Day 25 — The Gospel of John: The Word Became Flesh

Today’s Passage: John 21

The Gospel has reached its end, and then there is one more morning. Seven disciples fish through an empty night, a stranger calls to them from the shore, and all at once the net fills. On the beach there is a charcoal fire, the same kind of fire beside which Peter once denied Him. Then come three questions and three commissions, until the whole scene gathers into a single charge: Feed My sheep. The 153 fish are counted by a man who was there, a tally rather than a riddle to decode. The last word of the Gospel turns out to be the first word Jesus ever spoke by this same sea: Follow Me. Read it as the risen Shepherd restoring the man who failed and putting him back to work.

As you read, hold this: Feed My sheep.

John 21:1–8 (BSB)

¹ Later, by the Sea of Tiberias, Jesus again revealed Himself to the disciples. He made Himself known in this way: ² Simon Peter, Thomas called Didymus, Nathanael from Cana in Galilee, the sons of Zebedee, and two other disciples were together. ³ Simon Peter told them, “I am going fishing.” “We will go with you,” they said. So they went out and got into the boat, but caught nothing that night. ⁴ Early in the morning, Jesus stood on the shore, but the disciples did not recognize that it was Jesus. ⁵ So He called out to them, “Children, do you have any fish?” “No,” they answered. ⁶ He told them, “Cast the net on the right side of the boat, and you will find some.” So they cast it there, and they were unable to haul it in because of the great number of fish. ⁷ Then the disciple whom Jesus loved said to Peter, “It is the Lord!” As soon as Simon Peter heard that it was the Lord, he put on his outer garment (for he had removed it) and jumped into the sea. ⁸ The other disciples came ashore in the boat. They dragged in the net full of fish, for they were not far from land, only about a hundred yards.

The scene shifts from the locked room in Jerusalem back to the open water of Galilee, where it all began. Seven disciples are gathered, and John names them almost like a roll call of the Gospel’s earliest pages. Peter says, “I am going fishing,” and the others follow. Whether that is restlessness, provision, or a slide back toward the old life, John does not say. He records the result and leaves the motive alone: they worked all night on their own and the nets came up empty.

Then dawn comes, and a figure stands on the shore, unrecognized, as the risen Jesus often is at first. His address is tender: Children. At His word the net fills past hauling, detail for detail the miracle of Luke 5, and what it taught them on the first day it teaches them again on this last morning. Apart from Me you can do nothing (15:5). One sentence from the shore turns a barren night into a net too full to lift.

The two men who run through John’s resurrection chapters behave in character. The beloved disciple sees first: It is the Lord! Peter will not wait for a boat to cover a hundred yards; he is over the side and in the water. This is the same Peter who denied Him, and at the news that the Lord is standing on the beach he cannot reach Him fast enough. His love had failed in the courtyard and it was still alive enough to put him in the sea. The others come more soberly, dragging the heavy net, and there are two ways of coming to Him that morning, the headlong plunge and the steady haul, and both of them arrive.

John 21:9–14 (BSB)

⁹ When they landed, they saw a charcoal fire there with fish on it, and some bread. ¹⁰ Jesus told them, “Bring some of the fish you have just caught.” ¹¹ So Simon Peter went aboard and dragged the net ashore. It was full of large fish, 153, but even with so many, the net was not torn. ¹² “Come, have breakfast,” Jesus said to them. None of the disciples dared to ask Him, “Who are You?” They knew it was the Lord. ¹³ Jesus came and took the bread and gave it to them, and He did the same with the fish. ¹⁴ This was now the third time that Jesus appeared to the disciples after He was raised from the dead.

They land to find breakfast already prepared: a charcoal fire, fish, and bread. One word in that list does the damage, because the only other charcoal fire in John is the one in the courtyard where Peter warmed his hands and lied. Jesus has built the scene of the fall again and made it the place of restoration. He provides His own food and then asks for the fish they caught at His word, so that grace gives first and then draws their work into the meal. Peter hauls the net ashore: 153 large fish, and the net was not torn. A man who was there counted them, and that is all the number has to be. The net that held under that weight is the detail John presses, because the flock the gospel gathers will hold too.

“Come, have breakfast.” The risen Lord of glory cooks fish over coals and serves His friends with His own hands. Nobody dares ask Who are You? They know, and the knowing is too holy for small talk. Taking the bread and giving it to them echoes the feeding of the five thousand and the last supper, the same hands doing the same thing. He feeds Peter a meal before He asks Peter a single hard question, which is the order grace keeps here: the table first, then the assignment.

John 21:15–17 (BSB)

¹⁵ When they had finished eating, Jesus asked Simon Peter, “Simon son of John, do you love Me more than these?” “Yes, Lord,” he answered, “You know I love You.” Jesus replied, “Feed My lambs.” ¹⁶ Jesus asked a second time, “Simon son of John, do you love Me?” “Yes, Lord,” he answered, “You know I love You.” Jesus told him, “Shepherd My sheep.” ¹⁷ Jesus asked a third time, “Simon son of John, do you love Me?” Peter was deeply hurt that Jesus had asked him a third time, “Do you love Me?” “Lord, You know all things,” he replied. “You know I love You.” Jesus said to him, “Feed My sheep.

Three times He asks. Three times Peter answers. Three times he is commissioned, a deliberate undoing of the courtyard, denial by denial. Jesus addresses him by his old name, Simon son of John, the name he carried before he was Peter the rock, and meets him there. The first question carries a barb of memory: do you love (ἀγαπάω) agapaō, pronounced ah-gah-PAH-oh,. Strong's G25, to love, especially deliberate, self-giving love. This is one of the most discussed exchanges in the New Testament. In the first two questions Jesus uses agapaō, the verb often associated with deliberate, self-giving, covenant love, the love John has used of the Father for the Son (3:35) and of Jesus’ love for His own to the end (13:1). Both times Peter answers with phileō, the warmer word of personal affection, of friendship. On the third question Jesus shifts to Peter’s word, and it is this that grieves him. Older preachers built a great deal on the change: Jesus asks for the higher love twice, Peter can only claim the lesser, and at last Jesus meets him where he is. It is a beautiful reading, and it may be right. Many careful scholars urge caution, because John uses the two verbs almost interchangeably elsewhere in this Gospel, describing the beloved disciple with both (13:23; 20:2) and speaking of the Father’s love for the Son with both (3:35; 5:20). John loves synonyms, and he varies feed and shepherd, and lambs and sheep, in these same verses. The honest verdict is that the variation may carry tender significance, or it may be simply John’s habitual style, and the heart of the passage does not depend on settling it. What stands whichever way the verbs fall is the threefold question set against the threefold denial, the love that keeps asking until the wound is healed, and the work Peter is handed at the end of it, which is to feed the sheep. Me more than these? Peter had once boasted he would stand even if all the others fell, and now he makes no comparisons at all; he appeals to what Jesus knows. By the third time he is deeply hurt, because the threefold question has brought the threefold denial up where it can be dealt with, and that is what it stings for.

To each confession Jesus answers with a trust rather than a reprimand. Feed My lambs. Shepherd My sheep. Feed My sheep. The flock is named two ways and the verbs vary, and the possessive never changes: My lambs, My sheep. Pastoral care is a stewardship of somebody else’s flock, and the sheep are always His. You can measure Peter’s restoration by the size of what is laid on him, and that is the whole of the assignment, love for the Shepherd turned into care for the Shepherd’s flock, beginning with the sheep in front of him.

John 21:18–19 (BSB)

¹⁸ Truly, truly, I tell you, when you were young, you dressed yourself and walked where you wanted; but when you are old, you will stretch out your hands, and someone else will dress you and lead you where you do not want to go.” ¹⁹ Jesus said this to indicate the kind of death by which Peter would glorify God. And after He had said this, He told him, “Follow Me.”

The restoration comes with a prophecy, and it is sobering. The same Peter who once vowed to die for Jesus and then ran will in fact lay down his life, this time as a disciple rather than a boaster. Stretching out the hands and being led where you do not want to go was widely understood as a picture of crucifixion. John calls it glory outright: the kind of death by which Peter would glorify God. Even a martyr’s death becomes worship. Then, with the failure forgiven and the future foretold, Jesus speaks the two words that started everything by this same sea: Follow Me. That is the command Peter could not keep on the night of the denial, and now, restored, he is told to follow again, and this time the following takes in the feeding of the sheep all the way to the end he is given.

John 21:20–23 (BSB)

²⁰ Peter turned and saw the disciple whom Jesus loved following them. He was the one who had leaned back against Jesus at the supper to ask, “Lord, who is going to betray You?” ²¹ When Peter saw him, he asked, “Lord, what about him?” ²² Jesus answered, “If I want him to remain until I return, what is that to you? You follow Me!” ²³ Because of this, the rumor spread among the brothers that this disciple would not die. However, Jesus did not say that he would not die, but only, “If I want him to remain until I return, what is that to you?”

No sooner is Peter told to follow than he glances sideways. Lord, what about him? It is a deeply human turn, the instinct to measure our own road against somebody else’s, and it comes hardest when our road has just been shown to end at a cross. Jesus’ answer is gentle and firm. Another disciple’s calling and length of days are none of Peter’s business. What is that to you? You follow Me. Each follower has his own path, his own length of days, his own death, and the one command that fits all of them is follow Me, which for Peter means feeding. John then pauses to correct a rumor that had grown up out of this saying, and that careful correction reads like the fingerprint of an honest eyewitness.

John 21:24–25 (BSB)

²⁴ This is the disciple who testifies to these things and who has written them down. And we know that his testimony is true. ²⁵ There are many more things that Jesus did. If all of them were written down, I suppose that not even the world itself would have space for the books that would be written.

The Gospel signs its name. This is the disciple who testifies and who has written them down, the beloved disciple, the eyewitness whose memory has carried us from In the beginning was the Word to this Galilean breakfast. We know that his testimony is true. Then the final sentence, that the deeds of Jesus are so many the world itself could not hold the books. That last line is worship doing the counting rather than carelessness with numbers, and the arithmetic holds, because the One whose acts are recorded here is the Word through whom all things were made (1:3), and no library could contain Him. John has shown us a fraction and says as much, and the fraction is enough to do what he wrote it to do. So the book closes where Jesus left Peter, on a beach in the morning with fish on the coals and a flock to feed, and with two words spoken to the man He restored and to whoever has read this far: Follow Me.