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After the events of the Passover week in Jerusalem, the Apostles returned again to their former haunts and abodes, and particularly to the Sea of Galilee so full of tender memories. It was while they were fishing that the Lord had called them to be “Fishers of Men.” Galilee would now be the scene of the Lord’s last miracle, as it was the scene of His first, when He turned water into wine. On the first occasion, there was “no wine” on this last occasion there were “no fish.” In both, the Lord uttered a command: at Cana, to fill the waterpots; in Galilee, to cast the nets into the sea. Both resulted in a full supply; Cana had its six waterpots of wine with the best wine served at the last; Galilee had its nets full of fish.
The Apostles at the sea on this occasion were Simon Peter, who as usual is mentioned first; next to him, however, is mentioned Thomas, who now after confessing that Christ was the Lord and God remained near to him who was called to be the chief of the Apostles. Nathanael of Cana in Galilee was also there; so were James and John and two other disciples. It is noteworthy that John, who once had a boat of his own, was now in the bark of Peter. Peter, taking the leadership and giving the inspiration to others, said:
I am going out fishing; and they said,
We too, will go with thee.
JOHN 21:3
Though they had labored all the night, they caught nothing. When morning came they saw Our Lord on the shore, but they did not know that it was He. This was the third time that He came near to them as One Unknown in order to draw out their affections. Though they were near enough to the shore to address Him, like the disciples at Emmaus they neither discerned His Person nor recognized His voice, so enveloped was the Risen Body with glory. He was on the shore and they were on the sea. Our Lord spoke to them, saying:
Have you caught anything, friends,
To season your bread with?
And when they answered No, He said to them
Cast to the right of the boat,
And you will have a catch.
JOHN 21:5, 6
The Apostles must have remembered another such command when Our Lord told them to let down their nets for a draught, not specifying right or left. Then Our Lord was in the boat, now He was on the shore. The tossings of life were over. Immediately, in obedience to the Divine command, they were so successful in their catch that they were unable to draw the nets because of the multitude of fishes. In the first miracle of the catch of fishes during the public life the nets broke; Peter, awed by the miracle, asked Our Lord to depart from him because he was a sinful man. The very abundance of God’s mercy made him feel his nothingness. But in this miraculous draught of fishes they were made strong; for immediately John said to Peter:
It is the Lord.
JOHN 21:7
Both Peter and John remained true to their characters; as John was the first to reach the empty tomb on Easter morn, so Peter was the first to enter it; as John was the first to believe that Christ was risen, so Peter was the first to greet the Risen Christ; as John was the first to see the Lord from the boat, so Peter was the first to rush to the Lord, plunging into the sea to be first at His feet. Naked as he was in the boat, he cast a coat about him, forgot personal comfort, abandoned human companionship, and eagerly swam the hundred yards to the Master. John had the greater spiritual discernment, Peter the quicker action. It was John who leaned on the Master’s breast the night of the Last Supper; he was the one, too, who was nearest the Cross, and to his care the Savior committed His mother; so now he was the first to recognize the Risen Savior on the shore. Once before, when Our Savior had walked on the waves towards the ship, Peter could not wait for the Master to come to him, as he asked the Master to bid him come upon the water. Now he swam to shore after girding himself out of reverence for His Savior.
The other six remained in the boat. When they came to shore, they saw fire, fish laid thereon, and some bread, which the compassionate Savior had prepared for them. The Son of God was preparing a meal for His poor fishermen; it must have reminded them of the bread and fishes He had multiplied when He had announced Himself as the Bread of Life. After they had dragged the net ashore and counted the one hundred and fifty three fish they had caught, they were well convinced that it was the Lord. The Apostles understood that, as He had called them to be fishers of men, so this great catch symbolized the faithful who would ultimately be brought to the bark of Peter.
At the beginning of His public life, on the banks of the Jordan, Christ had been pointed out to them as the “Lamb of God” now that He was about to leave them, He applied this title to those who were to believe in Him. He who called Himself the Good Shepherd now gave to others the power to be shepherds. The following scene took place after they had dined. As He gave the Eucharist after the supper and the power to forgive sins after He had eaten with them, so now, after partaking of bread and fish, He turned to the one who had denied Him three times and asked a triple affirmation of love. The confession of love must precede the bestowing of authority; authority without love is tyranny:
Simon, son of John, dost thou care
For Me more than these others?
JOHN 21:15
The query was: “Do you love Me with that truly supernatural love, the mark of a chief shepherd?” Peter had once presumed on the greatness of His love, telling His Master the night of the Last Supper, that even though all others would be offended and scandalized in Him, yet he would not deny. Peter was now addressed as Simon, son of John—Simon being his original name. Our Lord thus reminded Peter of his past as a natural man, but especially of his fall or denial. He had been living by nature rather than grace. The title also had another significance; it must have reminded Peter of his glorious confession when Our Lord said to him, “Blessed art thou Simon, son of John,” and made him the Rock on which He would build His Church. In answer to the question about love, Peter said:
Yes, Lord, thou knowest well that I love thee.
And He said to him,
Feed My lambs.
JOHN 21:15
Peter now no longer claimed any superiority of affection over the other followers of Our Lord, for the other six Apostles were standing about. In the original Greek, the word which Our Blessed Lord used for love was not the same as that which was used by Peter in answer. The word that Peter used implied a rather natural emotion. Peter missed the full significance of Our Lord’s words about the highest kind of love. Peter in self-distrust affirmed no more than a natural love. Having made love the condition of service to Him, the Risen Savior now told Peter, “Feed My lambs.” The man who had fallen most deeply and learned most thoroughly his own weakness was certainly the best qualified for strengthening the weak and feeding the lambs.
Thrice repeated was the appointment of Peter as the Vicar of Christ on earth. Peter’s denial had not changed the Divine decree making him the Rock of the Church; for Our Blessed Savior continued the second and third questions:
And again, a second time, He asked him,
Simon, son of John, dost thou care for Me?
Yes, Lord, he told Him, Thou knowest well
That I love Thee. He said to him,
Tend My shearlings.
Then He asked him a third question,
Simon, son of John, dost thou love Me?
Peter was deeply moved when he was asked a third time,
Dost thou love Me? and said to Him, Lord,
Thou knowest all things;
Thou canst tell that I love Thee.
JOHN 21:16–16
The original Greek word used by Our Lord in the second question implied supernatural love, but Peter used the same word as before which signified a natural love. In the third question, Our Lord used the same word that Peter used for love the first time, namely, the word that meant only a natural affection. It was as if the Divine Master was correcting His own words in order to find one more congenial to Peter and his character. Perhaps it was the adoption of Peter’s own word in the third question that cut him and grieved him most.
In answer to the third question, Peter left out the affirmation of love, but conceded omniscience to the Lord. In the original Greek, the word which Peter used when he said that Our Lord knew all things implied a knowledge by Divine vision. When Peter said the Lord knew that he loved Him, the Greek word used meant only knowledge by direct observation. As Peter went step by step down the ladder of humiliation, step by step the Lord followed him with the assurance of the work for which he was destined.
Our Lord said of Himself: “I am the Door.” To Peter He had given the keys and the function of the doorkeeper. The Savior’s function as the visible Shepherd over the visible flock was drawing to an end. He transferred that function to the head shepherd before withdrawing His visible Presence to the Throne of Heaven where He would be the invisible Head and Shepherd.
The Galilean fisherman was promoted to the leadership and the primacy of the Church. He was the first among all the Apostles in every apostolic list. Not only was he always named first but there was also precedence in action; he was the first to bear witness to the Lord’s Divinity, and the first of the Apostles to bear witness to Christ’s Resurrection from the dead. As Paul himself said, the Lord was first seen by Peter; Peter was the first after the Mission of the Spirit on Pentecost to preach the Gospel to his fellow men. He was first in the infant Church to defy the rage of the persecutor, first among the twelve to welcome the believing Gentiles into the Church, and first about whom it was foretold that he would suffer a death of martyrdom for the sake of Christ.
During the public life, when Our Blessed Lord had told Peter that he was a Rock upon which He would build His Church, He prophesied that He would be crucified and would rise again. Peter then tempted Him away from the Cross. In reparation for that temptation which Our Lord called satanic, He now, having commissioned Peter with full authority to rule over His lambs and sheep, foretold that Peter himself would die upon the Cross. He was almost saying to Peter: “You will have a Cross like the Cross to which they nailed Me, and from which you would have prevented Me from entering into My glory. Now you must learn what it really means to love. My love is a vestibule to death. Because I loved you, they have killed Me; for your love of Me, they will kill you. I once said that the Good Shepherd would give up His life for His sheep; now you are My shepherd in My place; you will, therefore, receive the same reward for your labors as I have received—crossbeams, four nails, and then life eternal.”
Believe me when I tell thee this;
As a young man, thou wouldst gird
Thyself and walk where thou hadst the will to go,
But when thou hast grown old,
Thou wilt stretch out thy hands
And another shall gird thee, and carry thee
Where thou goest, not of thy own will.
JOHN 21:18
Impulsive and self-willed though he was in the days of his youth, yet in his old age Peter would glorify the Master by a death on the Cross. From Pentecost on, Peter was led where he would not go. He was obliged to leave the Holy City, where imprisonment and the sword awaited him. Next He was led by His Divine Master to Samaria and into the house of the Gentile, Cornelius; then he was led to Rome, the new Babylon, where he was strengthened by the strangers of the dispersion whom Paul had brought into the fold; finally, he was led to a Cross and died a martyr’s death on the hill of the Vatican. He was crucified at his own request with his head downwards, deeming it unworthy to die like the Master. Inasmuch as he was the Rock, it was fitting that he himself be laid in the earth as an impregnable foundation of the Church.
Thus the man who was always tempting the Lord away from the Cross was the first of the Apostles to go to it. The Cross that he embraced redounded to the glory of his Savior more than all the zeal and impetuosity of his youth. When Peter did not understand that the Cross implied Redemption from sin, he put his own death before that of the Master, saying that though all others would fail to defend Him, he would not. Now Peter saw that it was only in the light of the Cross of Calvary that the Cross he would embrace had meaning and significance. Toward the end of his life, Peter would see the Cross before him and write:
I am assured, by what Our Lord Jesus Christ
Has made known to me,
That I must fold my tent before long.
And I will see to it that,
When I am gone, you shall always be able
To remember what I have been saying.
We were not crediting fables of man’s invention,
When we preached to you about the power
Of Our Lord Jesus Christ, and about His coming;
We had been eye-witnesses of His exaltation.
II PETER 1:14, 15
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