On the other side… I have always felt that I can relate to Simon Peter. He is so … human.

When I read the resurrection account in John 21:1-14, I can almost ‘feel’ what was going on in Peter’s mind and body. Bear in mind, Jesus has already appeared twice to the disciples, so they know Jesus is alive. But what to do with that knowledge?

Peter has not had an opportunity to ask the questions that must have been tumbling around in his mind, to find out where he stood with Jesus after that terrible night of the denials. I can imagine the regrets and ‘what if’ questions he might have had, wishing things had been different. He must also have had a lot of ‘what next’ questions. What would the future hold?

As somebody who likes to be active and loves the outdoors, current circumstances make it all that much easier for me to imagine what it felt like for Peter to sit around wondering and waiting, unable to just carry on ‘as usual’. I can just ‘feel’ the nervous energy building up, the frustrated fidgeting, thumb twiddling, sitting for two minutes with knee bouncing, then pacing the room for two minutes … gazing out of the window for two minutes. I can completely relate to his sudden announcement: “I’m going fishing!”

I can also imagine the relief of the other disciples – especially those who had been fishermen all their lives. “Yes!” Something to do, to get us out, away. Anything.

I can also imagine what it must have felt like to go back to a task that was so familiar he could have probably done it with his eyes closed. How therapeutic to do something that was both hard, manual work and yet something he knew well – and the satisfaction of doing it well.

In some ways it might have been mindless work, but at the same time it would have been that kind of work that needed you to be ‘mindful’ in the sense that your mind needs to be fully present to the task, absorbed in the here and now of that moment. No time for what-if and what-next. Just … here and now. Here on this water, with the sound of waves against the side of the boat, the feel of the sea breeze on your face. Here where the air is fresh and you can breathe deeply under the canopy of the stars as you fish all night …

I wonder whether there is something in that moment that makes the disciples ready for Jesus to become present to them? Perhaps it was important for them to break out of their what-if rehashing of the past, and their what-next anxieties of the future, in order to be fully present themselves to the moment in which Jesus-encounters always happen: now.

I wonder what we might need to let go of – past or future – in order to be more fully present to the ‘now’ in which Jesus wants to be present to us?

And what happened in that encounter, when Peter and the disciples became aware of God-with-them in the risen Christ? What was the “cast your nets on the other side” thing all about, I wonder?

I don’t know much about ancient techniques of fishing, but I would not be surprised to find out, human nature being what it is, that a fishing crew would probably have had a ‘usual way’ of doing things. Force of habit. I can almost hear the disciples saying, “but we always cast our nets on this side!”

Which makes me wonder. Could it be that Jesus was making the point that things could never again be ‘as usual’?

I think, at the very least, the message is that if the things you ‘always do this way’ are no longer working, it’s time to do things in a new way!

Peter found himself drawn to the familiar and the comforting, and in some way that helped him to be open to the presence of Jesus in a new way, but the very encounter was full of the unusual, the extraordinary, the not-at-all-what-we-are-used-to. The very opposite of life-as-usual.

This time of global crisis is just such a time of disruption and change for all of us. I am sure that most of us yearn to return to some sort of comforting sense of the familiar on the ‘other side’ of this crisis. But what if God is preparing us for new things? Asking us to be ready to do things differently ‘on the other side’, in order to serve God in a world that might be quite different to what it has been before?

It may be that God first needs us to break our tendency to dwell negatively on past and future – to simply stop and become more aware of the wonderful ways in which the risen Lord Jesus continues to be present to us now. To discover in that presence a deeper sense of trust and assurance, and to know: God is with us. Always. God is with us. Now.

Prayer: Loving and Gracious God, God of past, present and future, who was and is and is to come, we ask that you help us to be fully present to the ‘now’ in which Jesus is present to us.

Prepare us and equip us for the reality of a changed world, whatever that might look like, knowing that whatever the future holds, when we get there, we will find you with us there and then, just as sure as you have always been, and always will be with us here and now. May we be present to your presence. Send us, we pray, and go with us into whatever may come.

Yours is power and the glory, forever and right now. May your Kingdom come. Amen.

Brenton Prigge