Sermons from Moorpark Presbyterian Church

A Sermon for Interrobang Sunday

by Dave Wilkinson

John 20:30-21

April 22, 2001

"If I were to ask you to describe Easter without using any words -- you could only use punctuation marks -- which punctuation mark would you choose to describe this Easter." That's the intriguing question asked by Joe LoMusio in If I Should Die Before I Live. He writes: "Maybe this Easter is a comma for you. It makes you stop, pause, think and listen, but that's about it. Perhaps Easter is a downer -- a big, bold period. You thought you'd feel excited, but instead it seems like empty ritual. You feel like you not on the inside but the outside an onlooker.

"It was a day that felt like a period for Jesus' disciples. He was dead. He was buried; an end to expectations. But wait news of an empty tomb. The period is no longer a period but a question mark. That is almost worse than a period. Now they are beginning to both doubt and hope. Where is He? They are perplexed. The guards are gone, the stone is rolled away. He is not there. And if not there, where?

"An angel speaks, "Why do you look for the living among the dead? He is not here. He is risen. Remember how He spoke to you while you were still in Galilee, saying that Son of Man must be delivered into the hands of sinful men, and how He must be crucified, and on the third day He must rise again.' Of course they remembered! The periods are gone. The question marks are removed. There is only one massive exclamation point."

But, of course, today isn't Easter. This is the notorious Sunday after Easter. The crowds are gone and we are left to figure our what it all means. This is a day for the symbol called an interrobang an exclamation mark combined with a question mark. An interrobang is used in pointed questions like when your wife asks, "Are you really thinking of going to that football game?" or "You're not going to wear that Ronald MacDonald Tie to worship?" Its a question but it's also an emphatic statement.

Well today is Interobang Sunday. It's an exclamation mark but it alao has questions. This is why John 21 is such an appropriate passage to look at this morning. It is the story of the time after Easter before the coming of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost. This is the time when the disciples ask themselves and each other, "So what do we do now?"

Before we get into this text, we need some background from the other gospels.

According to the gospel of Mark which, you may remember, is actually the gospel of Peter as written by Mark, the angels at the empty tomb told the women: "Go, tell His disciples and Peter that He is going before you to Galilee; there you will see Him as He told you."

Now imagine what those words meant to Peter. We can see him asking, "Did the angel really say me by name?" Remember that Peter had denied three times that he even knew Jesus. Perhaps Peter no longer numbered himself among the disciples. Was this Jesus' attitude? Was Peter the ultimate three strikes and your out? Then came the words of the angel, "Tell Peter." The angel even uses the name Jesus had given him "Peter the rock." Jesus' message through the angel was "Tell the rock I'm alive."

This was the first step in the restoration for Peter. The second step we know only by inference. Apparently there was a private meeting between the risen Jesus and Peter on Easter day. Luke mentions it in the place where the disciples on the road to Emmaeus come running into the upper room with their great news. Before they can say a word they are told: "The Lord has really risen and has appeared to Peter." Paul also refers to this solo encounter in 1 Corinthians 15 where he writes that after the resurrection, Jesus "first appeared to Peter and then to the twelve."

The apparent purpose of this private encounter was the reestablishment of the relationship between Peter and Jesus -- the confession of failure, the conferring of forgiveness, That was the second step in Peter's restoration.

The third step is found in this passage, John 21. This is the public restoration of Peter to a place of leadership in the presence of the other disciples.

The scene opens by the Sea of Tiberius or Galilee. The disciples have seen the risen Lord and have received great promises from Him and have been called once again to His service. But day after day goes by and nothing happens. They return to the old villages by the sea and hear the sarcasm of the townspeople "The great adventurers are back. I always said it would come to nothing."

Finally Peter loses patience with just waiting. They might as well be doing something. "I'm going fishing" he announces. Six of the others volunteer to go with him. It will be good to get back to a comfortable, familiar task and they can use the money.

John records that they get in the boat -- apparently he has a definite boat in mind -- and go fishing but catch nothing all night.

As William Barclay notes in his commentary, "It was certainly someone who knew the fishermen of the Sea of Galilee who wrote this story. Nighttime was the best time for fishing. William Thompson in The Land and the Book describes night fishing. "There are certain kinds of fishing always carried on at night. It is a beautiful sight. With blazing torches, the boat glides over the flashing sea, and the men stand gazing keenly into it until their prey is sighted, when, quick as lightening, they fling their net or fly their spear. But often you see the tired fishermen come sullenly into harbor in the morning, having toiled all night in vain."

As the dawn begins to break, Peter and his friends are close to shore. They see a man on the beach bending over a fire. He turns and looks at them. In a moment he calls out, "Any fish?"

"Nope, not a one."

"Cast your net on the right side of the boat and you'll get fish."

The men look at each other and shrug. "So, what's one more toss?" They heave the net and start retrieving it back into the boat. It is filled with fish -- one hundred and fifty three of them by John's careful count.

Now the catch here is not described as a miracle.

It is not meant to be interpreted as one. The description is of something that still happens on the Lake. Remember that the boat was working close to shore.

A 19th century traveler in Palestine, H. V. Morton, described how he saw two men fishing on the shores of the lake. One had waded out from shore and was casting a bell net into the water. The other man stayed on shore and told his friend which way to cast. He could see through the clear water, a shoal of fish that was invisible to the man in the water. Jesus acted as a guide to his fishing friends -- as He will continue to do as they become fishers of people.

In the gray dawn light they do not recognize Jesus at first. But John has sharp eyes. He turns and says to Peter who is still struggling with the net, "It is the Lord." When Peter hears these words, he does exactly what you'd expect him to do. He jumps into the water and starts to swim to the shore where Jesus is waiting. But before he does this, he puts on his clothes over the loin cloth he is wearing for work. According to Jewish custom, a greeting was a religious act. Performing a religious act required a person to be fully clothed which is why people never greeted each other in the public baths. Peter throws on his clothes and dives into the water to swim to Jesus and greet Him.

Jesus is doing a very human thing. He has made a fire of charcoal for cooking breakfast. He tells the disciples as they pull up on shore, "Bring some of the fish you have just caught." Peter runs to the boat and drags the net to shore.

Jesus now invites the disciples to have breakfast. John mentions no response to the invitation. Instead he informs us that none of them dare ask Jesus who He is. Because they know.

Apparently the disciples don't start eating, for John records that Jesus picks up the fish and the bread and hands it to them. Nothing more is described by John until they finish eating.

Then follows one of the most dramatic encounters in the Bible. Jesus turns to Peter after they have eaten breakfast and asks him, "Simon, son of John, do you love Me more than these?"

Let's look at Jesus' question. There are two ways His question: "Do you love Me more than these?" can be interpreted. As far as the language is concerned, they are equally valid.

It may be that Jesus sweeps His hand around the boat and it's nets and equipment and the catch of fish and says to Peter; "Simon, do you love Me more than these things?" Peter had given up his fishing once before to follow Jesus. Now he has returned to fishing. Is he willing to leave his nets once again and follow?

It may also be that Jesus looks at the other disciples, and said to Peter: "Simon, do you love Me more than your fellow disciples do?" It may be that Jesus is calling Peter back to the night when Peter boasted: "Though they all fall away, I will never fall away." Jesus may be asking, "How is your boast, Peter?"

Peter used to like to make comparisons. He liked it a lot. But he isn't making comparisons any more. He has learned some humility. He replies simply, "You know that I love You."

There is something very interesting here in the words Jesus and Peter use. John is much too careful a writer for it to be an accident. When Jesus asks Peter, "Do you love Me?" He uses the word "agape" which refers to the perfect, self-giving love of God Himself. In a sense Jesus asks Peter, "Do you love Me with a pure, perfect love?" When Peter replies, however, it is with another word for love -- the word "phileo" which refers to an brotherly love, an affection. In a sense Peter replies, "You know that I love you the best I can."

Again Jesus asks Peter, "Do you love Me with a pure, perfect love?" And again Peter replies, "Yes Lord, you know that I love you, the best I can." But when Jesus asks His question the third and final time He switches to the word for love "phileo", which Peter has been using. In effect, He asks, "Simon, son of John, do you really love Me the best you can." Peter replies, "Lord, you know everything. You know I love You."

John says that Peter is grieved because Jesus asks him to state his love a third time. But there is a purpose in it. Three times around a charcoal fire in the chief priests' courtyard, Peter had denied his love for Jesus. Now, three times around the charcoal fire by the Sea of Galilee, Peter has the opportunity to declare his love -- a proclamation to wipe out each denial.

And with each proclamation of love, Peter is given a task -- given a task in front of the other disciples so that they cannot question his calling -- "Feed My lambs, tend My sheep, feed My sheep."

We must note what love brought Peter. It brought him a task and it brought him a cross. Jesus said: "Truly, truly, I say to you, when you were young, you girded yourself and walked where you would; but when you are old you will stretch out your hands, and another will gird you and carry you where you do not wish to go. John comments that Jesus said this to show Peter by what death he was to glorify God.

If we can trust the early traditions of the church, this is what happened about the year 66 A.D. Peter was in prison in Rome for Christ's sake and he was taken out to be put to death. They were going to nail him to a cross. Peter protested that he was not worthy to die the way his Lord had died and asked to be crucified upside down. To this day, the upside down cross is the symbol of this disciple.

Jesus' prophecy is then followed by a call to Peter to follow Him. There is a significant use of the present tense here, "Keep on following." Peter has followed Christ in the past but not consistently. For the future he is to follow steadfastly.

John's focus then turns to himself. Peter turns and sees John and asks Jesus, "And what of this man?" Peter wants to know what will happen to his friend who has been such a support to him following the denial and has taken him into his own house. Jesus replies, "If it is My will that he remain until I come, what is that to you? You follow Me!"

Jesus is Lord and He does not grant Peter an answer to his question. In the fifth book of C.S. Lewis' Chronicles of Narnia, "The Horse and His Boy", the boy Shasta finally meets the great lion Aslan who is the analogy of Jesus Christ. He learns from Aslan the amazing story of his own young life and Aslan's part in it. Aslan tells the story of the boy's beginnings, his journeys, and helps Shasta to understand what it all means. Then Shasta asks Aslan to explain the meaning of some of the experiences of his traveling companion, Aravis. Aslan answers: "I am telling you your story, not hers. I tell no-one any story but his own."

Jesus preserves His freedom and the freedom of the disciples. John is free from the domination of Peter -- even his loving domination. Peter is free from the need to know everything about John. They belong to each other, just as we belong to each other under the Lordship of Jesus Christ -- and that is enough.

At the time of the writing of this gospel, John is living in Ephesus. There is a belief going around that Jesus had promised that John would not die before the second coming. John puts an end to the rumor. He says that Jesus had never said that he wouldn't die. He had only said that John's death or life was in His hands and no particular business of Peter's.

Perhaps, like the Apostle Paul, John dictated his gospel to a secretary. Now, at the close, he takes the pen into his own hand to write these words: "This is the disciple who is bearing witness to these things, and who has written these things; and we know that his testimony is true."

Then he adds these words: "But there are also many other things which Jesus did. Were every one of them to be written in detail, I suppose that the world itself could not contain the books that would be written."

The gospel record is what Jesus began to do. The Book of Acts is a record of what He continued to do. Our lives in this place today are a record of what He is doing even now. With chapter 21 the gospel of John has ended but the gospel itself continues to be written in the life of all who find new life in Jesus -- including us, here, today.

As John wrote at the end of the twentieth chapter; "Now Jesus did many signs in the presence of His disciples which are not written in this book. But these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that believing, you may have life in His name."