I have to admit that I have never been a big fan of fishing. I’ve tried it, but just don’t enjoy it, and I suppose that’s because I tend to be a little impatient sometimes. The idea of throwing a line into the water and waiting for some fish to bite is – well, just not that exciting to me. Now I don’t mind if others want to go fishing and give me some fish to eat – as long as they’ve cleaned them and perhaps even cooked them – but just sitting and waiting in a boat or on the bank of a lake just doesn’t excite me. But I do like to listen to good fish stories. Stories that are – well, shall we say – embellished just a little bit. Someone once said that nothing grows faster that a fish from the time that it bites until the time that it gets away.
A lot of people view today’s Gospel lesson as just a big “fish story” – a tale that’s embellished to sound a lot more important than it really is. Specifically, a lot of people get so wrapped up in details – details that really don’t mean all that much – that they miss the point of what St. John is telling us here.
Specifically, for almost 2,000 years, people have been arguing about these words: “So Simon Peter went aboard and hauled the net ashore, full of large fish, 153 of them.” Almost from the day when John first wrote his Gospel, people have been trying to figure out some special or hidden meaning in the number “153.” One once-popular theory is that there were exactly 153 species of fish in the Sea of Tiberias, so the net actually held one each of every type of fish that could be found there. Since no one knows how many kinds of fish live in the Sea of Tiberias 2,000 years ago, that one seems pretty far-fetched.
A second theory is that the disciples later counted the fish so that they could divide them up for sale. That could be the case – but even then, the number 153 doesn’t seem to really apply to anything else in our Gospel lesson. In this case the number 153 seems to be nothing more than a piece of trivia that we don’t need to read or hear. You may wonder why John even bothers to mention it.
Now we know that sometimes numbers in Scripture are important. Take the number 40, for example. At the beginning of the flood, it rained for 40 days and 40 nights. Moses spent 40 days on Mount Sinai when God gave him theb10 Commandments, and the Children of Israel wandered in the wilderness for 40 years before entering the Promised Land. King David ruled Israel for 40 years, and his son Solomon was Israel’s king for another 40 years. Jesus was tempted in the wilderness for 40 days. Jesus ascended into Heaven 40 days after His resurrection. Forty seems to be one of God’s favorite numbers.
But the number 153? Well, that’s a tough one. The number 153 never appears anywhere else in the entire Bible – Old and New Testaments alike.
We’ll return to the number 153 in a few minutes – but first, let’s go back and look at our Gospel lesson and focus on those words that really are important. Listen again to verse 1: “After this Jesus revealed Himself again to the disciples by the Sea of Tiberias, and he revealed himself in this way.” Now listen to the final verse of today’s lesson: “This was now the third time that Jesus was revealed to the disciples after he was raised from the dead.” The first time, of course, was on Easter evening in the locked room. The second time was one week later – in that same locked room – when Jesus showed the wounds in His hands, feet and side to “doubting Thomas.” And now Jesus reveals Himself to the disciples for a third time. He again reveals Himself as the resurrected Christ – He’s a living, breathing human being who eats the same fish and bread that is eaten by the other living, breathing human beings in our lesson – the disciples.
Of the seven disciples who saw their risen Lord on that morning, at least three – Peter, James and John – were commercial fishermen. Before they began to follow Jesus, they made their livelihoods by catching and selling fish. According to both Matthew and Mark, Jesus saw James, John, Peter and Peter’s brother Andrew as they were fishing one day and called them with these simple words: “Follow me, and I will make you fishers of men.” They almost certainly didn’t have a clue what Jesus meant by those words, but they did follow Him. They became His disciples. The Greek word for “disciple” can also be translated as “learner” or “student.” For a little over three years, the 12 students would follow Jesus and listen to His teachings as he taught them to become fishers of men. They were learning how to spread the Gospel, the good news about Jesus Christ, the Son of God. But they weren’t always the best of students. Often they didn’t understand what Jesus was doing or saying. In fact, even though Jesus had repeatedly told his students that He was going to suffer, die and be raised from the dead, they didn’t understand any of this until the risen Jesus revealed Himself to the disciples on Easter evening. They didn’t understand anything until Jesus revealed Himself to them as their risen Lord.
Think about this for a second: even the disciples – the men closest to Jesus, who had lived with Jesus for over three years and had walked virtually the length and breadth of Israel with Him – cannot know Jesus until He chooses to reveal Himself. We believe – and the entire history of the world supports us on this – that mankind, in our sinful condition, somehow realizes the existence of a god. Since the beginning of the world, people have believed so strongly in the existence of a god that in the absence of any true and correct knowledge they simply made their own gods up. They created idols – they created myths. They prayed to those idols and they worshipped those myths. But until and unless the true God – the Triune God of Father, Son and Holy Spirit – was revealed to them, they couldn’t know Him. And it’s really no different today.
We can and certainly should thank our loving God that he has revealed Himself to each of us and to so many, many more Christians today and years past. But God has to reveal Himself to us – we can never find Him on our own. I’d like you to think back to your Catechism Class days, no matter whether you were confirmed as a youth or as an adult. Although there have been minor wording changes over the years, listen again to Luther’s explanation of the Third Article of the Apostles’ Creed: “I believe that I cannot by my own reason or strength believe in Jesus Christ, my Lord, or come to Him; but the Holy Spirit has called me by the Gospel, enlightened me with His gifts, sanctified and kept me in the true faith.”
When Jesus revealed Himself to the disciples by the Sea of Tiberias, the time that He would be spending with the disciples here on earth was drawing to a close. It wouldn’t be long before He would ascend into Heaven, just after he commanded them to “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you.” Following Jesus’ ascension, the disciples did exactly what Jesus commanded them to do – they spread out to the ends of the then-known world, proclaiming the good news that Jesus Christ, the Son of God, had suffered and died for the sins of all people – and had been raised from the dead so that all believers could likewise be raise from the dead. Jesus continues to be proclaimed – and revealed – when the Word is rightly preached, when the Sacraments are rightly administered – and when the Holy Spirit continuously and continually brings more and more and more people to faith.
So what does the number 153 really mean in today’s Gospel lesson? I’ll let you in on a little secret. It’s just a number. A number not representing any specific meaning – but representing the fact that as long as fishers of men like the disciples and you and me continue to spread the Gospel, then the Holy Spirit will bring more people to faith. More people will be saved. More people will confess Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior. The Christian Church – including those who have come before us, those will come after us and those of us who are here right now – will grow and grow and grow. We have been caught in the net of Christ’s love and forgiveness. Like the net of our Gospel lesson, Christ’s net can never tear – it can never break. We have been caught. And we are His.
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