I’ve been sitting here thinking about what it means to enter a new year. Particularly after the dumpster fire that was 2020, how does one even begin to start a new year….particularly one that looks like more of the same instead of something new? I started thinking through stories I know to see if anything would come to me relevant to our current situation. One stood out to me. John wrote about it at the end of his account of the life of Jesus. Of anyone I think maybe Jesus’s disciples could relate. I imagine they were ready to get back to normal too. But for them, much like for us, they couldn’t quite get back to where things were before Jesus died. They probably longed for the days that their rabbi was right there, a breath away, ready to be peppered with all their questions. I imagine when he was with them life finally made sense, they had a purpose, something bigger and grander to finally live for. And then it was all pulled out from underneath their feet. Nothing felt solid anymore. No firm footings were to be found. Every single solid belief, action, daily routine for the past three years was ripped away and they had to start over new.
They did what most of us would, they tried to return to some sense of normalcy. For them that meant going back to the one thing they knew…fishing. Jesus had promised to make them fishers of men, but they settled for just going back to their trusted boats and nets. The account is below and worth a read.
“After this, Jesus revealed himself again to his disciples by the Sea of Tiberias. He revealed himself in this way:
Simon Peter, Thomas (called “Twin”), Nathanael from Cana of Galilee, Zebedee’s sons, and two others of his disciples were together.
“I’m going fishing,” Simon Peter said to them.
“We’re coming with you,” they told him. They went out and got into the boat, but that night they caught nothing.
When daybreak came, Jesus stood on the shore, but the disciples did not know it was Jesus. “Friends,” Jesus called to them, “you don’t have any fish, do you?”
“No,” they answered.
“Cast the net on the right side of the boat,” he told them, “and you’ll find some.” So they did, and they were unable to haul it in because of the large number of fish. The disciple, the one Jesus loved, said to Peter, “It is the Lord!”
When Simon Peter heard that it was the Lord, he tied his outer clothing around him (for he had taken it off) and plunged into the sea. Since they were not far from land (about a hundred yards away), the other disciples came in the boat, dragging the net full of fish.
When they got out on land, they saw a charcoal fire there, with fish lying on it, and bread. “Bring some of the fish you’ve just caught,” Jesus told them. So Simon Peter climbed up and hauled the net ashore, full of large fish—153 of them. Even though there were so many, the net was not torn.
“Come and have breakfast,” Jesus told them. None of the disciples dared ask him, “Who are you?” because they knew it was the Lord. Jesus came, took the bread, and gave it to them. He did the same with the fish. This was now the third time Jesus appeared to the disciples after he was raised from the dead.
John 21:1-14 CSV
The disciples return to normal didn’t bring the results they probably set out hoping for. A night of toil left them with empty nets, empty stomachs, and empty hearts. But as they scanned the horizon returning to shore, they saw a man. An unrecognizable man who asked how the fishing was. A man who told them something they had heard before…try casting your nets on the other side. I find it striking that Jesus met his disciples back where he found them…fishing again. Sometimes we think we have to embark on some new journey, get to some new destination to find more of god, more of real life. But he comes to find us in our desire for a return to normal. The disciples normal disappeared like a puff of smoke. Much of what many of us would cling to as normal has proved as elusive as a vapor. Like trying to grab hold of the wind. As we tiptoe into 2021, we are going to want to try to return to normal. And just like with the disciples, our normal may have disappeared. And all our efforts to regain what we lost come up empty netted. But a stranger who we sense through a sideways look calls us to try the other side. God is meeting us in what’s in front of us. What I know is that he’s here with us come what may. For all of us that will include pain and heartbreak, joy and laughter, life and death, beginnings and endings.
It’s okay if you highest hope for 2021 is to try to return to what’s normal. Some things probably will. But it may be that 2021 brings us something more akin to what those first disciples had to learn…a new way of walking and existing in a world that looked and felt different than the one they were just in. It’ll take us some time just like I’m sure it did them. But he’s always there on the shore watching and waiting, ready to push us toward something a little different than what we expected…a new kind of normal.
From The Whale's Belly 