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THE FOUR FACES OF JESUS #17

FINDING LOVE IN UNEXPECTED PLACES

Hello Friend, how glad I am to add my welcome to the daily broadcast of the Voice of Prophecy on this Tuesday. If it happens you’ve not heard our recent broadcasts, we’re taking a journey through the four Gospels, seeking to know the perspective of each of the Gospel writers about Jesus.

In the first three weeks of this series, we explored chapters from Matthew, Mark, Luke, and this week we’re opening chapters of the book by the disciple John. And already we’ve discovered that John’s emphasis is to show Jesus is divine. Jesus is God. He is eternal. He has no beginning and no end. And in addition this week, we’re looking at chapters where John shares information not found in the other three Gospel writers. Information that’s new, that’s pure John, unique John, and each one a priceless portrait of our blessed Lord. Let me begin today with an unusual story.

In February, 2002, the Seattle Times reported the story of Richard Huffman and his dog Fred. As reporter Pam Pittman put it, “The story of Fred is the tale of a love found, a love lost, and a love reborn, exactly one year ago on Valentine’s Day.”

The tale began in 1981 when 13-year-old Richard and his brother were being raised by a single dad, a tough kind of guy, spare with words, and very hard working. But the boys felt a great lack of love! The lads finally talked their father into letting them get a dog from a pound called PAWS in Seattle. A bit of a mutt it turned out to be, part Lab., part Shepherd, and they had no idea what else. But what they did know is that it completely changed the family. The stern father began to use the dog as his mouthpiece. Rather than give a direct answer to questions, he’d preface his response with, “Well, I don’t know what Fred would think about that!” It became a game all three of them enjoyed.

Seven years later Fred developed cancer of the leg. The vet had to amputate. But the dog was still in serious condition. His other three legs were not strong enough to carry his old body. A few months later on a Wednesday morning on the porch, they took some pictures of each other with Fred, then headed to the vet for his last visit. After Fred had been put to sleep, father and sons walked out to separate cars without speaking. There in privacy they cried. Richard felt sure he would never have another dog.

A few years later, Richard returned to PAWS, this time to seek work. The first thing he did was to walk to cage #9 where he had found Fred so many years before. A dog named Ruby now sat in that cage. It was the kind of dog only its mother could possibly love! Some Pit Bull for a start, and other breeds in the mix. No one wanted Ruby.

A month later after going past the mutt several times a day and looking at its mournful expression, Richard explained, “It finally occurred to me that there was a reason I came to work that year for PAWS, and there’s a reason Ruby came to Fred’s kennel.” On Valentine’s day that year, Richard gave Ruby a loving home. He reflected, “With people, relationships are complicated. With a dog, it’s this purified form of love.”

That story about love, introduces another story about love I want to share with you today from John’s Gospel.

Today I want to ask you a question: What’s your dream? We all need a dream to motivate us and to keep us growing. We all need to ask: Where am I headed? What do I need to do to make the dream happen? How do I ensure my most important relationships will prosper? And any old dream won’t do. It has to be the very special kind of dream addressed in the last chapter of John. It’s another of those unique gems found only in the fourth Gospel.

When you talk to Christians about a dream, a mission, a vision, their minds might go to the great commissioning statement at the end of Mathew:
“Go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit” (Matthew 28:19, NIV).

But John ends his Gospel with vastly different words to describe that same commission. After the resurrection, Jesus ascended to heaven to receive the assurance from God that the plan of salvation had been ratified, that the sin problem had been dealt a death blow; that there could never again be the slightest suspicion anywhere in the universe about God’s character of limitless love.

After Jesus received that assurance, He returned to earth to make a few physical appearances with His disciples before His ascension. In one of His last conversations with the disciples, He reinforced the Christian’s dream, the Christian’s mission. This is the ultimate dream for me and for you to take hold of.

As the chapter opens, seven of the disciples were together one evening. They were on the shore of the Sea of Galilee. They could see the moon reflecting on the smooth water, painting a silver swathe of glory. They were talking about Jesus and what would happen to them now He’d vanished. Looking back, the events of the past three and a half years had sped by at breakneck speed. They’d been on a roller coaster ride, as it were, and the ride had ended in a fatal crash. The Master had died.

I imagine they reminisced about some of the dramatic events they’d witnessed: the miracles, parables, sermons, the Last Supper, the crucifixion. And it was on this lake that they’d survived a storm when Jesus walked to them on the water and rescued them.

Such a conversation would have been painful for Peter. He felt infinitely sad about the way things had turned out for him, how he’d failed Jesus when Jesus needed him most. To drive out those thoughts before they drove him crazy, he had to do something. And there on the sand sat a boat, and Peter announced, “I’m going fishing.”

During their former fishing years, these fishermen disciples had found the best places for net fishing. So they cast, they waited, they drew in. But on this occasion it turned out to be a monotonous series of failures. Peter and the rest of them had lost their touch! These fisherman couldn’t catch fish! It was the beginning of a metaphor of a greater truth they would soon understand.

Hours later, very early in the morning as the sun crested the horizon above the hills to the east of the lake, Peter and the others made one last abortive attempt to catch a fish or two for breakfast—and failed. Imagine what their friends would exclaim, “What do you mean you caught nothing! You can’t catch fish! And you call yourselves fisherman?”

Looking to the shore as they return to shore, they see a lone figure cast a long shadow across the beach. It could be someone looking to buy fish. And the disciples needed to sell fish to buy necessities. The figure calls to them. The flat, reflective surface of the water carries and amplifies His voice and they hear: “Hello friends, did you catch any fish?” And they call back, despondently, in a single word, in a public admission of failure, “No!” Nothing more. There was nothing to add. Then the stranger calls back, “Drop you net over the right side of the boat and you’ll find fish.”

After hours of futile fishing, that sounded like a ridiculous idea. Did the stranger mean fish were swimming on one side of their boat and not on the other? Impossible! And I imagine a bit of quarreling went on for a minute or two. I hear Peter leading the opposition against further humiliation, saying, “Let’s get to shore, I’m tired, I want to go to bed.” But one of the seven ignored him, picked up the net and threw it over the right side without waiting for a resolution of the argument.

Then another Galilee miracle happened. Instantly they felt the wait of a catch in the net. Not just a few fish, dozens of fish! They tried to pull it into the boat, but couldn’t. The weight was too great for all seven of them straining together. Intuitively, John looked back to the shore and recognized Jesus. Who else could provide such a miracle? Turning to Peter, John yelled, “It’s the Lord!” Peter needed no convincing. He grabbed his coat, jumped overboard and headed for the shore. He could make it quicker swimming and wading, than the rest of them by boat dragging the weight of a good haul of fish out of the water.
And what had Jesus been doing while He waited for the seven disciples? He’d built a fire, got some good embers, and began cooking breakfast for seven hungry men. He soon had fish cooking on the fire, and fresh bread ready to eat. But before inviting them to partake, He asked them to bring Him some of the fish they’d just caught. Peter ran to the boat newly energized, dragged the net from the water onto the sand with the help of gentle waves.

And he couldn’t resist pausing to count the catch. With all those fish flapping on the sand, they found they’d caught precisely 153 fish! They’d gone from complete failure as fisherman, to great success as fisherman in the space of only a few minutes. What had made the difference? What had changed their situation? They had heard and followed the voice of Jesus. And by so doing they discovered their calling, their mission, their dream! And life would never be the same for any of them.

As we close today, I ask myself the question, How did this happen? How did things turn around so fast for all seven of them? How did they find the dream for the rest of their lives? And that’s the question we will answer tomorrow when we take up the rest of the story in the last verses of John’s Gospel. Be sure to tune in!