Reversal of Misfortunes / John 21:1–19 / Pr. Ted A. Giese / Sunday May 4th 2025 / Season of Easter / Mount Olive Lutheran Church

Mount Olive Lutheran Church / Pr. Ted A. Giese / Sunday May 4th 2025: Season of Easter / John 21:1–19 “Reversal of Misfortunes”

After this Jesus revealed Himself again to the disciples by the Sea of Tiberias, and He revealed Himself in this way. Simon Peter, Thomas (called the Twin), Nathanael of Cana in Galilee, the sons of Zebedee, and two others of His disciples were together. Simon Peter said to them, “I am going fishing.” They said to him, “We will go with you.” They went out and got into the boat, but that night they caught nothing.

Just as day was breaking, Jesus stood on the shore; yet the disciples did not know that it was Jesus. Jesus said to them, “Children, do you have any fish?” They answered Him, “No.” He said to them, “Cast the net on the right side of the boat, and you will find some.” So they cast it, and now they were not able to haul it in, because of the quantity of fish. That disciple whom Jesus loved therefore said to Peter, “It is the Lord!” When Simon Peter heard that it was the Lord, he put on his outer garment, for he was stripped for work, and threw himself into the sea. The other disciples came in the boat, dragging the net full of fish, for they were not far from the land, but about a hundred yards off.

When they got out on land, they saw a charcoal fire in place, with fish laid out on it, and bread. Jesus said to them, “Bring some of the fish that you have just caught.” So Simon Peter went aboard and hauled the net ashore, full of large fish, 153 of them. And although there were so many, the net was not torn. Jesus said to them, “Come and have breakfast.” Now none of the disciples dared ask Him, “Who are You?” They knew it was the Lord. Jesus came and took the bread and gave it to them, and so with the fish. This was now the third time that Jesus was revealed to the disciples after He was raised from the dead.

When they had finished breakfast, Jesus said to Simon Peter, “Simon, son of John, do you love Me more than these?” He said to Him, “Yes, Lord; You know that I love You.” He said to him, “Feed My lambs.” He said to him a second time, “Simon, son of John, do you love Me?” He said to Him, “Yes, Lord; You know that I love You.” He said to him, “Tend My sheep.” He said to him the third time, “Simon, son of John, do you love Me?” Peter was grieved because He said to him the third time, “Do you love Me?” and he said to Him, “Lord, You know everything; You know that I love You.” Jesus said to him, “Feed My sheep. Truly, truly, I say to you, when you were young, you used to dress yourself and walk wherever you wanted, but when you are old, you will stretch out your hands, and another will dress you and carry you where you do not want to go.” (This He said to show by what kind of death he was to glorify God.) And after saying this He said to him, “Follow Me.”

Let us pray: May the words of my mouth and the meditations of all our hearts be acceptable in Your sight O Lord. Amen.

Grace peace and mercy to you from God our Father and from our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. Good Christian Friends the rooster crows, and Peter weeps. On the night in which Jesus was betrayed, following their first Holy Communion together in the upper room, after they had sung a hymn, they went out to the Mount of Olives. And at some point during their walk through the dark Kidron Valley on their way to the Garden of Gethsemane Jesus said to them, “You will all fall away because of Me this night. For it is written, ‘I will strike the Shepherd, and the sheep of the flock will be scattered.’ But after I am raised up, I will go before you to Galilee.” Peter answered Him, “Though they all fall away because of You, I will never fall away.” Jesus said to [Peter], “Truly, I tell you, this very night, before the rooster crows, you will deny Me three times.” Peter said to Jesus, “Even if I must die with You, I will not deny You!” And all the disciples said the same.[1]

It is true that Saint Peter must have had one of the two swords that The Twelve carried with them,[2] because Saint John tells us that when Jesus’ time of prayer in the garden was interrupted by the duplicitous Judas with his band of soldiers and officers from the chief priests and the Pharisees,[3] right when Jesus was about to be taken into custody Simon Peter, having a sword, drew it and struck the high priest’s servant and cut off his right ear. (The servant’s name was Malchus.) Then Saint John tells us that Jesus rebukes Peter, “Put your sword into its sheath; shall I not drink the cup that the Father has given Me?”[4] And so Saint Peter does what he’s told and there is no further bloodshed, Jesus heals Malchus[5] and is arrested and Peter who at first held his ground—in the way he thought was best—finds himself running away from Jesus into the dark of that Thursday night before Good Friday along with all the rest of the disciples. Simon Peter a sheep of the Good Shepherd Jesus’ fold scattered into the darkness just like the rest. To his shame Peter had proven himself to be false; what a misfortune that Peter had been so bold, so sure, so full of pride that he would even contradict Jesus saying, “Though they all fall away because of You, I will never fall away,” and when further corrected vowing “Even if I must die with You, I will not deny You!,” and by these words leading the rest to say the same.

Now Saint John tells us that Simon Peter and another of the disciples ended up following after Jesus to where the soldier and officials were taking Him and while Peter was entering the courtyard of the house of the High Priest the servant girl at the door referring to Jesus said to Peter, “You also are not one of this man’s Disciples, are you?” And Peter said to her, “I am not.” Now in the courtyard the servants and officers had made a charcoal fire, because it was cold … Peter also was with them, standing and warming himself.[6] So they said to him, “You also are not one of His Disciples, are you?” He denied it and said, “I am not.” One of the servants of the high priest, a relative of the man whose ear Peter had cut off, asked, “Did I not see you in the garden with Him?” Peter again denied it, and at once a rooster crowed.[7] Saint Luke explains how immediately as Peter had said this the third time and the rooster had crowed Jesus—being moved from one place to the other—turned and looked at Peter. And Simon Peter remembered the saying of the Lord, how Jesus had said to him, “Before the rooster crows today, you will deny Me three times.” And Peter went out and wept bitterly.[8] And as far as we know from the account of Scripture that is the last time Saint Peter saw Jesus’ face until the evening of the first Easter Sunday when the risen Lord Jesus, no longer dead but alive, stood before Peter and nine others of the remaining Disciples saying “Peace be with you.” Today’s Gospel at the Sea side in Galilee is the third time that Jesus was revealed to the Disciples after He was raised from the dead,[9] and last Sunday we heard about the second time with Saint Thomas.[10]

This is a bit of a way to go to get to the Gospel today but give me a minute and we’ll go back a bit further yet, back to the moment Jesus first called Simon Peter to follow Him. Saint Luke tells us how on one occasion by the sea of Galilee, while the crowd was pressing in on Jesus to hear the Word of God, Jesus saw two boats by the lake, but the fishermen had gone out of them and were washing their nets. Getting into one of the boats, which was Simon’s, Jesus asked him to put out a little from the land. And Jesus sat down and taught the people from the boat. And when Jesus had finished speaking, He said to Simon, “Put out into the deep and let down your nets for a catch.” And Simon answered, “Master, we toiled all night and took nothing! But at Your word I will let down the nets.” And when they had done this, they enclosed a large number of fish, and their nets were breaking. They signaled to their partners in the other boat to come and help them. And they came and filled both the boats, so that they began to sink. But when Simon Peter saw it, he fell down at Jesus’ knees, saying, “Depart from me, for I am a sinful man, O Lord.” For Simon Peter and all who were with him were astonished at the catch of fish that they had taken, [is this starting to sound familiar] … and Jesus said to Simon, “Do not be afraid; from now on you will be catching men.” And when [Peter and James and John, the sons of Zebedee,] had brought their boats to land, they left everything and followed Jesus.[11] And both Saint Matthew and Saint Mark tell us Jesus had called this Simon Peter from his nets saying, “Follow Me, and I will make you fishers of men.”[12] “Follow Me.”

This all brings us back to our Gospel reading when Thomas (called the Twin), Nathanael of Cana in Galilee, those sons of Zebedee James and John, and two others of Jesus’ Disciples hear Simon Peter say to them, “I am going fishing.” They respond to Peter, “We will go with you.” And before you know it they went out and got into the boat, upon the Sea of Tiberius (really the Sea of Galilee now re-named for a Roman Emperor) and while they were fishing all night they caught nothing. If not in the exact same spot Simon Peter, and for that matter James and John, were all back where everything started for them, back on the sea of Galilee, back in fishing boats, back having fished all night and back having caught nothing. And for all Peter’s experiences over the previous three years he was again a man whose heart, troubled with shame and guilt, could certainly still say to Jesus “Depart from me, for I am a sinful man;” only now Peter could add to this that he had been proven prideful and stubborn and hand caved under fear of hardship, fear of suffering, fear of death, and when it mattered most had denied Jesus three times to avoid these things. Simon Peter having known the Lord, having believed in Him, having confessed that Jesus was, “the Christ, the Son of the living God,”[13] that Jesus was in fact “the Holy One of God,” who alone has “the words of eternal life,”[14] this same Peter even after hearing that Jesus was alive and risen and having already seen Him twice since Jesus’ glorious Easter resurrection was still a broken man in need of forgiveness a man in need of restoration. Here we find a man whose fortunes have gone sideways, have gone south, one for whom fortune has turned to misfortune.

Dear ones have you, like Simon Peter, really blown it as a Christian? Have you fallen flat on your face? Have you, even after making what you thought was an initial solid stand for Jesus, discovered you were wrong? Is the sword of your tongue smeared with blood, the ear of another struck to ground by your words? Gripped by fear and anxiety of have you thought, ‘there is no hope for the future?’

Had Peter not heard time and time again with the rest of the Disciples Jesus say, “The Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and on the third day be raised.”[15] Have you not heard on the one hand the promises of what the LORD will do, and on the other hand the honest truth of what the Christian life will be like under presure? Are you one who says like Peter, “Far be it from You, Lord! This shall never happen to You,”[16] or looking at what you expect everything to be like as a Christian, as a church, when you hear Jesus say to you “‘A servant is not greater than his Master.’ If they persecuted Me, they will also persecute you,”[17] do you find yourself saying, “no, no Jesus we should not suffer lose as a Church in the face of the World, we should only experience continued prosperity in the Gospel, don’t you know anything Jesus!” Or maybe the reality that this is not always so, and that in one way or another the Church has always suffered and will suffer again has driven your prideful heart to despair and you are left feeling like there is nothing good in the world anymore and there is no real hope for the future. When the Shepherd of the sheep is struck by the wickedness of the World what causes you to scatter into the darkness: into the darkness where your adversary the devil prowls around seeking to devour you?[18]

Do you find yourself anxious, or angry, when you’re in one moment justifying your sinful thoughts words and deeds to yourself and then on the flipside in your honest moments are you beaten down by your actions that deny Jesus, beaten down by your sins, and your failures as a Christian? Are you in need of a reversal of your misfortunes, and yet try as you might you cannot accomplish this reversal on your own, in fact the harder you try the deeper and darker the hole gets? If life seems like some giant game of ‘snakes and ladders’ have you found yourself back at square one again, back with Simon Peter in his boat, back to having caught nothing, nothing but your pressing need to be forgiven of your sin? Dear ones remember what Jesus said of Himself, “I came not to call the righteous, but sinners.”[19] That day on the Sea of Galilee Jesus came to restore Saint Peter.

If the Lord can forgive a man like Simon Peter for every time Peter sinned against Him by asking “do you love Me” and then calling Peter back to Him again saying “Follow Me,” just as Jesus had first called Peter, than Jesus will forgive you for whatever you have done. Today seeing you in the darkness of your sin, your denials, your failures Jesus asks, “Do you love Me” and we with Peter, in faith, can say, “Yes, Lord; You know that I love You.” Today even if you feel you have spiritually lost your way Jesus calls to you, as He called to Simon Peter, “Follow Me,” a call to face your sin and then having faced it to turn from it back to God and follow Him. Jesus’ death and resurrection from the dead that we celebrate in Easter is the grand-all-encompassing reversal of misfortune that brings the reversal of your misfortunes. If Jesus can reverse the misfortunes of men like Saint Peter and, as we heard in our first reading, men like Saint Paul,[20] then He can and will do this for you. You simply do not have to remain as you are. Be lifted up by the Lord, in His might.      

I’ll leave you with words written by Simon Peter, Saint Peter, later in his life after all the events we have looked at today, words of encouragement, “Humble yourselves, therefore, under the mighty hand of God so that at the proper time He may exalt you, casting all your anxieties on Him, because He cares for you. Be sober-minded; be watchful. Your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour. Resist him, firm in your faith, knowing that the same kinds of suffering are being experienced by your brotherhood throughout the world. And after you have suffered a little while, the God of all grace, who has called you to His eternal glory in Christ, will Himself restore, confirm, strengthen, and establish you. To Him be the dominion forever and ever. Amen.”[21]

Let us pray:

Lord have mercy on us, Christ have mercy on us, Lord have mercy on us, “take our minds and think through them, take our lips and speak through them, take our hearts and set them on fire; for the sake of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, Amen.

[1] Matthew 26:30–35
[2] Luke 22:35-38
[3] John 18:3
[4] John 18:10–11
[5] Luke 22:51
[6] John 18:15–18
[7] John 18:25–27
[8] Luke 22:61–62
[9] John 21:14
[10] John 20:19–31
[11] Luke 5:1–11
[12] Matthew 4:19; Mark 1:17
[13] Matthew 16:16
[14] John 6:68–69
[15] Luke 9:22
[16] Matthew 16:22
[17] John 15:20
[18] 1 Peter 5:8
[19] Matthew 9:13
[20] Acts 9:1–22
[21] 1 Peter 5:6–11

Photo Credit: Main photo detail of "Meal of Our Lord and the Apostles" (Repas de Notre-Seigneur et des apôtres) opaque watercolor over graphite on gray wove paper by James Tissot (1886–1894) from Brooklyn Museum, New York.