Sunday School | Miraculous Catch of Fish

Alright. Hey. As we get started, we have some sheets being passed out to you guys. We'll explain that in just a second.

You might be thinking to yourself, that's not Tim, and you are right. I'm not Tim. And if you were planning to be here for an hour of Tim's teaching and you realize it's me, Landon, there's always the old trick where you pretend to go to the bathroom, sneak out to your car, and listen to sports radio for the next hour before the second service starts. So that's still an option.

If you've been here the past few weeks, Tim's been going through First Samuel, and we're gonna pause that this week for my sake and for your sake because he's going through that so well. We're gonna let him pick that up next week. We're gonna do a little bit of an aside this week from what he's been going through in class.

We're gonna look at two passages specifically this morning. They're on the sheets that you're getting handed right now: Luke chapter 5 and John chapter 21. These are two passages written by two different authors at two different points in time in two different gospel accounts. But as we look at it, I think you're gonna see there's some pretty uncanny coincidences and similarities.

What we're gonna do is start our time by having you take the next seven minutes at your table. Look at those two passages and come up with as comprehensive a list of similarities as you can. By yourself and with the people at your table, I want you to underline, scratch in some things. Then as a table and discussion group, come up with all the things you see that are the same about these two passages and all the things you see that are different. There's a pretty good list of both. Come up with as many things as you can, and we'll get back together in seven minutes and start discussing some of those.

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Alright. Let's bring it back. John wrote this second account in John chapter 21, and we see some similarities to Luke chapter 5. We know the timeframe is different. There are some people that try to make the proposal that these are the same account, but based on the things we see that are different, we know these are two distinct accounts that happen at two different points in time.

It's also up for debate whether or not John had access to Luke as source material when he wrote it. We're not sure of that. Some people say yes, some people think maybe he didn't. But let's look at it.

Similarities Between the Accounts

So let's start with what's the same. What do we have?

The location. It's interesting because we see two different names, but it's the same exact place. There's also the Sea of Tiberias. Those are all three the same location. So we know it's the same location, the same body of water where this account of a miraculous catch of fish happens.

A failed night of fishing. They've been fishing all night. This is after a failed night of fishing. Both times it's a rough night, and the mood is sour. They've tried to catch fish all night and failed.

The same people. We see some of the same characters in this. Peter's there both times, John and James. The sons of Zebedee were at both. We know Peter is there. There's some overlap and some differences in the crew. We don't see Nathaniel listed in the Luke account, but the sons of Zebedee are at both.

Peter's response. Simon Peter's response to both is that he follows Jesus. In the Luke account, he literally follows him in the duration of his sonship. In John's account, he jumps out of the boat and falls after Jesus. We'll key on that as a difference too, but Peter is following Jesus in both accounts.

Obedience despite failure. When Jesus commands them to do something, they do it. Going back to the failed fishing thing, when Jesus commands them, they obey.

Both times, in two different places, they have to let down their nets. There's this act of faith and obedience based on a command from Jesus, and it results in good things. That's totally a similarity.

There's this huge harvest, this huge catch after Jesus is there. Here's one that I think is interesting and pretty wild about this. If you look at both of these accounts, one is pre-resurrection and one's post-resurrection. But something that's the same about both of these is that Peter has actually seen and interacted with Jesus in both of these accounts.

So if we look at Luke chapter five, a lot of times we think, "Oh, this is Peter's first interaction with Jesus, and he just leaves this boat and goes." But based on what we see in scripture, it's likely that Peter had some other interactions with Jesus before this moment on the boat. And in the same way, if we look at John chapter 21, we know that this is the third time that Jesus has appeared to the disciples. So Peter has seen Jesus before in his post-resurrected state, but for some reason, something just hasn't totally clicked. He's seen him, but he's in this sort of weird limbo. It probably has to do with what happened right before Jesus' death—Peter denies him.

He's a hundred yards away on the beach, and they see him on the beach. But John wants us to know that he recognized him. I think that's interesting as the author. He's like, "I knew."

After both times that they catch the fish, there's a call. In the first one, Jesus calls them to be fishers of men. In the second one, he calls Peter to ministry. We see a pretty beautiful scene following John chapter 21 with the reinstatement of Peter.

In both accounts, you see Peter recognizing his sinfulness. In Luke, he recognizes what he's done and how important Jesus is. In John, Jesus is going to ask him three different times if he loves him. There's almost this like, "I know I'm a sinner" in both of these accounts. The first one we see Peter fall on his face. The second time, we know that he's just denied him three times, and shortly thereafter we see the reinstatement. It's a pretty beautiful scene.

What's Different

I actually think there might be more things different about this when we look at both of them.

Luke was not there. The second one is an eyewitness account. Luke wasn't someone that was in the boat. He wasn't even one of the twelve. But John was there for both accounts. We know that John was there in the first and the second catch.

In the second account, Jesus has his own breakfast. They catch all these fish, they bring them ashore, and then Jesus doesn't use any of their fish. He's like, "I got it. I already got breakfast over here." It's a pretty funny thing.

The nets were breaking in one, and the nets were not breaking in the end. In the first account, the nets begin to break, but in the second one, John makes sure that we know the nets didn't break.

John specifies 153 fish versus just a large catch. This is interesting to me. John makes sure to put the exact number of the fish in there. There's some interesting statements that people make about why he might have included the number 153.

The simplest reason why he included it—Luke is not an eyewitness account, but John was actually there. I think the reason we see John include the number 153, first and foremost, the main thing is this was an eyewitness account. John was there. He's like, "I was there. I counted one by one. There were 153 fish."

There's some interesting things about why that number might have been significant in John's account. In my opinion, some of these are a little bit of a stretch, but here are some thoughts on the number 153 and why that might have been significant.

One thing I read—this sounded a little wild to me—is that at the time of this point in history, it was said they thought there were like 153 species of fish that lived in the sea. So maybe it's this thing of, "Oh, we want to go catch everybody." That seems like a stretch to me.

The other thing that I saw that was interesting about the number 153 is if you look in Second Chronicles 2:17, it's when Solomon is taking a census of all the foreigners that live in Israel as they're building the temple. There's this interesting thing that there's 153,600 foreigners that live in Israel, and it might be representative of how we see that Jesus said the gospel is first for the Jew, then for the Gentile. We see this reflection back to the number. Again, that also seems a little bit like a stretch to me, so I don't think we should take too much stock in those.

What you said, I think we know is John includes it and we know that it's a firsthand witness account. He counted for himself and there's 153 fish. What else is different about this account? I don't know what the significance is, but the fire burning coals—I mean, the breakfast and all that—but that was definitely mentioned and described versus the first. We see more eyewitness details, totally.

What else is different? The Lord Jesus is on the shore again. I think that's huge, right? We see that in the first account, at the beginning of Jesus' ministry, he's in the boat with the disciples. But then in this second account, he's on the shore. He's a little further away, but his power is still the same, right? Like, after a failed night, he's able to perform this miracle where we see a miraculous catch of fish.

I thought it was interesting how John specifically says he's like, "It happened this way," as opposed to "this is a continuation of significant events." He's saying that this was a peak of significance. Yeah, that's awesome.

In Luke's account, we see that there's a whole crowd of people that were there in attendance, and then Jesus steps away as he's calling the few. But then in John's account, he's only meeting with the few. He's really trying to confirm that you're probably recalling the reinstitution of bringing Simon Peter back into the fold, right? Yeah. The reinstatement of Peter. I think that's interesting. In the Luke account, we see that it starts with a crowd and then it dwindles to this scene with the disciples as he calls Peter. And then in this second one, it's just them. There's no big crowd before. It's just them if they've gone out to fish.

Anything else you guys saw that was different? It's minor. I used to think there were different seas, and then like you said, there are three different names for it based on the city that is there. So while they were on the sea, they were in different locations because it has a different name. It might be like the different names have to do with the different parts of the sea that they were in, totally.

Some other things I saw that I'm not sure about: One, in the first account, we see that the boat begins to sink. We don't see that in the second account. Another thing is we see that Jesus, in the first account, tells him to just cast the nets out wide. But in the second account, we see him tell him specifically to put it on one side of the boat. So there's this difference there.

Anything else you guys saw that was different? Peter jumping into the water on the second. Yes. Okay. Perfect. And this is where we want to kind of key in on for the rest of our time.

Peter's Different Response

There's a difference in Peter's response. Both end with him following Jesus, but the first time he falls on his face and he says, "Lord, get away from me, I'm a sinful man. I'm not worthy to be in your presence." But then the second time, he sees Jesus' power displayed in a very similar way, but he jumps out of the boat. John makes sure to point out that they're not really that far from shore. It probably was irrational for him to jump out and try to swim. I don't know how good of a swimmer he was, but Peter couldn't contain himself.

We see in the first account he says, "Lord, get away from me." And then in the second one, he's desperate to get closer to him. So let's talk about that a little bit. We talked about the difference of his response. Why do you think—what are some thoughts we might have? Why is Peter's response so different the second time around?

He spent time with the Lord. Yeah. What else? He's just excited in spite of what he did. Jesus still loves him. Yeah. He's just excited to be with him. Is that what you're saying? Yeah. I think you're exactly right.

He's desperate to be with him. He's spent time with Jesus and we'll talk about that more because I think there's a lot to that—the more he spent time with Jesus, his response changes. What else? Other thoughts on why this response is so different?

Jesus has already been crucified. At the end of the passage it says this is the third time that they had seen him after the resurrection. Just the fact that he's back—they're in awe. A dear friend was lost and is now alive. You can imagine the emotion of Peter, and we'll dig into the denial and the pain it must have been to watch him be put to death and then to see him alive.

Theologically, the understanding of Christ as God as king comes to mind—the shining of Moses on the mountain, just being so godly and unapproachable, versus Christ. He's talking with Elijah and Moses on the mountain and saying, "Make a tent for them. We're gonna dwell here." God come to earth.

So you talked a little bit about the Mount of Transfiguration. We know that Peter's there for the scene where Jesus is in his heavenly state. Let's build a little bit because you talked about how he's been with Jesus over time. This is Luke 5, it's the beginning of the ministry. John 21, we're at the end. So let's build a resume for the things Peter's seen, some of the interactions he's had with Jesus, so we can get a feel for why his response is so different. What are some of the things that have happened between Luke 5 and John 21?

He's seen him walk on the water. He's been part of the inner circle and has seen some of the miracles other people didn't see. Peter, James, and John got this inside scoop and got to see even more than some of the other disciples. They got to watch Jesus calm the storm. They watched him feed the 5,000 and the 4,000. They even got to be a part of the feeding of the 5,000—they're the ones passing out the food and watching that happen. He healed Peter's mother-in-law. It's on a personal level. They've seen Jesus raise the dead and show power over death. They've been in the garden and fallen asleep. That was a hard scene—Jesus was crucified, they knew he'd asked them to stay up and pray, they kept falling asleep, and maybe they felt like they'd let him down. That's a tough scene.

Peter's got a reputation for putting his foot in his mouth. What are some of the scenes where we see Peter maybe fail a little bit? The cock crowed three times and he had denied Jesus. The denial—we'll come back to that. There's this weird, awkward encounter with Peter and Jesus when he offers to wash his feet. Peter is like, "No, no, no. You'll never wash my feet." And Jesus is like, "If I don't wash your feet, then you have no part with me." He's like, "Okay, wash my whole body." And Jesus is like, "No, I said just the feet, Peter."

There's also the scene where Peter gets rebuked and Jesus says, "Get behind me, Satan." Can you imagine what that would be like to be one of Jesus' closest and to have him say that to you? I'd be like, my gosh, I messed up royally.

He's seen Jesus walk on the water, but he's also stepped out of the boat. He gets this awesome opportunity where he gets to walk on water. He says, "Lord, if it's you, then call me out on the water." And Jesus tells him to come and he starts walking, but then he takes his eyes off of Jesus and he sinks into the water, and Jesus rescues him. My favorite thing about that account is what we see at the end of it. I always wonder what it's like in that boat as all the disciples are there and Peter's soaking wet, but he's also just been the only one of them to walk on water. So he's got some bragging rights where he's like, "I just walked on water and you guys didn't." But they're also like, "Yeah, but you sunk, dude. Like, you freaked out."

And at the end of it, they all worshiped. Peter was soaking wet in his failure, but he also worshiped the Lord. Didn't he say one time, "I'll go wherever you go, I'll die for you, I'll do this cup"? He thought he could do what Jesus did. He's the guy who wants to go where Jesus goes. There's a scene where people leave Jesus and he says, "Are you guys gonna go too?" And Peter says, "Where else would we go?"

Jesus cuts that guy's ear off? He's really rash, and Jesus is like, "No," and he heals it. That's a great one. It's kind of not his fault, right? Jesus just gave him told him, "Go get some swords," and then he's like, "Okay, it's time to use it." And he cuts an ear off, and Jesus is like, "No, don't do that."

What I think is interesting is we definitely see Peter get a bad rep, and we see these moments where he seems to come across a little bit prideful. We talked about why these are different. We talked about some of the things that happened in between.

Growing in Understanding of Sin and Holiness

If you look on the back of that sheet, there's this little analogy that I think is really interesting. I stole this from a book called A Praying Life by Paul Miller. So this is kind of an illustration, but what we see is when you said we see Peter's response different, perhaps because he spent time with Jesus and saw incredible things—he's also seen himself screw up.

If you look at it, you can imagine this corner down here as our point of conversion. Those are supposed to be crosses. They're actually plus signs, but that's the best I could do with the clip art that they had on Microsoft Word. It's this idea that this bottom line is our sin and this top line is the holiness of Christ.

When we first come to know Christ, our understanding of our sin is probably not that great. We think we're not that bad, but maybe we're sinners, and our understanding of the holiness of Christ is also not that high. They're like, "Yeah, he's great." The cross is small there, but as we get to know him more, as we understand the depth of our sin and our depravity, and as we also grow to understand just how powerful Christ is, that cross becomes greater.

Peter experienced that. He sees more and more his failure as he has these encounters where he gets it wrong, where he knows that he's a sinful man more and more, and he understands the depth of that. But he also sees more and more of the veil pulled back and just how powerful Jesus is—on the mountain of the transfiguration, as he watches him feed five thousand. We see this grow, and as we understand more of our own sin and more of the holiness of Christ, the cross becomes even greater.

We see Peter's response change where he's no longer saying, "Lord, get away from me," but he understands grace and he says, "I'm gonna jump out of this boat and run or swim towards him."

Peter's Disqualification

I want to key in on something I think is interesting. We know that Peter didn't walk away from the faith. We know that he understands that Jesus still loves him. We see that when he jumps out of the boat and he swims to the shore. But we also know that this is in this weird limbo in John 21 where Peter has denied Jesus three times. Jesus told him he was gonna do it too, and he said, "No, there's no way." And then the third time, he hears the rooster crow.

I wonder, we see this scene at the beginning of it where Peter says, "I'm gonna go out to fish. I'm just gonna go back to my old profession, and I'm gonna go back and fish." So we know that Peter jumping into the water means that he knew that Jesus still loved him, but I wonder if the reason he goes out to fish is he's felt this sort of disqualification, that maybe I'm not any longer good enough to be used by Jesus. Maybe because we know he also knows that Jesus is alive, and this is the third time that he's seen him after he's been resurrected. But we see this weird scene where Peter wants to go back out to fish.

We know that in the scene when Peter denies Jesus, he does it three times. And then at the end, the rooster crows and he weeps bitterly. So here's a question I wanna toss around for a second: What do you think the rooster meant? Well, actually, let me ask this question first. Does anybody have a rooster in this room? Does anyone live near a rooster in this room?

Does the rooster crow in the morning? All day. It's all day. We live next door to a rooster for like a year and a half, and it never stops crowing. So Peter heard the rooster crow a lot of times, right? Ever since this denial. What do you think that the rooster crowing in this season of his life meant for Peter? Does that question make sense?

He reminded him every time. Every time that he heard the rooster crow, it would make me think I have failed. A reminder of a failure. What else? I think it's also a reminder that Jesus knew his failure. He had already said he was going to deny him, and Peter was like, no, I would never do that. So it's also a reminder of like, wow, Jesus knows me better than I even think myself.

I think that's a powerful thing where Jesus called his shot. He knew that Peter was gonna deny him and Peter said there's no way, but he did. What else? So it's not like this very weird thing that everybody notices because maybe it's a common thing then, but for him—even though it's a common thing for everybody else—for him it's triggering.

I think that's brilliant, right? No one else is thinking every time the rooster crows what Peter's thinking, but internally, he's reminded of his failure. Perhaps there's some guilt associated with it where he knows that he denied Jesus in his darkest hour. And it's this internal thing. I wonder if that exists for any of you, and for me in my life—something that's a reminder or callback to a failure or a feeling of guilt or shame or frustration or disappointment where we are reminded of ways that we've fallen short.

We'll talk about that a little bit of maybe what the rooster meant after Peter's restored by Jesus. I think maybe this moment of guilt and shame every time you heard the rooster turned into a reminder of God's grace. I think you're exactly right. Perhaps the rooster is also a reminder for Peter that on his own strength, he's no good. He thought he was not gonna deny Jesus, but he did. But it's a reminder that it's the Lord and his grace and his power that is the only way that Peter is gonna be able to do what he's about to do in his ministry after this.

I thought the rooster is also a good symbol of pride. So kind of that same thing—Peter's pride, whenever it peaks up, is reminding him of his low point. I think in my own life when I just come to ministry and following God and failing—seeing Peter and seeing the same reflected in Peter—it can be kind of confusing, right? Jesus made some big statements to Peter, like, "On this faith I will build my church. I'm calling you to do this great thing. You'll be fishers of men." But we constantly see Peter getting confused. And the powerful and beautiful part of it is how important grace is and the power of having Jesus' presence in his life—it made all the difference, right?

The third time he sees Jesus, he's like, I just—can we just sit and have fish and breakfast for a little while? Because I'm still kind of confused and wrestling with this calling you gave me, but I wanna do it, right? He definitely wants to, right? He jumps out of the boat and he swims to shore. I think that's a beautiful thought—that it could be a reminder of his need for Jesus. Just a reminder that he's in desperate need of him in everything he's gonna do.

The word humility is just so like—the rooster crowing is a sweet thing of humility and giving Peter, and sometimes giving me, the understanding that yes, I too can sin. I too fall short. And I receive that grace and then it makes me try, like, in a similar situation. I remember that and then I'm so relieved that I don't do that anymore. What a gift to be reminded that the grace of the Lord is more than our sin. Where sin abounds, grace abounds even higher.

We have chickens. We used to have a rooster, but we had to get rid of it. The rooster keeps the flock together and keeps them from scattering and helps and protects them. So maybe that's something—the rooster as a shepherd for the chickens. That's interesting. Perhaps that is when you're calling back to your shepherd.

That's interesting. I love that it might be something calling back, and we see Jesus using that rooster as a reminder for Peter.

One more thought: I know you say roosters crow all day, every day, but in movies and books, rooster crowing is like the dawn of a new day—usually right in the morning as daybreak comes. It could be something about a new day, a new beginning for Peter. After the rooster crows, it's like a new day.

Well, I think that's a great segue. If we look at Peter's denial of Jesus, it happens at night around a campfire with a group of strangers. People he doesn't know are associating him with Jesus, saying "you were with him," and he denies him three times. The rooster crows, he goes out, and he weeps bitterly.

There's some interesting comparisons as we look at Peter's reinstatement. If you look at John chapter 21, when Jesus reinstates Peter, we see that he's also around a campfire. But instead of the dark of night, it's dawn—the fresh light of the morning, a new day where he reinstates him. He's not around strangers, he's around dear brothers and friends who've had incredible shared experience with Jesus. And we see him three times give him the chance to claim that he loves Jesus, and he gives him this reinstatement back.

It makes me think of Lamentations 3, where we see that his mercies are new every morning. So I think the comparison of mourning there is a beautiful thing.

Well, he elevated the rooster when he chose him because he could have chosen a lamb or a goat or a donkey, but you can hear a rooster from just about any place. So I think the choice of a rooster by Jesus was because you could hear him no matter where he was. The other animals were more quiet in their stalls, but this one, he wasn't gonna miss it.

That's interesting—that he was always gonna hear the rooster. It wasn't like a quiet animal. You weren't gonna miss it. Every day, every morning as the rooster crows, it's a reminder from Jesus. I think that's great.

Reflection and Prayer

Two thoughts as we wrap this up, and maybe some reflection questions for you too: Where do you go in failure? Are we like Peter in the Luke 5 account where we fall on our face and say, "Lord, get away from me. I'm a sinful man"? Or are we like this version of Peter—further down on this analogy as we see the power of the cross growing—are we people who jump out of the boat and swim towards him, even in our sin, to say, "I know that his grace is sufficient. I know that his grace is enough"?

Because as Peter saw it over and over and over again in his life, every time he failed, Jesus' love didn't go away. He knew that his grace was there for him no matter what.

And then the second is this: We've talked about the rooster. Peter heard that rooster over and over and over again. And at first, it might have been a reminder of his sin and failure, but I think that whoever said it is exactly right—that after his reinstatement, that rooster was a reminder that the Lord is with him, that the Lord loves him, that the Lord's grace is never ending. And what a powerful reminder that would have been.

So what is the rooster in your life? What's the rooster crow—the thing or the place or the reminder of your sin or your shame or your pain, whatever that might be? And perhaps as we run more to Christ, that rooster would transform from something of maybe shame or pain or hurt to a reminder of God's grace.

Lord, thanks for this morning. Thanks for the way that you love us. Thanks for the way that where sin abounds, grace abounds even higher.

Thank you that your mercies are new every morning. — Lamentations 3

Pray that we would not say, "Lord, get away from me," but that we would jump out of the boat and swim to you. It's in your name we pray. Amen.