"7, 100, 153, 3"

First Presbyterian Church
April 22, 2007
Peter S. Buehler
John 21:1-19

He said to him the third time, "Simon, son of John, do you love me?"

You know how it is when you find yourself waking up after a dream -- not a bad one, but one of those rare, wonderful, happy dreams? You try to cling to it, to stay in the scene you were in, to not wake up out of it, it is so beautiful and perfect. But then you find yourself back in your life, back in your bed, wondering what the dream meant, mindful that no matter how hard you try you can't will yourself back to sleep -- you can't reinsert yourself back in that dream world, that place that moments ago was so gloriously real.

We wonder if that's how the disciples felt after Easter, that they had awakened from a dream, from their experience of the risen Christ. Granted that after their discovery of the empty tomb, he had appeared to them not once but twice -- on Easter evening when they were together, then a week later when Thomas was with them. He had stood among them and said, Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, so I send you. The Gospel records the disciples' reactions, that they rejoiced when they saw the Lord, and that even Thomas, unbelieving when he first heard their report, later, after Jesus stood before him and showed him his wounds, professed his faith, saying My Lord and my God!

But now, post-Easter, it seems that some of the disciples were tempted to return to their former lives, their pre-discipleship occupation. Did they think that they were waking up from a long dream?

Our passage begins with Simon Peter announcing to the others, I am going fishing, as if to say, "I can't take this life-with-Jesus, life-without-Jesus, life-with-Jesus business! I need to be doing something! Fishing is what I know -- not fishing for men, but fishing for fish. So I'm going fishing!" The others, relieved that someone was taking some initiative, chimed in, "We will go with you."

We know what happens next. Hardly a typical night of fishing, Jesus comes into their lives once again, more powerfully than ever. The Lord of heaven and earth, of the sky and the sea, is a God of life, and he is present.

I believe it is why there are so many numerical details in this Gospel: it shows that what was happening was real. You could count on it. The details are the Gospel-writer's exclamation point: Listen up, people! This is no dream!
Take note: exactly seven disciples go fishing, they take their boat out one hundred yards from the shore, and they catch precisely one hundred fifty-three fish.

We ask, Why 153? Who's counting? If the net is close to breaking, and the boat is close to sinking, and someone says that the man on the shore giving advice is Jesus, and Peter has just jumped overboard doing the 100-yard freestyle to get to him -- why, in the midst of this pandemonium is someone carefully counting fish: 51, 52, 53 -- oops, did I count that one over there? It's not your leisurely fishing expedition where everyone wants to get his limit and keeps count of what he's caught.

Christian interpreters have been confounded by this number for centuries.
Interesting theories have been suggested. One is that 153 is the sum of the numbers from 1 to 17 -- 17 in the ancient world being a symbol of completion, wholeness, and perfection, as it combines two important symbolic numbers, 7 and 10: 7 being the number of gifts of the Spirit, and 10 the number of the commandments. Others mention that so-called triangular numbers were of great interest to Greeks and biblical authors alike, and that if you arrange 153 dots into an equilateral triangle, you get a triangle with exactly 17 dots on each side. An even more interesting possibility involves a reference to the Old Testament book of the prophet Ezekiel (47:10), and his image of the heavenly kingdom with a river flowing from the Temple in Jerusalem, watering the whole earth and teeming with fish. The two place names mentioned in the Ezekiel passage, between which fishermen cast their nets and haul in miraculous catches, have numerical values in the ancient Hebrew language -- the numerical value of one is 17, and the other -- you guessed it -- is 153.

You're free to do your own research. I did a Google search on the number 153 and got 330 million hits, so don't be in a hurry to figure this one out!

I happen to think that the number 153 is like the number of disciples fishing and the number of yards they sailed off-shore: they all add up to the truth of what they experienced, that the resurrection of Jesus Christ was real. He was alive, he was present, and they were filled with an unmistakable hope which gave them power to be bold in their discipleship, in the way they lived their lives. The number 153 to them meant that their ministry in Jesus' name was greater than they could ever grasp.

We all have numbers that remind us of God's grace.

• Our age, the number of our years -- we can't count forward, the time ahead of us, for that is in God's hands, but we can count the years we have been given and we can remember countless blessings.
• The number of members of our family -- the people who are so precious to us -- parents, spouse, sister and brother, children, grandchildren. Aunts, uncles, cousins. Daughters and sons-in-law. Those whom we have known and loved but who are no longer living. All together, the number may come close to 153. Whatever it is, large or small, it represents how our lives have been blessed beyond calculating.
• We think of the street numbers, the addresses of the homes we've lived in over the years, numbers which remind us that God has blessed us with comfort, with security, with rooms we have decorated and yards we have landscaped, making them our own, expressing our individuality, our love of life.

Today we tend to think that the numbers we most need to know are long numbers with lots of digits: phone numbers, bank account numbers, serial numbers, license numbers, PIN numbers, Social Security numbers. We are told that if someone should steal these our very identity is "stolen" -- a modern-day heresy if there ever was one, as if human beings can be reduced to a page of digits.

But the Gospel we read proclaims a far more powerful and hopeful truth: Christ is risen! It's no hazy illusion, it's no sleep-induced dream. Witnesses kept track of the numbers -- 7, 100, 153. The apostle Paul adds another in his summary of the good news. Nowhere else in the Bible are numbers -- statistics -- and the story of amazing grace held so closely together: For I handed on to you as of first importance what I in turn had received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the scriptures, and that he was buried, and that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the scriptures, and that he appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve. Then he appeared to more than five hundred brothers and sisters at one time, most of whom are still alive, though some have died. Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles. Last of all, as to someone untimely born, he appeared also to me
(1 Corinthians 15:3-8).

We, of course, are in a different list, the list referenced by the Lord himself when he said to Thomas, Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe.

Which has always reminded me that believing is not easy -- it is not easy for those of us who were not among the 500, those like Paul and James and the 12 to whom Christ appeared -- it is as though Christ himself sympathizes with the higher mathematics of belief. But he also promises that we will be blessed as we "come to believe," as we walk this journey of Easter faith, that he will hold us in his grace as we move forward.

Which brings us to the fourth number in our Gospel. After the fishing and the miraculous catch, after the Lord prepared and served breakfast to his disciples, after the seven recognized who was breaking their bread, Jesus took Peter aside.

It is as though we are being taken aside. In that moment it is as though he has his hands on our shoulders, as though his eyes are looking into our eyes, as though his question of us is the one which defines our very existence.
It is as though every decade, every year, every experience, every moment of our lives is here reflected in the Lord's eyes, and we are being asked how we will live from this moment forward.

Simon son of John, do you love me more than these?’ He said to him, ‘Yes, Lord; you know that I love you.’ Jesus said to him, ‘Feed my lambs.’ A second time he said to him, ‘Simon son of John, do you love me?’ He said to him, ‘Yes, Lord; you know that I love you.’ Jesus said to him, ‘Tend my sheep.’ He said to him the third time, ‘Simon son of John, do you love me?’ Peter felt hurt 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.

Why three? Why three times? Why the same question? Why three times Peter's full name? Why three times reminding him that love without loving service is incomplete? Why three times reminding Peter that it's not about love in general but about love for him, for Jesus?

Why ask three times? Why not twice? Or just once? Once should be enough.
Peter would have remembered had it been once. We would have remembered. We don't forget things like this.

Or do we? We assume that Jesus was not only asking but scolding, that Peter needed to repent of his cowardly denial, how shamefully he behaved in the courtyard of the high priest's house. Jesus had Peter's number, and that number was three.

Perhaps. Like Peter, it doesn't take much to remind us of our failures, our moments of shame; and really we would not be who we are without our failures. They have made us who we are, and, by God's grace, they have made us more human, not less; more loving, not less.

But this is no scolding! This is not what Jesus is doing. The scene here in this Gospel is the opposite, it is Peter's commissioning. For Peter would be facing challenges that would be overwhelming were he not grounded in his love for Jesus. He would be facing obstacles that would be insurmountable were he not focused on Jesus. He would be tempted to give up and deny his faith were he to let go of his grip on the love of Jesus.

Because the number three is all about hanging on, holding tight, utterly trusting, always loving the One who loved us first and loves us always.
The number three is faith's perfect number.

It is the church's number. It reminds us that the Lord asks each of us personally, over and over again, sometimes uncomfortably often, whether or not we love him, and that if we answer in the affirmative, then we must -- not should, but must -- feed and tend his sheep, loving our neighbors as ourselves. Sunday is the day we come together to hear Jesus' question.
Sunday is the day we commit ourselves to ministry.

We learned again last week, tragically, how desperately our neighbors need the life-changing love of Jesus, the love that empowers courage and our compassion. The tragedy at Virginia Tech left us all stunned and grieving.
The reasons why it occurred, the ravings of the desperate and deeply troubled young man with the gun, leave us feeling more empty than angry.
What could have been done to stop him, to help him, to protect innocent victims? We wonder if anything could have been done; we feel vulnerable and powerless -- ironically we find ourselves sharing some of the alienation and isolation the young man with the gun felt year-in and year-out during his brief life.

On this day, the Lord's Day, we ask together, What one thing does Jesus ask of us? What today is asked of us? To what ministry shall we commit ourselves?

If there is one thing we can do to make a difference in our world, to say Yes instead of No, it is to reach out to people who are isolated and unloved.
It is easy to be with likable people, but we wonder if the Lord isn't asking us to be insistently compassionate with neighbors who go unnoticed, even those who are difficult and unlovable?

Might loving Jesus mean not taking no for an answer, loving our hard-to-love neighbor when we are not loved in return, finding ways to break down isolation and welcome neighbors into community, the community of the One whose love is the world's hope?

It is on Sunday that we say, Lord, you know everything; you know that we love you. It is on Sunday that he says, Feed my sheep.