"An Old Place, A New Beginning"
#92-36Presented on The Lutheran Hour on May 4, 2025
By Rev. Dr. Daniel Paavola, Guest Speaker
Copyright 2025 Lutheran Hour Ministries
No bonus material MP3
Text: John 21:1-19
God's Word for us today is John 21. The disciples went fishing, caught nothing, but then Jesus told them to cast their net again. They took in a tremendous catch of fish. Coming to the shore, they saw Jesus who had prepared a meal of fish and bread. Verse 13 reads: "They knew it was the Lord. Jesus came and took the bread and gave it to them, and so with the fish. This was now the third time that Jesus was revealed to the disciples after Jesus was raised from the dead."
"Let's get back to normal. Let's go back and just start over. Let's just do what we know how to do."
We say all those things at times, don't we? Things haven't gone according to plan and so, we want to go back to doing what we do well. Let's forget trying to make some exotic dish; instead, break out the macaroni and cheese. Let's stop trying to understand some foreign film, using the little Spanish we still remember from high school. Let's watch one of our favorites, a movie that will have you saying five times, "Oh, here, here, I love this part!" Let's just go back to doing what we do.
The disciples at the start of John 21 do just that: they go back to doing what they knew. Peter said, "I'm going fishing." The other disciples that were there said, "We'll go with you." After all that they had been through in these days leading up to and immediately after Easter, we can understand how good fishing sounded to them.
But the surprise of our text is that it was in their fishing they met Jesus again. He met them in the simplest place, in the act of fishing. He met them when they had nothing, but through Him, they had more than enough. He met them, not to be served but to serve them the meal He provided. And in that meal and in that moment, they recognized Him. In that familiar old place of the fishing boat on the sea, they had a new beginning with Jesus. And so, in our ordinary places, where we retreat, Jesus finds us and renews our life with Him.
When do you want to retreat to some place that's familiar and comforting? And where is that place for you? When you need that renewing place, is it reading once again that favorite novel or watching that video where your team won the championship? Is your place being productive; it involves a vacuum and two loads of wash? Or does your retreat mean you get out of town? My escape means getting on one of my motorcycles and riding on old back roads, reliving all the rides that have gone before, and coming home to explain that somehow the ride went a good deal longer than I planned.
I wonder if we especially seek these places as a place to hide when we've failed somehow. We retreat to the smallest place, somewhere where we won't be noticed or, if we are noticed, we've been there so often, nobody pays attention to us anymore. Go to the local restaurant or coffee shop, get the same order, settle into that back booth where you always sit. After half an hour, no one will remember if you came in or not. That's exactly what we might want when yesterday was a failure and tomorrow's not looking much better.
In that hiding place, we don't want to be seen by anyone. So then, is the ordinary place where we expect to be met by God? Maybe not. Perhaps we expect that God meets us only in the most special places, the places that are set apart as His. We can hear God on mountaintops. We can certainly hear God in the worship service in an enormous church, a time and place that reflects the greatness of God. It makes sense that God will find us in the extraordinary place.
But we can also be found by God in the simplest place. The disciples are met by Jesus on the shore of the sea where many of them had spent their lives. They were met during the work that they knew perfectly well—even when the work brought in no fish. They were met on an ordinary dawn without any warning that this would be one of the most important sunrises they would ever see.
But why would Jesus choose to meet the disciples in this ordinary place? In fact, should they have expected, at least a bit, that this would be how He would meet them? In a wonderful way, isn't this the circle we might have seen coming? Where do we first find Jesus, the Savior of the world? The stable and the manger of Christmas Eve is the place He chose to show us His grace and His love for all His creation. He came in that small and hidden way, so we might expect that He would also seek and find us in our hidden places.
Perhaps in those hidden moments, we are like the coin in the parable of the woman who was searching for a lost coin. In Luke 15:8-10, Jesus describes how the woman, having lost one of her ten coins, searches relentlessly for it. She lights a lamp and searches, likely even into the night. Like us at times, the coin is hidden in some small and unlikely spot. The coin has simply fallen to that place, but we seek that place. The coin has no feelings, but we might want to be left alone and remain lost.
But God is a tireless searcher, looking for the lost and He will not stop. Even when we are tucked into the smallest place, He knows us, and He seeks us. We might imagine ourselves hidden but to Him we are found. But everything is clear in front of God. He comes to find us even as Psalm 139 says, "O Lord, You have searched me and known me! You know when I sit down and when I rise up; You discern my thoughts from afar. You search out my path and my lying down and You are acquainted with all my ways."
So God sought the disciples even as they sought a quiet place and familiar work. But the Savior who had called them to be fishers of men—now that Savior was on the shore fishing for these same men. His words cast a line around them; it was a net of His care for them. As the fishermen drew in the fish, the Savior was drawing these men to Himself.
It was that magnificent catch that let them begin to truly see Jesus. When they had caught nothing and when they thought it was an ordinary man speaking to them from the shore, they suspected nothing. But when they began to bring in this tremendous catch of fish, they realized that this was no lucky cast. It was a miracle and a miracle that only Jesus could do. It must have reminded them of the first time they had drawn such an enormous number of fish. The first time it happened, Jesus was in the boat with them, and now it must be Him again standing on the shore. One more time, their fruitless hours of work were filled beyond anything they might have done. Who can bring such abundance? Who can either fill an empty boat with fish or who can fill a crowd of 5,000 and more from a few fish and small bread loaves? Only Jesus can make the little into much. Only Jesus can fill the empty with abundance.
Isn't this the nature of God in so many places and so many times? He cures with the illness itself. The empty nets are not a failure, but they're the very vacuum that the miracle needs. The emptiness of the nets let the miracle be as large as it was. This is a pattern God often uses: God cures with the illness itself. On the largest scale, God cures death by death. The death of God's Son conquers death so that Jesus who dies is also the Resurrection and the Life. His death lets us pass through death so that the day we die, we live again in heaven with Him. His tomb is not the bitter end of life, but the emptiness of His tomb is His promise that our tomb will also be empty, but heaven will be full.
This miracle is a reminder of God's method of healing and care. We see that He turns the problem into the beginning of the answer. It is like the widow's oil, the miracle in 2 Kings 4. The widow had nothing but a bit of oil and many, many debts. She went to Elisha the prophet for help and he told her to gather from her neighbors empty jars. Gather as many as possible and then begin to pour from the little oil she had. The oil poured and poured, filling every empty vessel she had. She had virtually nothing, but she gathered only more emptiness in the borrowed empty vessels. But it was the very emptiness that set the stage for the miracle. But then the miracle filled all that was there. The emptiness was the measure of the miracle.
What a lesson for our own emptiness. When we come to God with our problems, our fruitless work, our worried nights, we rarely see the emptiness as any part of God's answer. We would rather that the emptiness never happened. But God fills our needs no matter what vacuum has been created. As Jesus kindly spoke to the disciples, filled their net to overflowing, so He speaks to us with kindness and assures us that He knows what we need. So Jesus is found in the passing from emptiness to a fullness that only He could produce.
Another unexpected moment comes when Jesus has the meal all ready for the disciples. He has the fire going. He's already prepared fish and bread. What a wonder that He would not only come to find the disciples, but He'd also prepare the meal for them.
Of course, Jesus preparing a meal for the disciples is another way for Him to bring them back in memory to the most important times they've had. They could remember the earlier catch of fish in Luke 5, which happened at the beginning of their walk with Jesus. But they would certainly also remember the gift of the Lord's Supper. Here was the meal that in so many ways summed up their years of following Jesus. Here Jesus gave them not only bread and wine, but also His body and blood, and in so doing, the forgiveness of sins. The Supper expressed the best of their following of Jesus through the years, but it also brought forgiveness of sins, covering all their past. After the Supper, when they fled from Him, denied Him, and then even doubted His promise of resurrection—all that could have been a permanent wedge between Himself and the disciples.
But this meal on the lakeshore was about forgiveness and mercy, not judgment or retribution. So our ordinary meals and also the extraordinary meal of the Lord's Supper speak of God's mercy and His giving that fills our needs. The disciples were empty-handed and hungry before Jesus came. But this meal more than filled their hunger. So God also knows our daily hunger and so fills us with gifts of bread and so much more.
What are the empty places where God finds us? Where are we when God says to us, "I knew I would find you here." It can be the most ordinary place, where we're hidden in a crowd or in the back row of a huge store. It could be He finds us in the hiding place of work where we stay for more hours than what was really needed. All these common places are even more familiar to Him. And it's in those ordinary places He finds us.
So how does He greet us in these ordinary places, these plain mornings? That morning on the seashore He simply told the disciples to let down the nets and then to bring the fish ashore. The text says that "Now none of the disciples dared to ask Him, 'Who are You?' They knew it was the Lord" (John 21:12). What a conversation they might have had, or perhaps they did have later that morning. But we can have that conversation with Jesus. Imagine what the disciples might have asked Him that morning around the fire. And imagine all that He could say to them as their time with Jesus on earth was coming to an end. How many questions about His death and resurrection, His plans for them, and how His kingdom would continue to be known on earth. All these questions were waiting to be asked.
But we don't have to imagine the words and the questions we have for Him. Imagine the calm and quiet of an early morning breakfast around the fire. You know, come summer, my wife and I load up our tent and cots and sleeping bags, and we go camping a few nights each year. In those early mornings around the campfire, when breakfast is done, now we're drinking the coffee brewed in a percolator over the campfire. By the way, I've got the percolator sitting right here on my desk with all the happy memories it brings. I'll tell ya, camp coffee is the best coffee you'll have all year. Now sit back, breath in a little bit of that campfire smoke, smell that wonderful coffee, and let's talk. No rush, no noise, just the crackling of the fire and time to talk.
What a morning thought for us all as Jesus brings this text to life for each of us. I know that your morning is much busier than a morning around a campfire. But there are moments when the Savior comes to find us and says, "Let's talk." Whether it's on the drive to work, when the dishes have to be done, when you're not really watching whatever's on your screen, hear Jesus. In our text, He called to the disciples, "Children, do you have any fish?" and later "Come, have breakfast." Perhaps, to us, he says each day, "Child, do you have any time?" When it's You, Jesus, that we hear, absolutely, we have time. And then when He said to the disciples, "Come and have breakfast," we can hear Him say to us, "Come, let's talk."
What will we hear from the One who came not to be served but to serve and to give His life as a ransom for many? We'll hear the words of forgiveness and love. We'll hear that He has always known us and that He has adopted us as His children before the foundation of the world. We'll know that the day to come is in His hand and the day just finished is covered and cleansed by His forgiveness. And every day is a new beginning with Him. The disciples likely needed a reminder of His forgiveness, His enduring love for them, given the previous days. They needed to start over, and so do we. Every day is a new beginning as He gathers us and forgives us.
That's the campfire conversation we can have with Jesus. It was a wonderful act of His kindness that He gave this to the disciples and so He also gives us that mercy and kindness. He has prepared a daily meal with us, not only the bread of our daily needs but also the time to share with a loving and forgiving Lord. When we want to go back to our most familiar and welcoming places, we can know that Jesus is already in that place, waiting to show us that He has always found us. Amen.
Let's pray: Dear Jesus, You came not to be served but to serve and so You did as You met the disciples and fed them. Remind us that You have found us in our most familiar places and that with Your forgiveness we have a new beginning each day. We pray in Your Name. Amen.
Reflections for May 4, 2025
Title: An Old Place, A New Beginning
No reflection segment this week.
Music Selections for this program:
"A Mighty Fortress" arr. Peter Prochnow. Used by permission.
"He's Risen, He's Risen" arr. Peter Prochnow. Used by permission.
"Jesus Lives! The Victory's Won" arr. Robert Buckley Farlee. From Hymns for All Saints: Lent, Easter, Pentecost (© 2006 Concordia Publishing House)
"Christ Jesus Lay in Death's Strong Bands" arr. Henry Gerike. Used by permission.
"Crucifer" by Sydney H. Nicholson, arr. Peter Prochnow. Used by permission.
"With High Delight" arr. Peter Prochnow. Used by permission.
