Peter is drawn out of his reverie by someone who has come looking for him:

Oh, Hi! 

What was that you said? “I wondered where you had been hiding?”

Well … Hah! You don’t know the truth of what you are saying!

But, let me tell you, if there is one thing I have learned it is this:

There is no hiding

… No escape

… No getting away from it all. 

Some things have just got to be faced up to. 

You can’t avoid them forever… 

Can’t brush them under the carpet and pretend they never happened.

But we try, don’t we?!

Daft as we are, we try!

Do you know, it was just what we thought we needed –

this fishing trip. 

Some time out in the boat

   – a night of adventure and hard sweat –

that should clear our heads and get things sorted after the last few days in Jerusalem.

And boy! Was it good to be home?!

Back on our own turf…

Except “turf” isn’t exactly the right word for it when it’s the steady rocking to and fro of a boat on the waves that makes your heart soar.

For us, it’s always been the sound of the sea birds and water gently lapping that brings peace and that sense of ‘rightness’; it’s the sea-breeze filling the lungs that sets our spirit dancing with the cry: “Yes!   I am home!    I am Alive!   I am free!”

That’s what we were hoping for when we went back out fishing.

It’s what we felt we deserved after all that we’d been through.

And things might have gone that way …if only we had caught something!

But, not a bite all night!

The nets came up empty haul after haul!

So as the first rays of sunlight began to break over the horizon, our load was light as a feather, but our hearts and minds as heavy as heavy can be.

So much for a relaxing break!

The fruitless trip served to hammer home all the more the pointlessness of life now that he had gone…

(Or not gone, as it was turning out!)

To be honest we just did not know what to think anymore,

but the night out on the boat did nothing to help.

We headed back to shore, completely dejected. 

We had failed as people,

failed as his disciples,

and, quite clearly, we weren’t any good as fishermen anymore, either!  

So just what did life have to offer us eh??

Just what, I ask you?!

Now, you know I am impetuous, and it would be oh so easy to jump in with the happy ending right away – but you know all that anyway!   Instead, I need you to come back a bit with me.  Please stay with me as I try and give you the full story.  It’ll be difficult, I know… but you have to journey through my darkness, if you are going to really see the light.

So how did I feel this morning?

Depressed isn’t the word for it!

I was numb…desolate… (what would be the right word for it?)

What I do know, is that my failure at fishing made it all the worse.

I had a deep dark sinking feeling inside.

I felt Useless. 

Fruitless. 

Pointless. 

A failure!

And why did we really go fishing last night?

• To get some air and clear our head? Yes!
• To get back in touch with something old and familiar?   Yes!
• To test out our metal and see if we could still do it, should we have to again, now that things with Jesus were all over?  Yes!  I admit it, Yes!

And yet, while I can’t speak for the others, the overriding motivation for me, I now realise, was in the hope of escape.

To put it bluntly – a ship out at sea was the only place I believed I could face the dawn without having to hear that awful sound of the cockerel.

“Three times” he said “before the cockerel crows…”

I denied it, and argued with everything in me, but he was right.

For all my filibustering, I did deny him.

And every day I awaken to the grating cry of my cowardice and my shame.

So, I ran to the sea.  But the sea wouldn’t hide me.

Instead, we had to endure a long, dark, and depressing night out there.

The breaking light of day came as a welcome relief to some of us.  But for me, the dawn brought no ease or comfort.  The darkness remained inside.

And yet the dawn did bring something new.

A stranger on the shore, calling out to us.

Now, if you ask me why we did not recognise him immediately, then I’ll tell you he was lucky we acknowledged him at all!  We were so dejected. Quite frankly, we might have ignored him completely – his voice drowned out by the preoccupying noises in our weary and confused minds.

That is, if his calling hadn’t made me so angry!

Tiredness had brought my guard down, and he touched on a sore spot for me. My pride. Who was this man to tell me, Simon Peter, the Fisherman, how to do my job?  How could he possibly know better after experienced workers like us had been hard at it all night?  I was ready to give him a mouthful and storm off in a huff, I tell you!

But the others held me back. This man was so calm and commanding – so certain about what he was telling us to do – that just maybe, they suggested, he could see something we could not. Maybe, from his viewpoint, there was another option, another avenue yet to be explored.

So, we had one last go, just to humour him.

And I bet it did humour him, to see us all jumping, so surprised, into action, struggling under the weight, with the rising sound of panic in our voices as we felt so sure the boat would sink!  

Suddenly there were fish everywhere! 

Suddenly everything had turned around! 

And just as suddenly I realised who he was – this man who had called us, and turned our tired and useless labours into a harvest the likes of which we had never seen before!

When John said: “It is the Lord!”  I needed no more.

In seconds I had grabbed my clothes around me and was diving into the water,

heading as fast as I could towards the shore.

You see, in that moment, my heart ruled completely.

Whatever guilt or worry I had felt…

Whatever reaction I may have feared from him…

All I really wanted was to be near him.

And just for that second nothing was going to stand in my way!

And I reckon that Jesus understood this too. 

Maybe it was what he had been waiting for,

because when I ran up to him, panting, in such a soggy bedraggled state,

he laughed such a warm and welcoming laugh,

and I swear he would have hugged me, wet as I was,

if I had not stopped short and turned my head away.

Was it the fire and the cooking, just like in that Jerusalem Courtyard, that brought it all back again?

Or was it the catching of his eye in the morning light – the same illuminated eyes that had looked on me with sadness as the cockerel announced the dawning of that dark morning, just a few days ago?

Or was it the sudden realisation of how stupid I looked, all wet and bedraggled as I was?  

Why did I do that – put my clothes on to go swimming when anybody else would have taken them off?!? 

What was I trying to cover up? To hide? 

Was I, like Adam and Eve, afraid to stand before the Lord, feeling my nakedness and shame?

I do not know…

But I do know that the un-faced truth of my failure and betrayal swept like a dark cloud between us.

Yet here he was, still calling out to me, inviting me, cooking breakfast for me!

How could he be so welcoming, so forgiving, so gracious after everything I had done?

Thankfully he didn’t force the issue.

In fact, I think he gave me a way out for the moment.  When he asked us to bring some of our catch to add the fish that was already sizzling on the fire I was back in the boat in an instant, dragging the net out, glad to be busy and distracted.  And yet, once again, I realise I was hiding…  trying to escape… avoiding the very thing I knew had to be faced.

We all gathered round the fire, his presence impressing itself on us so strongly, that we hardly dare speak.  Reluctantly, I re-joined the circle, trying so hard to avoid his gaze.  

Then, I just could not believe it when he came and served each one of us with fish and bread. 

Yes – once again, he offered us bread!  Just as in the upper room – where he so knowingly told me I would deny him – he offered me bread! 

And when I took it, I finally realised there was no need for hiding anymore.

“Peter, do you love me?”

“Lord, you know that I love you!”

It was no grand pronouncement this time, claiming to love him more than all the others.  That myth had well and truly been debunked!  I had no pride left to stand on.

He did not rub things in, or point an accusing finger, or even insist on dragging up all the ugly past that we both knew stood between us.  Quite simply he repeated the one question that mattered over and over again; Once for each time I had failed him so badly.

“Peter, do you love me?

‘Lord you know that I love you!!!!’

And when I near enough shouted it at him the third time, I knew it too!

He drew it out of me and caused me to face it.

Bottom line: I love him

Whatever else there is: I Love him!

How ever much I have failed him: I love him!

And this is all that matters to him!

That I love him,

That I love him

That I love him who first and foremost loves me!

And that leads me on to one more thing I now realise I cannot escape from:

Responsibility!

No – not responsibility for what I had done,

but responsibility for what I must now do!

You see, now that we know that Jesus is alive, everything is changing!

We have to accept that, if we are to live in the new life he gives us,

Then everything will be radically different.

But that means we have to draw the line somewhere, and choose to start again.

It means I have to let go of the past and embrace the future.

I have to move on.

However painful a business that may be, I have to move on.

“Peter, do you love me”

“You know that I love you”

“Then feed my sheep!”

Sheep!  

But I don’t know a thing about sheep!

I am a fisherman, not a shepherd!

Yet there can be no return to fishing for me now! 

I cannot hide in the past,

Or bury my head in cosy familiarity.

I have got to change!

I have got to learn!

I have got to become something new myself.

And this is so scary!

I liked the old me!  I was at ease with the old ways!

But they are not ‘me’ anymore, are they?

I cannot avoid this.

I have to accept change – welcome it, even –

And stride out in faith, following him!

And while I heard what he said when he warned that this road will lead me to a place where I will be tied and bound and not able to escape even if I want to, that does not scare me anymore.

I must say, I have never felt freer or more fulfilled at any time in my life than I do now!

You see, I thought it was my failure I was hiding from;

but really it was my love!

I thought I would find peace in escaping;

Instead, I find it in accepting his call!

Now then, You came looking to see where I was hiding.

Well let me tell you, there will be no more hiding anymore!  

Instead, I am going to face up to my failure,

admit my love,

rise to his challenge

and live like I’ve never lived before!

…LIVE like I’ve never lived before!

And what about you, my friend?

What about you?