Friday, Day 41: Fish

Yesterday was the day of Ascension in the Western tradition—the 40th day after Easter, the official end of the Easter season. The Ascension comes a week later in the Eastern Orthodox tradition. Either way, it is a day without a lot of fanfare—without the bright red of Pentacost or the passing of light on Easter. It is the day Jesus stopped appearing on Earth among the people who had known him when he was alive, and ascended into heaven, once and for all.

I had intended to make it to this day, and here I am. But, I have decided to write for one more week, until the day of Ascension in the Orthodox tradition—because I am not quite done exploring the theme of resurrection.

In one of Jesus’ appearances, he shows up on shore while his disciples are fishing for their supper. The scene is reminiscent of the calling of the first disciples. But instead of asking the sons of Zebedee to put down their nets and follow him, he instead tells them to cast their nets on the right side of the boat. When they do, the net is full to overflowing.  

The recognize this miracle is a miracle of Jesus, and Peter jumps into the sea to swim to him. The others follow in a boat. Then they settle in over a fire and eat together.

At the start, Jesus was anxious to get on the road, to begin to change the world. At this juncture, after his death, he is content to eat with his disciples. Unlike the other resurrection-to-ascension stories, Jesus isn’t in a hurry to impart any wisdom (though that happens a bit later, after everyone’s full). The bible doesn’t mention how he responded to Simon’s decision to jump into the water and swim to him, but we get the sense that he wasn’t incredibly impressed, that he took it in stride. “Come and have breakfast,” he says.

“It’s a fast-paced world,” my friend Ann said to me once, a few weeks before she died. “Let’s sit still.” It seemed an absurd thing to say. Ann wasn’t going anywhere. She had been confined to her chair for at least 10 years, and in the nursing home for maybe five of those 10. She didn’t have family nearby, or many visitors.  

But she’d been a farm wife, working hard to feed the farm hands and help with the harvest come fall. She’d lost her husband and both her kids and, more recently, her roommate, a friend since childhood.
Now, she wanted to sit still.

I know Jesus wasn’t old in this story—he was dead, sort of. Still, this seems to reflect a new phase in his life, reflective of his last meal with his disciples. He wanted to simply be present with them. There would be time for more later. There would be time, later, for goodbyes.


For now, fish over a fire, inconsequential miracles. 

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