Jn.
21:4
Early in the morning, Jesus stood on the
shore, but the disciples did not realize that
it was Jesus. 5 He called out to them,
"Friends, haven't you any fish?" "No," they
answered. 6 He said, "Throw your net on
the right side of the boat and you will find
some." When they did, they were unable to haul
the net in because of the large number of fish.
…
9
When they landed, they saw a fire of burning
coals there with fish on it, and some bread. 10
Jesus said to them, "Bring some of the fish
you have just caught." 11 Simon Peter
climbed aboard and dragged the net ashore. It
was full of large fish, 153, but even with so
many the net was not torn. 12 Jesus
said to them, "Come and have breakfast."
This
is the third recorded miracle in the gospels
involving loaves and fishes. The first two
stories are stories of miraculous provision.
This one is no different. This is also a post
resurrection miracle—the only one recorded. So
this story is teaching us about what is
specifically available to us through the
resurrection life of Christ now, rather than an
example of what He had done on His own by way of
example in the past. This story is specifically
instructive for us today.
This
story of loaves and fishes is a story about post
resurrection colaborship. In the first two
stories, Jesus did everything. Not so in this
story. In this story, the emphasis is on the
toil of the disciples leading to the encounter
with the Lord’s provision.
The
disciples have toiled all night. They were where
only they could be, doing what only they could
do. The night speaks of the season of toil of
our lives. We have labored for so much for so
long, yet in this night season of world darkness
have seen nothing for all our efforts. And it is
not because we are novices or don’t know what we
are doing. We are in fact good at what we do.
These men were professionals in the fishing
industry. They were good at what they did when
they did it.
Nevertheless,
for all the effort, they received nothing for
it—a very poor return on investment indeed. Does
your life seem like that?
But
then, early in the morning, comes the Voice from
the shore. Jesus was not immediate to the
disciples. They didn’t even know it was Jesus.
It was still relatively dark out though the sky
was lightening. They only heard the Voice.
This is the voice of the Holy Spirit after the
night season of toil. It is the first sign of
the breaking of the night and a transition to
something truly productive to come.
And
so it is that, without certainty of Who they are
listening to, yet at the end of their ability to
toil, they obey the Voice—they do the “opposite”
thing, casting on the other side of the ship.
They do the thing they would not have thought of
to do for themselves. And lo, there it is---the
miracle appears. And unlike the first two
miracles involving loaves and fishes, the Lord
has wrought this multiplication through their
own hands, not His. Here, it is only about
obedience to the unknown voice, not watching Him
do something for us.
Finally,
they get to shore. In process of coming to
shore, they have begun to recognize that this
was after all of the Lord. It was the Lord who
had overseen their plight from the beginning.
And in coming to the shore, they are coming to
the Lord. They are joining to Him. The miracle
is leading them to the Lord in His glory and
completion of the story.
See
next that when they arrive at the land, they see
not only the Lord, but that there are already a
set of loaves and fishes prepared for them!
These fishes had been roasting on the fire
already for some time. So the Lord has
been there for some time in the background. He
has known all along what the disciples were
going through out there on the water, though
they could not see Him and had no knowledge of
His presence. (He wasn’t in this boat as He had
been so many times before, yet as in all the
other stories of travail at sea, the Lord was in
the know of their hapless situation.)
Lastly,
Jesus says, “Bring some of the fishes you
have caught.” And it is here we want to
see the completion of this story.
Hear
the emphasis on the words, “you have caught.”
Not “I have caught.” Not “what I
caused you to catch by my miracle.”
He says, “what you have caught.”
This miracle is about what He does through us by
His habitation of us.
This
is the miracle of colaborship. It is a
four phase miracle. First is the phase of night
toil. Second is the obedience to the Voice
producing their catch. Third is the
pre-provision of the Lord’s sole preparation
(this fish on the fire). And fourth is the joining
of the miraculous catch through the disciples
hands to the pre-provided catch through the
Lord’s own hands.
The
miracle of colaborship does not happen in
isolation but in context of process. All four
elements or phases of this miracle were
necessary to the miracle of the Lord’s
provision. And this is how miracles are to be
wrought, expected and realized in the post
resurrection age.
Remember
that stories about loaves and fishes are all
stories of miraculous provision. This is a story
of God’s provision for our lives and how it
comes about. God desires to provide for our
lives through miracles of co-laborship. In the
end, the provision is always of Him alone, but
not of His “agency” alone. He is not the sole
actor or player.
Coming
into the Lord’s provision for our lives involves
the realization of these four phases. There is
the work that we do that produces nothing. This
is not a wasted phase. It is a necessary phase.
God’s miracles come at the end of our
toil. Without the toil first, they do not come.
This is the phase we all hate and want to find a
way around. It is the “death” phase, but there
is no way around it. We have to accept it. We
have to be patient. And we have to come to the
end of ourselves in it. This is just the way it
is.
You
never learn to “bypass” this phase of empty toil
just because you learn about it in an earlier
cycle in your life. You always have to go
through this phase in all your later cycles as
well to get to the next realm of miraculous
colaborship. Because of this, we are
always exhorted to “be steadfast and
immovable, knowing that our labor (toil) in
the Lord is not in vain.”
Then
in obedience to the Voice, the miracle comes
through our own hands. The immediate
provision comes. There are many times at the end
of a long period of toil we finally are led to
something by we-know-not-how, but we take a stab
in blind faith to do something different and
out-of-the-box. And God meets us there. We see a
turning. Something begins to come into us. And
it is amazing. But it does not come until we
have passed through the night, and the morning
is ready to break in His time and He is ready to
Speak the blind word to us.
But
it is the third and fourth phases of this
miracle that are truly amazing. In the third
phase, we see that the Lord has already made His
own catch of fish. God has already
had a provision for us all along though we could
never see it all night. It was already there
waiting on the coals, baking away while we
toiled for our nothingness. This is the
provision all around us of which we are unaware
that totally encompasses our circumstances.
Our
circumstances, which to us seem desperate in the
immediate, are nevertheless hedged in by the
boundless provision of God in every way
imaginable and unimaginable. Those provisions
are hidden to our awareness because of the
largeness of our immediate sense of need. But
all around us, our circumstances are hedged in
by His grace. There are only so many cracks He
allows our desperation to fall through.
But
He does not allow us to be destroyed and totally
wasted. That could never bring Him glory. And
thankfulness helps us realize this surrounding
abounding provision in the midst of desperate
all consuming need until the miracle appears.
But
it is the fourth phase of this miracle where it
all comes together. In this phase, the Lord
joins His provision through our hands to His
supernatural surrounding sovereign provision. He
joins “our” fish to His fish. No one eats until
these provisions are joined! The Lord is waiting
for us to come to shore with His catch through
our hands to join to the catch of His own hands,
to consummate the fellowship of the meal and the
glory of the moment.
This
friends is the pattern miracle of colaborship.
For those of us in the night season of toil, the
Lord wants us to know our labor is not in vain,
but that we are about to hear a Voice at the
break of day. When we hear it, we will respond
to that thought, that idea, that hunch, that
impression. We are to do the opposite thing than
what we would have thought of to do.
When
we do that thing in blind obedience, we will see
the immediate miraculous provision appear. It
will be one so great we cannot contain it.
But
that is not the end of the story for us by any
means. For in that moment of the miraculous
catch, we still will have eaten nothing. The
fruit of that miracle must still be joined to
His Prevenient Catch. We must go to shore. We
will go to HIM in a new way, in a new
fellowship. And when we arrive, we will see the
totality of His Catch awaiting us. And there, we
will join what He has provided through our hands
with that which He had provided through His own
hands alone of which we never knew.
This
is a pattern for miracles here and now in this
post resurrection age, and especially now at the
end of this age and the break of day of the
kingdom age at hand. In a real way, this story
is also a microcosm of our entire life here
awaiting joining to His glorious life above,
where we will truly eat of the fruit of our
lifelong labors in His presence, and enjoy the
return on His investment in our lives now here
below.
