly in his excellent novel “Das Evangelium nach Pilatus“ from the perspective of Jesus and the first disciples, what had fascinated them about Jesus, “What came then was the happiest and most exciting time of my life. Andrew, Simon and I travelled through the green, fresh, fertile Galilee. We lived a careless life, slept under the open skies, ate what we picked with our hands from the trees or what other hands gave us. With God we discovered lightness. ... Nothing can be compared to the cheerful innocence of these first months. We were preparing the road. We invented a new way of living. We overcame suspicion. We could merely receive and pass on. We were free. We had embarked on a journey towards unknown openness.“ (Schmitt, 42f., translated)
But this has now passed. They had erred greatly. Now, after his death, they are not only on their way back to their old home towns with their limitations and predictable daily routines, but they had long reached them. The charisma of the extraordinary, that they had come to know in Jesus, had been proven too weak, even deceitful when the Jesus movement had reached its disastrous end. Almost unnoticed, Jesus enters this daily routine, early in the morning, when the fish haul was so very disastrous. His question whether they have nothing to eat, touches much more than their material needs. And they must confess: no, nothing at all, it was all in vain.
Yet they trust the unknown person, throw their nets out again and make the catch of a lifetime. The favourite disciple recognises in this unexpected fullness a symbol of the presence of Jesus: It is the Lord! Peter does not stand back this time. He jumps into the sea, obviously to be the first to reach Jesus and to draw the net ashore. And now it is obvious to everyone that this is indeed Jesus. So obvious that nobody needs to say it out loud. Together they share the meal – a symbol of communion that had already united them with the earthly Jesus. Resignation, hopelessness, disillusionment – all have disappeared. What they are experiencing now is like a new, a second birth. Nothing that had drawn them to Jesus was in vain. Eagerly, almost like children, they savour the signs of his presence, they are – albeit only fleetingly – secure in God, they experience Easter, eternal life, in the middle of their life on earth.
And thus John tells an exemplary Easter story in the middle of an ordinary life. It is less a matter of external facts than of internal experiences – experiences that then also become visible to the outside. John does tell us of wonderful events, at times perhaps even mingles reports and stories that we know from the other gospels and weaves these into an Easter story. But he talks about Easter without stories of an empty grave, of a triumphant Christ, of Easterly laughter. His story firmly places Easter in daily life. It encourages us to interpret the signs. The fullness of the catch at which the disciples marvel is no coincidence. It reflects the presence of Jesus. The meal is more than just good company after a hard night’s work that had then miraculously found a good end. It is a sign of the presence of Jesus, an image of the immediate meaning in life that we cannot bring about ourselves. Easter – this is new life, genuine meaning in life that arises when in the middle of daily life the signs are not seen as coincidence, as fate, but as the presence of a life from and in God. In all challenges and fractures of our life. They too point to the one that – in this Easter story – is the epicentre and aim in life: Christ, the crucified and resurrected.
Amen.
