John/Galilee Bridge

Questions had become commands to begin.

But Peter still had to wake up the next morning inside his own skin.

Peter remained seated longer than most.

The gathering loosened around him. Some went for water. Some found shade. Children who had been forced into stillness for too long began moving again. Nicodemus immediately found Joseph and resumed a conversation that apparently had never ended. Joanna and Susanna joined the women. Matthew walked away slowly with his head bent, still arranging kingdoms, genealogies, priests, and promises.

John stayed near Peter.

For several minutes Peter said nothing.

His hands rested loosely between his knees.

Then his right thumb moved across his left palm.

Once.

Again.

John had seen the motion on the road.

A remembered rope.

A net.

Peter looked toward the lake.

"I know He's alive."

John waited.

Peter gave a short laugh with no humor in it.

"That sounds like it ought to answer everything."

"It doesn't."

Peter looked at him.

"No."

The fisherman drew in a long breath.

"I know He's alive."

"I know Rome did not win what I thought Rome won."

"I know I misunderstood the war."

"I know the prophets were saying things I did not know how to hear."

His jaw tightened.

"I know He knew I would run before I knew I would run."

John said nothing.

Peter's thumb crossed his palm again.

"I know more than I knew yesterday."

A pause.

"I still don't know what I am supposed to do with tomorrow."

John looked toward the water.

Peter did too.

At last the faintest trace of his old expression returned.

"I know how to fish."

John smiled.

"Then I'll fish with you."

Peter glanced toward him.

"You do know I am better at it."

John laughed.

"At fishing?"

"At most things involving boats."

"Except remaining in them."

Peter looked offended.

"I have left boats for excellent reasons."

John looked toward Jesus in the distance.

"That is true."

Several others joined them before nightfall.

Thomas came.

Nathanael.

Two more of the disciples.

Nobody declared the fishing expedition a theological decision.

Nobody called it abandonment.

Jesus had not forbidden them to use the skills by which they had lived.

The problem was not that Peter knew how to fish.

The unresolved question was what the risen Lord intended to do with the fisherman.

They were men in Galilee with a boat, nets, hands trained by years of work, and minds too full to sleep.

Sometimes when a man does not know what to do with tomorrow, he returns for a few hours to something his body remembers.

They pushed away from shore.

* * *

The lake darkened.

The work took over.

Hands remembered before thought had to.

Rope.

Net.

Weight.

Balance.

The changing feel of water beneath the boat.

Cast.

Wait.

Pull.

Nothing.

Reset.

Again.

Nothing.

Peter's irritation grew with each empty net.

John found it strangely comforting.

A frustrated Peter in a boat felt familiar.

By the middle of the night Peter had stopped making theological observations.

By morning he had stopped making polite ones.

The eastern sky began to brighten.

A figure stood on the shore.

At that distance they could not make out His face.

A voice carried over the water.

"Children, have ye any meat?"

Peter muttered something.

John turned toward him.

"What?"

"Nothing worth preserving."

They called back that they had caught nothing.

The figure answered:

"Cast the net on the right side of the ship, and ye shall find."

Peter stared toward shore.

Then at John.

John shrugged.

It was not as though their present method had produced anything.

They cast.

The water came alive.

The net jerked hard enough to pull men off balance.

Fish struck against one another beneath the surface.

Hands grabbed rope.

The familiar work suddenly became impossible work.

Too much weight.

Too many fish.

John froze.

A command from shore.

An impossible catch.

A memory from years earlier.

Another impossible catch.

Another command that made little practical sense until the net answered it.

John did not need the two scenes to be identical.

The resemblance was enough to wake recognition.

Not identical.

Enough.

He looked toward the figure.

Recognition came all at once.

"It is the Lord."

Peter did not ask how John knew.

He grabbed his outer garment, secured it around himself, and went over the side.

John burst out laughing.

"Peter!"

Peter was already swimming.

Thomas stared after him.

"Was that necessary?"

John watched Peter attack the water as though the boat had personally offended him by remaining too far from shore.

"For Peter?"

Thomas considered.

"Yes."

They dragged the net behind the boat.

By the time they reached land, Peter was already near Jesus.

John stepped out.

Then stopped.

Charcoal.

The smell reached him before the whole scene did.

A small fire.

Fish.

Bread.

Morning air.

And charcoal.

John knew the smell before he needed a word for it.

The same kind of charcoal fire had burned in the high priest's courtyard.

John did not need to explain the correspondence. The two charcoal fires stood in memory together.

John looked toward Peter.

Peter had smelled it too.

The change in him was immediate.

His shoulders stopped.

His breath caught.

Another charcoal fire.

Another night.

A courtyard.

A servant girl.

Questions.

Denials.

"I know not the man."

John had not heard every word from where he had been, but everyone knew enough now.

Peter stood in morning light beside the risen Jesus and smelled the night in which he had failed Him.

Jesus did not begin with accusation.

He fed them.

"Come and dine."

No one asked who He was.

They knew.

Bread passed from His hands.

Fish.

Warmth after a useless night.

Peter tried to behave normally.

John watched him try.

The strong public posture returned.

Shoulders back.

Voice level.

Eyes moving anywhere except toward the fire for too long.

Jesus let him eat.

Afterward He looked at Peter.

"Simon, son of Jonas, lovest thou me more than these?"

Peter straightened as though someone had called him before an assembly.

"Yea, Lord; thou knowest that I love thee."

"Feed my lambs."

Peter nodded.

The second question came.

"Simon, son of Jonas, lovest thou me?"

The public voice remained, but it was thinner now.

"Yea, Lord; thou knowest that I love thee."

"Feed my sheep."

Peter swallowed.

John saw him glance once toward the charcoal.

No one counted aloud.

No one needed to tell Peter what the repetition was doing to him.

The three questions stood beside the remembered denials without Jesus turning restoration into a mechanical formula.

Then the third question.

"Simon, son of Jonas, lovest thou me?"

The strength left Peter's face.

Not all at once.

His shoulders remained broad.

His back remained straight.

But his head turned slightly away from the others.

Those farther behind could see mostly the back of him.

John was close enough to see the muscles in Peter's jaw tighten.

His throat moved.

No words came.

Peter lifted his chin a little, trying to open enough space for breath.

He swallowed.

Tried again.

"Lord..."

The word broke.

He stopped.

Jesus waited.

Peter's eyes filled.

There was no way to keep the strong face now.

"Thou knowest all things."

Another breath.

"Thou knowest that I love thee."

Jesus did not shame him.

"Feed my sheep."

Restoration did not return Peter merely to private comfort.

Mercy became responsibility.

The man who had failed publicly was still being entrusted with care for people who belonged to Jesus.

The commission was not ownership.

They remained His sheep.

Peter closed his eyes.

John looked away.

There were times when looking away was not indifference.

It was kindness.

The wind moved across the water.

After a while Peter gave a weak laugh through tears.

"At least the fish were easier."

Jesus smiled.

"For a while."

John laughed.

Peter wiped his face and gave him a warning look.

John immediately became interested in the lake.

* * *

Jesus did not finish with Peter at the fire.

The others began gathering nets and food.

Peter walked a little distance with Jesus.

John followed, not close enough to intrude, close enough that Peter eventually noticed him.

Jesus spoke to Peter about a future Peter did not want to imagine.

About youth.

About growing old.

About hands stretched out.

About another girding him and carrying him where he would not choose.

The words pointed toward the kind of death by which Peter would glorify God.

At the shoreline, Peter heard the future as something that would happen to his own body.

The humor left Peter completely.

Jesus looked at him.

"Follow me."

Peter breathed slowly.

The same command.

Years earlier beside water.

Now after denial.

After cross.

After resurrection.

After restoration.

Follow Me.

Peter turned.

He saw John behind them.

Perhaps the old instinct returned - the need to know where everyone else stood before he took one more difficult step.

He pointed with his chin.

"And what of him, Lord?"

Jesus glanced toward John.

"If I will that he tarry till I come, what is that to thee?"

Jesus did not say John would remain alive until His coming.

He answered Peter's comparison by refusing to make John's path Peter's assignment.

Then He looked back at Peter.

"Follow thou me."

Peter looked as though he wanted to ask another question.

Jesus had already turned away.

John froze.

At the time, I understood no more of those words than Peter did.

The words remained unresolved.

Follow thou Me.

The morning had restored Peter without answering every future question.

Later, when the disciples gathered again, Jesus would move from a charcoal fire beside the lake to another kind of dwelling entirely.

A house Solomon knew could never contain the God whose glory truly filled it.