After Jesus’ resurrection, Peter and the disciples see him. They actually see him. Not his spirit, not his apparition. They see him in the body and fully alive. They’re sitting right there in the room when Jesus tells Thomas to reach out and feel the holes in his hands and side.
One of my favorite moments in Scripture is how Thomas responds.
This is the guy who had doubted when the other disciples said Jesus had already appeared to them once. Yet when Jesus appears a second time to the disciples with Thomas present, Thomas does not reach out and rub an index finger around the rim of a nail hole and say, “Oh, look at that wound!” Instead, the only reaction Thomas can muster is spontaneous. “My Lord and my God!” (John 20:28).
Chill bumps.
Yet just a few days after watching this scene, Peter turns to some of the same guys and says, “I am going fishing” (John 21:3). I went away for a while on that verse when I first read it.
How do you just go fishing, with the resurrected Jesus popping in and out? Peter had not fished since the biggest payday of his career. In Luke 5, we read of Peter toiling all night without catching anything when Jesus tells him to try again. Peter is skeptical, but he does it anyway because that’s what fishermen do. They hope beyond hope and get superstitious. Jesus gets supernatural. Peter catches so many fish that the nets start to snap.
That day, Peter leaves his nets and follows Jesus into ministry.
Peter never could have imagined what happens next. The blind receive sight. The deaf hear the voices of loved ones. The lame walk. The mute speak. The dead breathe again. People with leprosy — the nastiest, stinkiest, most contagious outcasts of society — see their skin restored. We don’t even know what real leprosy looks like in America. Back then, noses fell off people’s faces.
People from all around want to follow this man with whom Peter gets to spend all of his time. He sleeps beside him. He eats beside him. He laughs and jokes and cuts up with him. He realizes this man is the Christ.
In Matthew 16:13 – 20, when everybody else tries to guess aloud who Jesus really is, Peter is the only one who steps up with boldness and understanding when Jesus asks, “Who do you say that I am?”
“You are the Christ,” Peter says, “the Son of the living God.”
Jesus, the God-Man, looks at Peter and says, “On this rock [that is, on the truth you just pronounced] I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.”
Can you imagine Peter’s reaction? He probably turned off to the side, pumped his fist, and said under his breath, “Yes!”
John and Andrew and the other guys probably looked down at the ground and muttered, “Stupid. I’m so stupid. I said Elijah. Really? Elijah?”
Peter got to do things no one else got to do, or maybe just one or two others got to do. He got to walk on water. He got to see Jesus transfigured. He got to drive out demons in Christ’s name. He was the obvious leader of the disciples, the first one mentioned in all the lists of their names. He got to do all the cool stuff.
But when Jesus was on trial and the Jewish leaders started looking for the disciples, the first one people singled out was Peter. He denied Christ three times in a matter of minutes, just as Christ had foretold. While Jesus was being beaten, spit on, tossed around, mocked, taunted, and questioned, Peter cowered before a teenage girl who recognized him as a friend of the guy they were pummeling inside.
Peter got scared, because that’s what people do. We’re weak. As long as we have this skin on, we’ll do some of the dumbest things imaginable.
In that one moment, when all eyes were on him, Peter choked. Three times. The last of the three times he even called down curses on himself.
One of the Gospels says that Jesus looked at Peter. Peter was on one side of the yard trying to run away as guards dragged Jesus from one building to the next, and their eyes met (Luke 22:61).
What did Jesus’ eyes say? I’m certain he did not give Peter a look of scorn, condemnation, or contempt. I think his eyes wept for Peter. I think he pitied this man who was so full of human limitations.
I can’t even imagine how Peter felt about this.
Or can I?
On a smaller scale, I’ve had that moment. I’ve drifted plenty of times. I’ve been out in the world and doing my own thing for my own purposes, knowing all along I was wrong. I’ve wondered to myself, How did I ever get this dumb? How did I ever get this far away and do the thing I just did? Good gracious, I remember when I prayed and cried down at the altar, and I told God I’d go to China as a missionary for the rest of my life. And now I’m a mess and doing stupid stuff.
Then I went to church and wanted to worship again, but all I could think about were the dumb things I’d done and the guilt on my head. I tried to sing songs about a holy, holy God, but all I could think about was unholy, unholy me. That’s a nasty place to live.
When I fail, the Enemy lies to me. He wants me to remain a failure. “Are you sure you’re even saved? Look at what you’re doing.”
He wants me out of the Word and into the mirror. If Satan can get me out of the Word to focus on my circumstances and on myself, he can mire me in numbing guilt and neutralize me. I recognize that, despite trying to live for Jesus, I’ve failed badly. Before long, I decide, Oh, well. I guess that was my shot.
But God is always faithful. He’s always waiting on the shore, calling out to me.
I may have tripped a thousand times and stumbled back into church, but every time, Jesus has waited on me. A song hit me. A verse pierced me. A prayer crushed my heart. In some way, God spoke to his wayward child, and it was like Jesus locked eyes with me. All I could do was think, What am I doing?
I believe this is the explanation for Peter’s fishing trip in John 21.
Remember, at this point the risen Christ has appeared to Peter one-on-one and then appeared at least two other times to the disciples in hiding. So at this point Peter has seen him three times.
For a while, I asked myself why Peter wanted to go back to fishing. It seemed odd. Then I remembered the scene where Jesus turned and caught Peter’s gaze after his third denial. In that moment, I believe Peter thought, That was my shot. I just blew everything.
I think Peter numbed out. I think he checked out on life. I think even three appearances of the risen Jesus didn’t shake him from the suffocating guilt of going back on his own word and denying Jesus not once, not twice, but three times. I think Peter went back to the only thing he thought he was worthy of — his old life.
Just when we’re starting to thrive, the Enemy will try to derail us. He’ll throw our past at us. He’ll bring obstacles right now. He’ll make us doubt our future. He’ll even make us doubt whether all of this is real and whether we really belong to God. Sometimes, just like the freshmen who became known as the Mighty Men, we’ll want to quit. Jesus always comes looking for us.
In John 21, Peter and a few of his disciple buddies are back on the water for the first time in about three years when a man on the shore yells out, “Hey, have you guys caught anything?”
“No, we haven’t caught anything all night.”
“Well, cast on the other side, and you might find something.”
Peter hauls in the second biggest payday of his career. Once again, he leaves it behind, jumps in the water, and swims a hundred yards to get to Jesus again.
What Jesus began with his compassionate eyes after Peter betrayed him, he finishes on the shores of Galilee with a beautiful restoration of his guilt-ridden friend. That’s why I wrote a song called “This Is Now.” It reminds us that John 21 is what Jesus does for all of us.
Just when I thought my sin had closed the door
I see my Savior standing on the shore
With arms wide open
Just like the first time
You called my name
Even when we do the worst we can possibly do, Jesus catches our gaze. And he says, “You don’t have to start again for me; I’ll start over with you.”
Point to Remember
Even when we stumble, Jesus is always ready to begin again.