THE OTHER SIDE OF THE RESURRECTION
John 21:3-6
Early in the morning, Jesus stood on the
shore, but the disciples did not realize 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."
The post-resurrection accounts of Jesus are hardly a
spiritualized set of epiphanies, ghost stories, as it were, seances with dim
visions into the future or the past. They are told in the most tangible, fleshly fashion possible. They are told around food and drink... They are told
to remind us that this other side is tangible and real, not a ghostly metaphor
but something that lives in living people here and now, and that you do not
have to die to know the resurrected life.
“Children, have you any fish?” “Have
you satisfaction, have you pleasure, have you success? Have you achieved what
it is you spend so much time doing?” You and I know that the answer to that has
to be, “No”. Then what is the response to that? “Try the other side”. Cast your
net in some other area, in some other place. Try something else, something new,
something different, try responding to the invitation that Jesus Christ gives
us. For so many of us, living consists of maintaining unfulfilled lives, doing
what we do because we cannot imagine doing anything else. When Jesus says to
try the other side, he is offering new life to those of us who are trapped in
making a living and not in making a life. He is offering the possibilities of
freedom, freedom from our routine and the captivity of what we’ve always done,
and freedom for a new and abundant life that is full to overflowing.
What happens to our fishermen on the
other side? They are transformed; and you and I are the result of their
transformation. They’re not made over instantly, abracadabra, but they grow in
awareness of self and of Christ. They develop, they become rehabilitated
witnesses of the risen Christ in a fallen world. Peter who denies and lies
becomes his preacher, his martyr, his prophet. The rest of them go on not simply
to glory but to witnessing Christ in the world. They become the community of
the faithful whose heirs you and I are. They live fully before they die
gloriously.
Sermons: Biblical Wisdom for Daily Living by Peter J. Gomes,
pgs.84-85.
