153 Fish
3 Easter C – 4-10-16 – John 21:1-19
As some of you know, I love our Gospel text for today. The second part – the encounter
between Jesus and Simon Peter – was the text at my ordination. And the first part is filled with
fascinating details, including Peter putting on clothes in order to jump into the water and swim to
shore, and the 153 fish. I love this little detail that Gospel writer John included – 153 fish. And I
am even more fascinated by what people through history have determined that it means.
Saint Jerome pointed to the number as referencing 153 species of fish (which he said were all of
the species of fish at that time), but that was never proven. Just a couple of years ago, a
contemporary theologian named Peter Steffens wrote that 153 was the number of people
groups in the world at that time (that hasn’t been proven either). Saint Augustine found it
significant that 153 is the sum of the first 15 integers. Louis de Montfort linked the saying of the
Rosary to 153 in that everyone should say it 3 times and then 15 sets of 10 times. And the
Saint Paul’s School of London was founded in 1512 “to teach 153 poor men’s children.”
153 is also linked to the Great Pyramid, the square root of three, and a lesser-known
Pythagorean theorem of intersecting circles which form most of the design of the fish of the
early Christian church. One writer even claimed that 153 is related to the number of Jubilee
years between the Fall in Genesis and the boy Jesus appearing in the temple. One of the
worshipers last night said that 153 = 1 + 5 + 3 which is nine which is the perfect number 3 three
times. Some people don’t have enough to do.
Way back in 1991, when I was a freshmen seminarian, Theologian D. A. Carson suggests that
"If [Gospel writer John] has some symbolism in mind connected with the number 153, he has
hidden it well. No symbolic significance for the number of 153 fish … has received widespread
support." I’m with him. Perhaps the number of fish is 153 because that’s the actual number that
were caught.
The number of fish may not be particularly symbolic, but they are life-changing because
catching them (after a night of catching nothing) was a God-given miracle coordinated by a
stranger simply yelling to the fishermen, “why not try the OTHER SIDE of the boat.” And, of
course, that comment by the stranger on the beach led the disciples to recognize him as their
resurrected teacher and Savior. And that led them to bring the boat and the fish and
themselves to the shore for some breakfast with Jesus.
Like the disciples, we have a tendency to forget what Jesus really meant when he promised he
would always be with us. Most often, we don’t look for him or expect him in the ordinary events
of our lives. Instead, we often only look for Jesus when we’re facing the storms of our lives or
undertaking something new and scary, reserving him for when we “really need” him. But Jesus
is there in the rhythm of our ordinary lives. Most of the time we’re just not looking for him.
He is there while we’re fishing or eating breakfast or taking a walk or doing volunteer work… or
tackling the laundry, cleaning out the rain gutters, stuck in traffic, or brushing our teeth.
Sometimes, when I’m at the gym, I put my headset on but don’t play any music. In the midst of
that busy, noisy, smelly place, I tune into the silence to hear from God who is there whether or
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not I acknowledge it. I know others do this in the car, in the house, places where there’s usually
noise.
The disciples weren’t doing anything extraordinary that morning, but Jesus met them and
blessed them where they were. They didn’t NEED the fish for their survival or their livelihood,
but Jesus provided them anyway. In this way, Jesus enters into our ORDINARY to provide the
EXTRAORDINARY.
Everything Jesus did for those disciples that morning, and everything Jesus does for us flows
entirely and purely from God’s grace. The disciples didn’t earn those 153 fish. They didn’t merit
them by their behavior. In fact, if you’re looking at their behavior from Palm Sunday to Easter,
he might give them each ONE fish out of pity. But instead, he forgave them for the denials, the
absences, the doubts, and then helped them catch 153 fish. And he had a longer conversation
with Peter – not because Jesus needed it, but because Peter did.
So let’s think of it this way: If anyone had reason to be upset, disappointed, angry, it would be
have been Jesus. But he doesn’t hold on to the sins of the disciples, he invites them into a new
thing – a miracle of fish and an invitation to dine with him. What does it look like for us—maybe
a positive financial outlook or a renewed relationship or good lab results. Maybe it’s getting a
good parking spot or a phone call from a distant friend or noticing a rare flowering cactus in
bloom. Some of these things are small, others are big, but they are all still miracles! When we
only look for and ask for miracles in the big crises of our lives, we would have missed all 153 of
those fish!
In this place, every week, we pray the Lord’s Prayer. In that prayer, we don’t ask for a million
dollars to use as we please but rather our daily bread. In that prayer, we pray for God’s
presence in the ordinary… but usually our actions are out of sync with that, because we neither
request nor expect God’s presence in the ordinary. It seems easier for us to ask that we win the
lottery than that we simply have enough each and every day; that God will give us our daily
bread. We’re not so different from the Israelites who didn’t want sufficient manna each day,
they wanted so much of it that they could gather it once and store it for weeks or even months.
Part of this is that we (and those Israelites) want to be self-sufficient. We would rather make
one request for a million dollars than a daily request for our short-term needs. Calling on God
daily reinforces that we are dependent on God; that’s difficult because our desire is to be fiercely
independent. Even though we know better every time we’ve failed, independence is still our
goal – from kids who want to be independent of their parents, to adults who want to be
independent of their kids.
Maybe, just maybe, Gospel writer John mentions the 153 fish so that we can remember to keep
inviting God into our lives so that we also can be invited to try the other side of the boat. Amen
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