At the beginning of this series of Easter meditations, I suggested that the New Testament does what John Updike in his “Seven Stanzas at Easter” claims he cannot abide.
Updike wants nothing of “metaphor, analogy, sidestepping, transcendence, making of the event a parable.” He wants his resurrection raw: “if the cells’ dissolution did not reverse, the molecules / reknit, the amino acids rekindle, / the Church will fall.”
The gospels are not so scrupulous. Contrary to what Updike prefers, the New Testament offers metaphor, analogy, parable, and all of these couched in stories, stories that offer first one perspective and then another.
The gospel reading for this week does just that. John’s gospel seems to have reached a conclusion with chapter 20, a complex, nuanced take on Easter, a chapter that concludes by breaking the literary fourth wall and addressing the reader directly: “These are written so that you may come to believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that through believing you may have life in his name” (20:31).
What’s said has been said, or so it seems, but then another voice is heard: Wait, we are not quite done here. There’s one more story. You must hear one more story. A story quite unlike the stories that precede it.
The story is of Simon Peter. Peter has had a tough go of it in the Gospel of John. He refuses to allow Jesus to wash his feet until Jesus firmly tells him that refusing means that he will have no part in what Jesus is doing (13:6-9). At the conclusion of the same evening, Peter boasts that he would lay his life down for Jesus, only to have Jesus tell him that before morning he will have denied him three times (13:36-38). And in the event, Peter does just what Jesus said he would do (18:15-27), denies Jesus. All through the fourth gospel draws an invidious contrast between Peter and the “disciple Jesus loved,” including the Easter chapter, when Peter is a step slow not only to the tomb but to recognize resurrection for what it is (20:2-6).
For all that, you cannot tell the story of Jesus without telling the story of Peter, who becomes not only the leader of the church but the symbol of what it means to be a Christian. And so we need another story, a story that by including Peter will include us, you and me.
The story is not entirely new. It appears to be constructed out of the materials of a story we find in Luke 5:1-11. It’s about passion. Well, better, about passion and about failure. Passion and failure often go together. It’s Peter’s passion for all things Jesus that gets him into trouble. His horror at having Jesus wash his feet is born from the depth of his love for his Lord. His denial of Jesus would not have happened if Peter had not been compelled to follow Jesus into danger. In our story, the symbol of Peter’s passion is getting wet.
After a long night catching nothing, Peter and his six companions are bringing in the boat when they are addressed by Jesus standing on the shore. “Lads” he calls to them, “have you no fish?” Not what you want to hear after getting skunked. The entire failure of church is caught up in that question and the disciples’ curt response: “None.”
Failure is written all over this story, Peter’s failures, the church’s failure, your failures and mine. But Jesus is not done with them. He instructs them to try the other side of the boat, and when they do the net fills with every kind of fish, a weirdly specific 153 fish, to be precise. But then in the church aren’t we always counting: how many people in the pews today? How many fish in the net?
At this, the “disciple Jesus loved,” still a step ahead, says, “It’s the Lord,” and Peter plunges in, again getting it wrong, putting his clothes on before jumping rather than taking them off—a sort of botched baptism. But there is passion in it — love for Jesus, love for all things Jesus, love for life. The stories we have looked at to this point have had this in common: Mary Magdalene hugging Jesus, Thomas, a bit angry, wanting to jab his finger in the wounds in Jesus’s hand, Peter jumping in the water.
The way to the Easter truth, to resurrection, is the way of passion, plunging in, getting wet. And if in the process, we get things wrong, then Jesus will sort that out, as he does for Peter in the second part of this story, asking Peter those three times, “Do you love me more than these?” More than these what? These fish? These disciples? Yes, says Peter, now chastened.
Yes, but no need to make comparisons. One need not be first in love. Love has no firsts. Then, says Jesus, throw yourself in. As Peter did. As we are called to do.
Wet. Easter is about getting wet.
Header photo by Antonio Araujo on Unsplash
3 Responses
Getting wet. A rich metaphor for passion! Thank you.
Yes, indeed. Wasn’t the first time Peter was all wet. The first time was also because of his passion for Jesus–though with the hope he’d walk on water too. Seems like Peter needed to be baptized more than once… Thanks again, Clay.
Clay, I have really appreciated your post-Easter essays. Thank you for writing for RJ with your unique perspective.