This Sunday, Confirmation Sunday, we encounter another post-resurrection story. It’s a thicket of symbols and images, like an icon, of the spiritual life Jesus calls us to. It’s fascinating and incredibly encouraging. In John 21:1-14, Peter and some disciples have gone back to fishing. They have left Jerusalem. Life has returned to the ordinary. That’s where they and we meet Jesus.

There are seven of them, a number of completion representing the church since they are in a boat on the water. Water was often symbolic of chaos and danger. They fish at night and catch nothing. Night, for John, represents life without Christ. Nicodemus comes at night in the  darkness, chaos, and confusion. When Judas betrays Jesus in John 13, the scriptures say he left the upper room and “it was night.” When the church, like these disciples, lives in night she is not successful or fruitful. Then they notice a figure on the shore, illumined by the light of dawn. They respond to His command and haul in a boatload of fish. When we, the church, rely on our own powers or secular wisdom, we catch nothing.

But, when we move toward Him, listen to Him, we bear fruit. Dan Allender, who spoke on marriage last Monday, says we are transformed through marriage when in conflict or chaos we move toward the other person. We are either moving against the other, away from the other, or toward the other. The same is true of our relationship with Jesus. Where are you? Are you fulfilling your baptismal and confirmation apostolic vows? Is Jesus illumining your life?

You will notice in this passage that Jesus becomes real to Peter as they bring in the new haul of fish. Just like Cleopas on the road to Emmaus, Jesus is known in the breaking of the bread over the charcoal fire and in the apostolic fruitfulness of his catch.

There are many more areas of this passage we will explore but one more to mention is the charcoal fire. The last time Peter saw one was at his betrayal. Now Jesus is at the fire warming fish and bread for the world offering forgiveness of sins, mercy, and a new life. Listen to how Sister Faustina Maria connects this to our lives past and present:

The full story of our past is only revealed when ­imbued with his mercy, and this is what makes the very things that are most difficult in our history have tremendous value. Jesus is the living embodiment of this: ­coming before the apostles, his resurrected body brightly bore the scars of his death. He shows us that the way to new life is through trusting his unconditional and ­victorious love—both in the forgiveness of our sins and in ­allowing us to see our past in the perspective of his eternal plan. Everything we’ve experienced, seen in the light of God’s mercy, can truly make us rejoice in the glory of God.

Because the Lion of Judah became the slain Lamb, slain from the foundation of the world, we can move toward Him with confidence and trust.

Come and See,

+Philip