Sometimes in life, having gone through a significant milestone event, after it’s over we may ask ourselves, “Now what?” Where do we go from here? What’s next? I think there is a bit of this in the closing chapter of John’s Gospel. John chapter 20 is about Jesus’ resurrection from the dead and his appearing to the disciples. John 21 ESV - Jesus Appears to Seven Disciples - Bible Gateway continues the story of Jesus’ post-resurrection appearances. It begins like this:

After this [Jesus’ appearance to the disciples and Thomas] 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.

We’re not told why Peter had this itching to get into a boat and go fishing. He was, after all, a fisherman by trade, and so maybe this got him back into what was familiar territory for him – sort of Peter’s happy place. He had spent the last three years as one of Jesus’ disciples, going all over Judea and Galilee following Jesus. Together with James and John, Peter was part of that inner circle among the twelve. With the other disciples, he had experienced the trauma of his Teacher’s betrayal and arrest; his trial and death by crucifixion; his own denial of Jesus when he was on the hot seat and being questioned by people who recognized him as one of Jesus’ followers. And now his resurrection from the dead! After all of this, Peter’s world must’ve been spinning like crazy! Maybe he just needed to clear his head by going back to his comfort zone, which was fishing. After all, this was the very thing he was doing when Jesus first called him and his brother, Andrew, to “Follow me, and I will make you fishers of men” (Mark 1:16-18). So now, everything had come full circle for Peter as he returned to being out on the water. And Peter wasn’t alone. As we read above, there were other disciples who went with him. It was sort of a guys’ night out there on the Sea of Tiberias, one of the names for that body of water we usually call the Sea of Galilee.

After all that Peter and the other disciples had been through, I wonder if they had any “Now what?” thoughts running through their minds. Yes, Jesus had suffered and died upon the cross, and now he had risen from the dead – as shocking and hard to believe as this was for those first disciples. They had seen him with their own eyes. They saw with their own eyes the wounds in his hands and side. They had actually touched his resurrected body. Did Peter think that with Jesus now risen from the dead, that his days of following Jesus were over? Did he think that because of this he needed to return to fishing as his back-up plan? Scripture doesn’t tell us what Peter’s thoughts were, so we can only imagine. But we can easily see ourselves in Peter’s place as he grapples with this new reality of Jesus’ resurrection and what this meant for him. The questions are real: Where do we go from here? What’s next?

Those questions would soon be answered by the risen Christ who stood on the shore at break of day, calling out to the men in the boat: “Children, do you have any fish?” The original language is more descriptive, and is phrased in such a way as to reflect a negative answer. We still do this today: “You haven’t caught any fish, have you?” Jesus already knew the answer, but he wanted Peter and the others to tell him. “No,” they reply. And then Jesus tells them to cast their net on the right side of the boat, and to their utter amazement, they find that they aren’t even able to haul the net in! It is literally overflowing with fish, and we’re even told the exact number and quality: 153 large fish! All of this mirrors Luke’s account of Jesus’ calling Peter to be his disciple, and so you might want to read Luke 5:1-11 ESV - Jesus Calls the First Disciples - On - Bible Gateway. After feeding his disciples breakfast on the beach, Jesus then restores Peter in a three-fold way that corresponds with Peter’s three-fold denial of Jesus in the courtyard of the high priest after Jesus’ arrest. “Simon, son of John, do you love me?” Jesus asks Peter this three times. Twice here, Jesus uses the word agape for love when he asks Peter. This word is used in the New Testament to differentiate God’s love from human love. Agape carries with it the sacrificial, self-giving meaning of God’s saving love for us that is made known in the life, death and resurrection of Jesus. In reply to Jesus’ questions, Peter replies using a different word for love (philos), meaning the bonds of love between friends. Not the same, which means that Peter (like us) still had a lot to learn from Jesus.

In this Easter season as we celebrate the Ascension of Our Lord (Thursday, May 9) and the outpouring of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost (Sunday, May 19), we may ask ourselves: “Now what?” What does the good news of Jesus’ life and ministry, his death and resurrection, mean for my life and the life of the world? After Jesus had this conversation with Peter, it closed with Jesus telling Peter to do what He first called Peter to do: “Follow me” (John 21:19). That’s our calling today as well: follow Jesus as He leads us through the ups and downs of this life to life eternal. Jesus promises that He himself will be with us always, even to the end of the world (Matthew 28:20). So, now what? Where do we go from here? What’s next? We go into the daily tasks of life in all the places where God has called us to be and to serve. Our homes and families, our places of work, learning, and recreation – all of these places are our mission field where we are to follow Jesus, serving as his hands and feet and mouth. It’s where we get to help people understand that we have a God with agape love vs. philos love. We worship and serve a God who gave his own Son to suffer and die in our place, and then raised him from the dead, assuring us that our sins are all forgiven and that we have a place in his kingdom as his beloved children.

We may not always have a clear-cut, specific answer about “Now what?” in life. The Lord often chooses to reveal “Now what?” to us only in smaller, bite-sized chunks that we can more easily digest. If He were to reveal the whole “Now what?”, we would likely be so overwhelmed and dumbfounded that we would just drop in our tracks. So God gives us what we can handle, all by his amazing grace.

May the Lord help us to see where He is at work in the world and follow where He is leading as we ask that question, “Now what?”