'I am going fishing'

“I am going fishing.”

There’s something profound about these words Simon Peter speaks in John 21:3 after Jesus has appeared to the disciples twice, when they are still unsure of what happens next. There is something of resolve and hope in this declaration that brings me to tears.

True, these words echo a resignation, a returning to who he was, but also this time when I read them, there is a forward motion in the words, an energy pulling Simon forward. This time fishing he is changed from who he was when he used to fish, and he can’t un-know the glory he has seen, the love he has known. It is a part of him. He is the same, and different.

Enough waiting, enough hiding and talking, enough stagnation. I am going to do something I love that gets at livelihood, something intrinsic to who I am and who I was, something that is good, something that matters to me, somewhere I find peace and can think and be and trust the Lord to find me. He found me there once. “I am going fishing.”

There is a faith in this line. Faith that the Lord is going to show up and be there, be in Peter’s desire for him, come through and give something new in the familiar.

Maybe it’s no coincidence that the very act of fishing is actively choosing to wait, engaging in activity while simultaneously not. Fishing itself is a paradox.

So they go fishing. This time, the disciples catch nothing in the night. Not unlike the night before they met Jesus, before he sat in their boat to teach.

This time when he shows up, Jesus tells them to throw their net over the right side in order to “find something.” And they do — abundance. Not unlike that day when he first called them.

This time, Simon Peter hears it is the Lord and he jumps overboard, not unlike the day Simon Peter got out of the boat to try to walk on water toward Jesus and sank.

This time, Jesus asks Simon Peter three times if he loves him. Redemption for Peter’s denying him three times, as many chances for Peter to say yes as he said no.

This time, again, Jesus says, “Follow me.” The same call as the first, this time to a new adventure, a new promise, a new unknown. It will demand more of them even than the first invitation, will call on them to use all of themselves, all they were given in those first months when Jesus was visibly present with them, when they lived physically in his midst. Those days were the foundation for what is now.

What seemed like their one great adventure, the fulfillment of who they were and were meant to be, was really a beginning, not an end.