Jesus performed many other signs in the presence of his disciples, which are not recorded in this book, but these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name. Afterwards, Jesus appeared again to his disciples by the Sea of Galilee. It happened this way.
Simon Peter, Thomas, also known as Didymus, Nathanael from Cana in Galilee, the sons of Zebedee, and two other disciples were together. I’m going out to fish, Simon Peter told them, and they said, we’ll go with you. So they went out and got into the boat, but that night they caught nothing.
Early in the morning, Jesus stood on the shore, but the disciples did not realise that it was Jesus. He called out to them, friends, haven’t you any fish? No, they answered. He said, throw your net on the right side of the boat and you will find some.
When they did, they were unable to haul the net in because of the large number of fish. Then the disciple whom Jesus loved said to Peter, it is the Lord. As soon as Simon Peter heard him say, it is the Lord, he wrapped his outer garment around him, for he had taken it off and jumped into the water.
The other disciples followed in the boat, towing the net full of fish, for they were not far from shore, about a hundred metres. When they landed, they saw a fire of burning coals there with fish on it and some bread. Jesus said to them, bring some of the fish you’ve just caught.
So Simon Peter climbed back into the boat and dragged the net ashore. It was full of large fish, 153, but even with so many, the net was not torn. Jesus said to them, come and have breakfast.
None of the disciples dared ask him, who are you? They knew it was the Lord. Jesus came, took the bread and gave it to them and did the same with the fish. This was now the third time Jesus appeared to his disciples after he was raised from the dead.
Well, we’ve reached the final chapter of the gospel of John, but I need to tell you that not everyone likes this chapter. There are some critics of the Bible and some of them call themselves Bible scholars, and some of them would tell us that John 21 is not only an anticlimax, but also that it is a pointless addition to the book. We just don’t need chapter 21.
Admittedly, John chapter 20 is a climax, the last chapter we looked at. John 20 is the summit of the gospel. It’s the peak of all John is saying.
For instance, it contains the climactic events of the gospel, Jesus’ resurrection. It also contains the climactic confession when Thomas sees the risen Jesus and says, my Lord and my God. And if that were not enough, it also contains the climactic purpose of the gospel in the last two verses, which we read at the start today.
These things are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in His name. That easily could have been the ending of John. John could have planted the full stop and put down his quill, but he didn’t.
And he didn’t, I think, for at least three reasons. Number one, John wanted to echo his main themes again. All the main themes of this gospel—revelation, testimony, faith, the provision of life—are all echoed here in chapter 21.
John wants to give us a little encore of the main themes. But secondly, not only is he echoing the main themes, he is also tying up the loose ends. Of course, when you watch a film or you read a book, very often it doesn’t end on the finale.
Usually, you get to the finale scene, but usually there’s another scene or a final chapter. Why do they do that? They do that in order to tie up the loose ends of the story. And actually, when they don’t do it, I sometimes feel annoyed.
I think, what happened to them next? And John is tying up some loose ends. In particular, what happened to Peter, the three-times denier? And what happened to John, the author of the gospel? And indeed, what happened to these apostles full stop? So, it echoes the main themes, it ties up the loose ends, but it also builds a bridge into the next stage of history. Just as we have in Matthew’s gospel and in Luke’s gospel, John’s finishing with a bridge-building chapter into the book of Acts, into the mission of the church.
Now, John 21 is a very different looking sort of Great Commission to Matthew, for example. But I think this is John’s version of it with a particular focus on Peter. So, without any hesitation, we should like this chapter, and indeed, I hope we will love this chapter as we go through it.
It’s really just one incident. We’re going to be covering it over two sermons this week and then in a fortnight’s time. It all happens on the Sea of Galilee in a boat and on a beach.
Let’s retrace the first part of the story with three points to help us. So, here’s the first point this morning. Without Jesus, catching nothing.
Without Jesus, catching nothing. It is sometime after the events of chapter 20, an indeterminate time, and the setting has now shifted from Jerusalem in the south to Galilee in the north. We’re back at the disciples’ old stomping ground, where they had seen so much of Jesus’ miracles and done so much with Him.
Interestingly, just seven of the disciples are present. Three of them are mentioned by name, two of them are broadly identified, and two of them John just doesn’t care enough to tell us who they were. On one particular day, Peter announces that he’s going fishing.
And you see here something, I think, of Peter’s influence. Part of why I think Peter became a very significant leader in the early church was because of his personality. He announces that he’s going fishing, and the next thing you know, the six others have jumped in the boat behind him.
Now, it’s worth saying at this point that opinions have varied over whether the disciples should have gone fishing. Were they right or were they wrong to fish? Some take the view that the disciples were sinning by going out to fish, that they were abandoning being disciples, that they were sort of going back to their old way of life, and that they were ignoring entirely the fact of Jesus’ resurrection. The trouble with that view is what we know from other gospels, and the fact that Jesus Himself had told them to return to Galilee.
They’re at the Sea of Galilee in obedience to Jesus. And when the disciples later realise this is Jesus, you will notice they immediately come to Him. One of them even swims to Him.
These are hardly the signs of disciples running away from Christ. What is more likely going on is simply this, that the disciples have gone to where Jesus told them to go, but they are waiting for Jesus to arrive. And Peter wants to do something productive, as we should all do with our time.
And as one commentator points out, even disciples who have witnessed the resurrection need to eat. And so, they get into a boat and they go out to fish. And what happens next? Well, not a lot.
Despite a whole night of work, an entire night of labour, they catch the total of absolutely nothing. Now, I doubt that John is making a point of this here, but it struck me that this illustrates another point that we see in Scripture, a principle taught in Proverbs and confirmed in Ecclesiastes. And it’s this, that you can be diligent in your work, and you should be diligent in your work, but you can be diligent and come up with the sum result of nothing.
In life under the sun, in a world of fallenness and futility, you can work hard and still fail the exam, still catch nothing in the net, still lose the job that you’ve worked so hard within. They work all night, but they catch nothing. And now the morning is dawning.
They’re about 100 metres from the shore, and there’s a stranger on the shore. The reader gets the scoop immediately that it is Jesus. But the disciples don’t recognise Him for some reason or other.
But the fact that they didn’t recognise Jesus allows this incident to become another moment of revelation in a gospel that’s all about revealing Jesus’ identity. So, it’s a really good thing that they didn’t recognise Him. The stranger shouts to the boat, “‘Friends, haven’t you any fish?’ To which they cry back dejectedly, “‘No.'” Now, there’s an interesting little connection here, I think.
Maybe I’m spotting something that isn’t here. But if we’ve been paying attention to John’s gospel, there’s just a little thing that comes to mind here. Because back in chapter 15, in John 15, when Jesus was equipping these very apostles for this very time, when Jesus was teaching them how to live in this period post the resurrection, He said, “‘Remain in Me as I remain in you.'” The key to serving Jesus after He has risen will be to remain in Him.
And then Jesus went on to say this in John 15. He said, “‘No branch can bear fruit by itself. Apart from Me, you can do nothing.'” What could they do apart from Jesus? Nothing.
What did they catch in the net, having fished all night? Nothing. It’s a subtle link, maybe an interesting link to notice, that at this key meeting with the future leaders of the church, ready to go out on mission, something happens here to illustrate that without Jesus, they will be fruitless. No Jesus, no catch.
The presence and power of Jesus is required for the success of His disciples. After He ascends to heaven, Jesus will send the Holy Spirit, who will mediate the presence of Jesus, His presence and power, so that as they work and witness for Him, the disciples won’t accomplish nothing, but they will be able to accomplish anything. Brothers and sisters, this truth is still in play.
Yes, we need activity. We must be busy in our boats. We shouldn’t be idling our way to heaven as if there is no work for Jesus to be done.
If we’re not in the boats, we’re not going to be catching any fish. But without the power of Jesus, our every net will be empty. Christians, have you noticed this? Christians, individual Christians who aren’t just busy but fruitful, understand this principle.
They are people of prayer, and they are people of deep reliance on Jesus, deep faith in Jesus. Churches, churches that are growing numerically and spiritually, understand this principle. Do we? Without Jesus, no catch.
But then secondly, with Jesus, a miraculous catch. This is where the story turns next. Not just a catch of fish, but with Jesus’ help, an extraordinary catch.
Having heard of their dire situation, the stranger instructs the disciples to do something, to try something. They are to throw their net on the right side of the boat. And not only that, they’re confidently told that there are fish there.
I mean, who could possibly know this? I mean, I realise in modern fishing they’ve got sonars and things, they know exactly. But in the ancient, in these days, on the Lake of Galilee, who would have known what was under the veil of the water? Well, as we’ve seen in John, Jesus knows things that nobody else knows. And they listen to the stranger.
How much more should we listen to Jesus, by the way, if we listen to strangers? And all the time we go online, don’t we? We listen to strangers, experts in this and that, and we follow religiously their advice. It’s a good thing that they followed this person’s advice, but if we listen to strangers, we should listen all the more to Jesus. And so, they listen to him.
They decide to give it a go. And to their shock and jaw-dropping amazement, the nets begin to pull. And within a few more seconds, they’re straining to the point of near breaking.
This is not just a few fish or some fish, but a net full of fish. Indeed, seven of them struggle, John says, to lift it into the boat. And so, the picture is that they actually drag it along behind the boat.
And at this point, the penny drops for one of the disciples, the disciple whom Jesus loved. Who’s that? That’s John, the author of the gospel. John twigs that it was Jesus.
Just as he was the first to twig that Jesus had risen from the dead in John 20. It’s the Lord, he says. It must be.
And no sooner had John said it, than Peter acted on it. There’s so much good stuff here, isn’t there? It’s worth noting that there are different sorts of people in the kingdom of Christ. I mean, John and Peter were like chalk and cheese, weren’t they, from the descriptions we see of them? Complete opposites to one another.
John was a thoughtful, perceptive type. John was usually the one who knew things first. Peter, on the other hand, was the guy who did things first.
And there’s a place for both within the kingdom. Peter rushes to action. He’s not even going to wait for the boat to come in.
He’s going to jump into the water. And in a really curious detail, it might seem to us, he wraps his outer garment around himself before he jumps in. Like, what’s that all about? Probably what’s going on there is that this was for modesty reasons.
Because back in those days, I mean, it’s a very hot climate, right? We’re in the Middle East here. And it was a very tiring job in the heat of the Middle East. And so, fishermen would have been fairly stripped down in what they were wearing.
And therefore, Peter wants to put something on so that when he meets the Lord, he honours the Lord. And so, he puts on a bit more clothing, and then he dives in impulsively. After my sermon on Easter Sunday morning, I would receive from a number of you, thank you for sending, a number of memes about Peter and John running to the tomb.
I didn’t realise this, there’s gazillions of memes about John beating Peter there. Well, this time around, Peter will not finish last. He swims ashore, and the boat slowly comes in behind him.
And you will see, if we just skip forward a little to verse 11, that after it lands, Peter returns to the boat. We actually learned something else about Peter here, which is just incidental. He must have been incredibly strong, because earlier, all the disciples were struggling to lift it into the boat.
And it says here that Peter dragged the net ashore, seemingly on his own. And so, he drags this huge net in. It has a massive number of fish.
In fact, we know the exact number. There was 153 fish. Now, that’s a lot of potential fish suppers.
It’s a remarkable catch for this day. And a question that’s often asked is, is there any meaning to this particular number, 153? John does love a bit of symbolism. So, is there some kind of symbolism in 153? Now, there’s actually lots of theories about this.
And usually, when there’s tonnes of theories, it also means it’s just not very clear that there is a meaning we can all agree on. There’s all sorts of stuff about triangular numbers, and how 153 is a triangular number, and 17’s the root, and stuff about Hebrew letters and numerology. There actually is, if you are curious about this, there is a very fascinating theory about how 153 links to Ezekiel chapter 47.
Just Google that later. Out of all the theories, I think it is the most interesting. But I keep circling around to thinking, what would the original readers of John have made of 153? Presumably, many of the original readers didn’t know Hebrew.
They didn’t understand Hebrew numerology, and so on. Would they have had any chance of grasping this subtle meaning? What is absolutely clear, and what cannot be missed, is that there was a whole load of fish. And when you think about it, fishermen count fish, don’t they? I mean, they had to count the fish so that they could divide up the profits.
And if this was their biggest catch ever, which I assume it was, then of course they would have counted them. And so 153 tells us an eyewitness detail of an extraordinary catch. And yet, verse 11, even with so many, the net did not break.
A little thing you should know about John, the writer. John, by occupation, had been a fisherman. So he had no doubt seen many nets breaking.
He had spent much time in his life mending nets, nets that had broken with far fewer fish in it than this. The detail sticks in his head, that this was not just a miraculous catch, but also a miraculous keeping of the catch. There could be symbolism in that, possibly, given that we are in the commissioning section of John, his version of Matthew 28, given that the whole of John’s gospel speaks of usually actually sheep being brought into a fold that’s then very safe.
There could be a symbolism here, that the net of God’s grace is able to catch and keep all those who believe in Jesus. One of the great themes of John is that those who are given eternal life will never perish. We actually heard that in John 6, not one of them will be lost, Jesus said.
The net won’t break. Or as he puts it elsewhere in John, none of them will be snatched out of my hand. If you’re in the net of salvation, you can’t be lost.
There’s no holes in it. But what’s really clear is that all of this happened with Jesus. When they fished alone, as skilled as they were, no catch.
When they fished with Jesus, when they obeyed what He said, the catch was miraculous. And I think, therefore, that we need to ask ourselves the question, do we trust in what Jesus can do? Not just trusting, in fact, in what Jesus can do, but in what Jesus can do through ordinary people like these disciples, and like you, and like me? Because that’s another step up again, isn’t it? You can believe God can do great things through great people, but do we believe He can do great things through ordinary folk like these folk? There’s a story about the Victorian preacher, Charles Spurgeon. Spurgeon was asked by a younger preacher about whether he should expect conversions in most of his sermons.
And Spurgeon asked the young man, he said, do you expect conversions when you preach? And the young man thought he was being very humble, and he said, no, no, Mr. Spurgeon, I don’t expect conversions regularly. And Spurgeon replied, young man, that is the problem. That’s a danger for all of us, isn’t it? Not just for those of us who preach.
Of shrinking God down to our small expectations. We may have low expectations of ourselves. We should have low expectations of ourselves.
But we can have great expectations of Jesus and what He can do through us. So the catch has been hauled in, but the story is not quite over. Because now from the boat, we come in the end to the beach, and we come to our final point, our third point this morning.
Our third point is the feast that followed the fishing. The feast that followed the fishing. And this is a breakfast, obviously, but it’s not just any old breakfast.
It’s a breakfast with purposes and intent. It’s a breakfast to reassure and a breakfast to remind. So on the one hand, this breakfast reassures the disciples’ faith.
Verse 1 says that Jesus appeared again to His disciples, and in verse 14, which is the book end of the passage, John says, this was the third time Jesus appeared to His disciples, after He was raised from the dead. So this is not just a miraculous catch. It’s not just a delicious breakfast.
It’s also an appearance. All of this is an appearance, the third appearance of the risen Christ to them as a group. In Jewish thinking, things that are sure often come in thirds.
You’ll see this particularly in the Old Testament, that God will often say things three times, or something will happen three times, because three times is the absolute confirmation that something is sure. And so Jesus appears the third time. And in some ways, this third appearance is even more compelling than the last two, because this is not in the immediacy of the aftermath of the trauma of Jesus’ death.
And this, unlike the previous two appearances, is not at night in a torch-lit room. This third appearance is in the broad daylight. It’s in a familiar location and in the context of breakfast.
I mean, if I wanted to be really sure that Jesus was alive, I think I’d be quite happy if someone offered me, do you want a breakfast with Jesus? Would that suffice? I mean, I think I would take that rather than another brief encounter. I reckon that by the end of that, I could be sure or not that it was true. And you know later in the book of Acts, we might just have not noticed this detail, but actually when Peter is explaining why he came to believe Jesus was alive, he says in Acts 10.41 that we ate and drank with Him.
This was one of the compelling bits of evidence for Peter that Jesus was alive. So, this is the final compelling appearance to reassure the disciples’ faith for good. And you’ll see that there in verse 10, that none of the disciples dared ask Him, who are You? And notice that it wasn’t that they were just nervous.
You know, they weren’t just sort of nervous to ask Him because they were scared of Him or He was going to say something awful. The reason they didn’t ask Him, they didn’t dare ask Him, was because they knew it was the Lord. The evidence in front of them was so compelling that they didn’t dare ask the question, are You the Lord? See, sometimes people think that these disciples were easy believers, that they were unsophisticated walkovers, but the truth is they needed much convincing.
They were just bowled over by irrefutable evidence. This should give us great reassurance that the first eyewitnesses weren’t duped by questionable, brief, and pretty non-robust appearances. We can’t be directly assured as they were, but we can be reassured by their reassurance, if that makes sense.
These doubting, sceptical men had their every question silenced by an avalanche of evidence. And so, the feast that followed the fishing, on the one hand, reassured the disciples’ faith and settled it, but did you notice that there was another reason for it? Did you notice that when Peter reaches the shore and when he goes back to the boat and he hauls in the many fish, it’s not because Jesus doesn’t have any fish. Notice, Jesus was already preparing a breakfast for them when they landed of fish and bread.
He didn’t need their fish. The feast on the beach is a reminder to them that Jesus is their ultimate provider, as He is our ultimate provider. Before the cross, you may remember, Jesus took the role of servant.
He washed His disciples’ feet. And you might think then that after the cross, after Jesus is raised from the dead in glory and power, that Jesus would be above serving the disciples any longer. Isn’t He now the risen, ascended Lord? Surely now, serving will be one way in Jesus’ direction.
But after the resurrection, Jesus is still serving. He’s not foot-washing. He’s the cook.
And this is even more remarkable given that the disciples have hauled in 153 fish, yet Jesus doesn’t need their fish. He already has His own. He’s got them on the barbecue.
On a human level, it’s a lovely act of care for a group of tired men who have been up all night. But on a spiritual level, Jesus is showing them and us that Jesus provides for us before we provide and produce for Him. In the image of John 6, Jesus is always the bread of life.
And in the image of John 10, Jesus is always the good shepherd who provides for the needs of His sheep, spiritually and in every other way. In a chapter that has an application towards mission, we mustn’t make the mistake of thinking that Jesus is a graceless taskmaster trying to squeeze the last bit of work out of us. One of the great dangers of many people who are zealous to serve Jesus, and that’s a good thing.
It’s a good thing to serve Jesus. But it can easily morph into seeing ourselves as the spiritual providers for other people. And when that happens, when we lose sight of the provision that we are receiving over and above anything else, we start to get exhausted, and even we become resentful, because we lose sight of the fact that we are fundamentally recipients, not producers and providers.
Peter will soon be asked to feed the sheep. We’ll see that next time. But before he feeds the sheep, Jesus feeds Peter.
And yet verse 10 does follow, doesn’t it? Jesus said to them, bring some of the fish you have just caught. That’s a generous way to put it, isn’t it? Bring some of the fish you’ve just caught. Did they really catch the fish? Yes, they did.
With Jesus’ enormous help. Jesus is the ultimate provider, but He does then include us in His great fishing expedition of mission, and He provides for us as we do that work. The first half of John 21 is very reassuring.
It reassures us that we don’t live our lives on our own if we are believers in Jesus. I wonder if you are a believer in Jesus today, because otherwise none of this ultimately can be true for you. But if you are, then you don’t serve Him alone.
And there’s a great reassurance here for your faith. These appearances were compelling, compelling. And it also reminds us that when we bring our full nets to Jesus, He’s already got the barbecue going.
Let’s pray. Father, we thank You that You are the great provider. You give us life and breath and everything else.
We are debtors to You. You are no man’s debtor. We pray that we would see ourselves as recipients of the bread of life, those who have the privilege of being fed spiritually by the Lord Jesus and provided for in every way.
Help us then to take up that privilege of serving Him, of casting the net according to His instruction. For we ask it for His glory and in His name. Amen.
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