I'm Going Fishing

   Back in 2004, like many others our congregation read The Purpose Driven Life and saw the movie The Passion of Christ. It is no wonder that the message we received Palm Sunday was that the purpose of Christ's Passion is to bring praise to our Father and His. Remember the moment when Jesus dropped the cross on the Via Dolorosa? His mother ran to him and he looked up and said to her, "Behold, I do a new thing!

    "Behold, I will do a new thing; now it shall spring forth; shall ye not know it? I will even make a way in the wilderness, and rivers in the desert." -Isaiah 43:19

That moment in the film punched through to us a powerful point. Jesus embraced the cross. He was a proud son telling his mommy, "Look, Mom! This is my cross. This is mine! I'm going to make a new world!"

   Jesus was praising his Father for making it all possible. In his pain, he praised. How is the cross going to form our praise today? What is cruciform praise?

It would be more than a song, it would be an action.
It would involve service.
It would mean sacrifice.
It would be redemptive.

   What redemptive could God be calling you to go and do today?

   If we were to look at the Resurrection of Jesus with purpose-driven eyes, what would we see? Peter himself did not seem to know his purpose at first, or that is what it seems in the last chapter of the Gospel of John. Peter didn't seem to know what to do with himself. He told his friends that he was going fishing. Seems like he would have been able to come up with something better suited towards achieving world wide evangelism than that, but there it is. Good thing for the world that Jesus was not going to let the disciples flounder.

   "As the day was breaking, Jesus stood on the beach." He was watching Peter, alright. Since Jesus had a plan all along, instead of condemning Peter he called out, "Children [note the kindness], have you any fish?" Jesus knew they hadn't caught any fish yet; the object lesson is coming. "No fish? Cast your nets on the other side." This they did, and they were rewarded immediately, catching so many that their nets almost burst.

It was at this point that Peter recognized his Lord and swam to shore. There fish were already roasting over a charcoal fire. "Jesus said unto them, 'Bring of the fish which ye have now caught." ( John 21:10)

We see here that Jesus wants us to go and cast nets. He guides our fishing if only we will. That there were already some fish caught, cleaned and cooking shows that Jesus is truly in charge, not dependent on us, but LORD.

   Casting nets is, of course, a picture of Jesus' followers taking souls in gospel nets, not to be destroyed but to be saved. When thinking about fishing for men, our memories may turn to Luke 5, but we can also look in the Old Testament. "And it shall be that every living thing that moves, wherever the rivers go, will live. There will be a very great multitude of fish, because these waters go there; for they will be healed, and everything will live wherever the river goes. "It shall be that fishermen will stand by it from En Gedi to En Eglaim; they will be places for spreading their nets." Ezekiel 47:9-10

    I could explain that the last two Hebrew names are places on the shore of the Dead Sea, which is about the deadest place you could ever set eyes on. For one thing, it is one of the lowest places on earth, there is nothing green or alive as far as you can see, there has not been a fish in that sea since the time of Abraham. To think of that place being alive with fish, a place to spread your nets is unthinkable, except for the One who raised Jesus from the dead! (By the way, one of the reasons the Dead Sea died is that while a river flows in, not a trickle flows out)

     "There was water, flowing from under the threshold of the temple toward the east. (Eze 47:1) In Jerusalem one day Jesus had said, "Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up." And John said parenthetically, "But He was speaking of the temple of His body. Therefore, when He had risen from the dead, His disciples remembered that He had said this to them; and they believed the Scripture and the word which Jesus had said." John 2:19-22

    The River of Life has so much life because it flows out of Jesus! In heaven, not only interceding for our lives and health, Jesus means to heal the whole world, and so he sends the Spirit of God, empowering us to Go! Teach! Baptize!

   God's Word has so many delights. How I wish the world could see how the Gospel of John sheds light on Ezekiel and vice versa! It will if we can get over our shyness.  A member remarked that our only fear of witnessing is that of embarrassment, not persecution. The obvious point is that we need to stop singing hymns like "Lift High the Cross" if we can't even endure embarassment.

   If we would not be afraid that someone might think we were some kind of religious kook, we could tell them that they could come, see and they could experience the healing we all know we have received from drinking the water of life. Let's see, carefully weighing this issue, on the one side, the possibility of embarrassment, and on the other, someone has serious unmet needs. I don't know, that might be too close to call, eh?

   Look in the mirror. Face the truth. We are kooks! Why should we care what people think? Go fish. If not you, who? If not now, when? Let's see who has the biggest catch.

    Remember, this post-Easter fishing trip shows shy, would-be evangelists how Jesus told the disciples where to fish. Peter thought he knew all about it, but Jesus gently corrected him. If you think you've tried evangelism, really tried, but never caught any fish, consider if this story is not addressed to you. Jesus is saying, "You've tried it your way, now try it mine. Let my River of Life sweep over you, clean you and fill you with my Spirit, and I will give you a new net, a gospel net. I will show you where to stand and throw it out, and I will help you gather it in."

-Eric Swensson