“Our Life is Empty Without Jesus”
Original sermon given May 1, 2022, written and delivered by Pastor Don Gourlay at First Saint Paul’s Lutheran Church
Watch the sermon live here
“Our Life is Empty Without Jesus
(John 21.1-19)
John 21:3-6 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. 4Just after daybreak, Jesus stood on the beach; but the disciples did not know that it was Jesus. 5Jesus said to them, “Children, you have no fish, have you?” They answered him, “No.” 6He said to them, “Cast the net to 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 there were so many fish.
The disciples went fishing. They fished all light and experienced coming up with empty nets. Do you know the feeling? You think things are going along fine when we have something come along that makes us feel empty—like we cannot figure out why it happened, and we are not sure where we go from here.
Coming up empty is when we reach down inside for some comfort or meaning and come up empty. There is nothing there and we fret. It may be because of the magnitude of the problem we are facing that overwhelms us but often the problem is something minor, but we wonder where we go from here.
It may have felt like that this morning for some of you when you came to the church you have come on many Sundays only to find Pastor Johnson is not conducting the service and will not be since he has taken a call to another congregation, and you had a very nice farewell for him last Sunday.
I suspect the disciples were feeling some of that distress and confusion. The events of the recent days, the gruesome death of their friend and Lord, Jesus, we know created in them a fear. We heard last Sunday how they were gathered in the upper room, frightened, and confused by events. The disciples were locked in an upper room, huddled together out of fear. Where do we go from here, they may have been thinking? They had followed Jesus for three years, given up their jobs, their income, and lived on the generosity of follower of Jesus. In the end, Jesus did not establish a new kingdom like the one Israel had when David was king. Today we see them going fishing. Fishing? Several of these disciples were professional fisherman. They were doing what they knew.
Sometimes when we are in a period of grief or stress, what we choose to do is get back into the old routine, do that of which we are most familiar. Much of our confusion may be because our focus is on the things of our lives and not the mission, not what is important.
Thursday night my computer would not connect with my Wi-Fi. I tried all sorts of things for two hours. I consulted my son who knows more about these things. I finally gave up, turned off the computer and went to bed. The next morning it worked fine. Either it fixed itself or Jesus fixed it for me. It would be an answer to prayer.
The disciple’s fishing was not successful. Their nets were coming up empty which was not very helpful to make them feel any better. But then Jesus came. The risen Savior came. They knew he was alive, but they still did not know what it all meant. This may reflect confusion as much as anything else. When you don’t know what to do, do what you know how to do. But Jesus changed all that and their nets came up full. Is there a story there for us? When we fish Jesus’ way, our nets are never empty. It is a story of the empty nets in our lives that are filled by Jesus to overflowing. Jesus fills the emptiness of our lives. Where does that emptiness come from?
Lesson 1: Our life is empty without Jesus
The disciples seem to go back to fishing on a whim. It may have been therapeutic. They went to the place it all began. When we are stressed, we may seek the familiar—familiar places where more joyous things took place and familiar tasks that we were familiar in doing.
They toiled all night and caught nothing. The night hours were the usual time for fishing. They were going through the motions, but their nets came up empty. Jesus came and told them to cast their nets on the other side of the boat and their nets overflowed with fish.
We are like those disciples sometimes and we must learn the lesson of fishing with Jesus. We go through the motions, we go about living our lives, earning our living, doing the right things, but sometimes it feels like we are coming up empty. What does it all mean? Our nets are empty without Jesus.
But it may be we are fishing in the wrong place. It may be that we are counting on false gods to comfort us and bring us happiness—the idols of materialism, money, and power. It may be we have fallen victim of the assumptions of our society that we will be happy if we have a better job, a bit more money, or a nicer home or car, only to find that it isn’t so, and we come up empty. We may be too thing oriented.
It came home to us when we had to down scale in our place of living. We moved from a house to a condo which is much more limited in space for things, and it reminds us how we depend on the things around us in our lives as the basis of the meaning of our lives when it is not. That is why we come up empty.
Enter Jesus! He lives. Sometimes we forget that, like the disciples. He lives! Why did it take so long for the disciples to catch on and figure it all out? Are they any different than we are? Thank God, our God is so patient with us!
Lesson 2: Our lives are full with Jesus
The focus of the story shifts to the stranger on the shore who gives them some advice on fishing, and they come up with a great catch of fish, just like that day years before when Jesus came by and filled their nets. He then told them “I will make you fishers of men.” It appeared they recognized him not so much by sight but by what he did—the miraculous catch of fish! This was the one whom nature obeyed. He stilled the storm. “Even the winds obey him” they marveled. Now they saw all those fish. It had to be him. Some things in life must be God-things for us (like the computer getting fixed). But we can be so thing oriented. Jesus redirects our thinking. They knew and we know from the blessings in our lives that this is Jesus!
How often do we have to learn we cannot do it on our own, that there is nothing wrong with asking for help from Jesus, surrendering ourselves to his will? We need to learn the lesson again because we cannot do it on our own. Jesus is still in control.
Jesus is on the shore, cooking breakfast. When they come ashore, he feeds their needs. Some even see in this scene an echo of the last supper: “Jesus came back and took the bread and gave it to them. He did the same with the fish.” Jesus is there to feed us, to refresh us, to strengthen us to go on.
Lesson 3: Our nets are full of the blessing of God
A meaningful life is represented by a net full of fish. It gives a feeling of success to have a net full of fish for those whose goal is to catch fish. Sometimes we need to ask what success really is.
After this scene, John goes on to describe a scene between Jesus and Peter in which Jesus ask Peter three times, “Do you love me more than these?” It reminds us that it was three times that Peter denied knowing Jesus in the courtyard the night of Jesus’ trial. He said, “I know not the man.” But what did he mean by “all of these”? Did he mean, as he waved his arm in the direction of the boats, the fishing gear, the income that represented, and the friends he fished with, that way of life? Do you love me more than these things? Peter answers “Yes”. Jesus adds how he can show that love: “Feed my lambs.” “Feed my sheep.” Don’t just say yes, I love you, and that is all there is to it. Feed my sheep means showing love to all people, like Jesus did. It means not finding your life’s meaning in things around you but seeing the meaning of life on the mission Jesus has sent us on. “Feed my sheep.”
It would be interesting if Jesus confronted us with the same question and lined up our TVs, computers, cars in the garage, our I-pad and I-phone, our family and friends and asked us “Do you love me more than these?” Don’t just say yes. Do something. Feed my sheep.
The first step in a meaningful life is love and loving things and using people is not a meaningful life.It is the way of the world. It is in the culture of our lives. Loving people and using things is. Meaning in life begins with the love of God above all things. That is why it is the first commandment. Sometimes we must be reminded of this by tragedy in our lives to show us what is truly important. Our nets are not full of bank accounts full of money, and a life full of things, but our nets are full of love, grace, God living and present in our lives.
Jesus reminds us in the Sermon on the Mount:
25 “Do not be worried about the food and drink you need in order to stay alive, or about clothes for your body. After all, isn't life worth more than food? And isn't the body worth more than clothes?”
There are those who seem to have full nets but still feel empty. The meaning of life is not a closet full of clothes, a desk full of electronic gadgets, a cabinet, and a freezer full of food, or a garage full of cars, but a life full of the love of Jesus.
Lesson 4: God fills our nets with people to love
This is not a love for us to cherish and keep to ourselves. Jesus tells Peter to share the love. That is how it grows. Feed my sheep, feed my lambs.
Love for all kinds of people! Here Jesus is giving Peter and us marching orders, the form that a meaningful life takes. It is when we face the world with our nets full of God’s love and it overflows into the lives of others. That is a meaningful life! Then we do not come up empty.