Jesus appears by the Sea of Galilee; restoration of Peter

Seven of them are together by the lake, and Peter says, I am going out to fish. They go with him, and catch nothing all night.

There is something bleak in that sentence. The men who had been told they would fish for people have gone back to the boats, and the night's work produces nothing at all.

Early in the morning a man on the shore calls out asking whether they have caught anything, tells them to throw the net on the right side of the boat, and the net comes up so full they cannot haul it in. The number of fish is counted and recorded: a hundred and fifty-three. Why that number was worth writing down has occupied readers since antiquity, and the explanations, from the supposed number of known species of fish to elaborate arithmetic, are all guesses. The likeliest reason is that fishermen counted the catch because that is what fishermen do.

It is the Lord, one of them says, and Peter puts his outer garment on, which is the wrong way round until you remember he had stripped to work, and jumps into the water.

On the shore there is a charcoal fire with fish on it, and bread. The only other charcoal fire in the story is the one Peter stood beside in the high priest's courtyard.

After breakfast comes the exchange. Simon son of John, do you love me more than these? Yes, Lord, you know that I love you. Feed my lambs. The question is put three times, and the third time Peter is hurt, and says, Lord, you know all things; you know that I love you.

Three denials by a fire, three affirmations by a fire.

Much has been made of the fact that two different Greek verbs for love are used in the exchange, and that Jesus uses one and Peter answers with the other until the last round. The argument is old and probably overworked: this Gospel varies its vocabulary constantly, and the conversation was held in Aramaic, which does not make the distinction.

Then a prediction about how Peter would die: when you are old you will stretch out your hands, and someone else will dress you and lead you where you do not want to go. Early tradition holds that he was crucified in Rome under Nero.

Follow me.

Seven are named or counted: Peter, Thomas, Nathanael, the sons of Zebedee and two others. Nathanael is given his home town here, Cana in Galilee, which is the only place that information appears.

The catch echoes the one at the beginning, when the same men had fished all night and caught nothing and were told to let down the nets again. Beginning and ending a ministry with the same scene on the same water, three years apart, is either a coincidence or an arrangement, and the second reading is hard to avoid.

The threefold restoration is also a commission. Feed my lambs, take care of my sheep, feed my sheep, given to a man who had been told a few days earlier that Satan had asked to sift him like wheat.