Third Sunday of Easter Year C Joh 21,1-19

Brothers and sisters, as I said at the beginning of the Holy Mass, in this revelation, Jesus comes to the environment in which those disciples lived. What is the environment? The Evangelist says, at Lake Tiberias or the sea. It is a lake, otherwise it is also called Lake Gennesaret. But Tiberias is a city that was built in honor of Emperor Tiberius as a pagan city. So the halo says that Jesus also comes to an environment that does not know him or is even hostile to him. He comes and waits for acceptance. It also comes, we would say, into those troubles. They didn’t catch anything all night. This is actually where the situation that St. Peter has already experienced is repeated. At first, when Jesus calls him, it is very similar. „We’ve been straining all night, we haven’t caught anything.“ That is, they are the apostles at the moment wet, tired, dirty, hungry, and most importantly, their existence is threatened in some way, because if they were to sell, buy more things for their families that they needed. The Lord comes into our daily problems; He wants to enter our daily existence, but it’s up to us to let Him in. The Gospel of John has at the beginning, in Chapter 2, a beautiful story about how Jesus enters human life at the wedding in Cana of Galilee. He enters into joy and saves that joy because he turns water into wine. And the last sentence of that story is that Jesus’ disciples believed in him. Jesus does this not to show himself or build a position for himself, but to believe in Him. Here, this story is at the very end of the Gospel of John, and again tells about the disciples. Now, they are not experiencing any joy, but rather worry, and above all, they have a kind of hopelessness within them. We must realize that this happened before the Holy Spirit was sent, and they ask: „What are we going to do? What will our full life be? Until now, he was full of Jesus Christ by being with Him, by listening to Him, or by listening to what He says, and we absorbed that into our lives. But what do we put there now? Because Jesus is gone.“ And Jesus comes into this, we would say, void, into this moment of decision, and comes as one who asks: „Do you have anything to eat?“ It’s a paradox. It is a paradox that only God can do. Because one would say, „Do this, this, this, this.“ But Jesus wants to win that person over, engage him. Jesus comes as the one who is needed: „Don’t you have anything to eat?“ „We don’t.“ Jesus is not picky. Jesus does not dictate and does not say: „This is what I want,“ or: „It is what I want.“ Jesus is content. But what he asks for and what he expects is that we will answer his attention. He always addresses it first, but there’s an answer waiting.

That answer is honest: „We don’t have.“ He knows they don’t have it, but he came to have us. And asks for cooperation from a person: „Throw the network. Bring a few of those fish you caught.“ Jesus gives, but it’s not just that a person sets his hands and keeps saying: „Lord God, give.“ It’s according to that saying, do it and God will bless you. Or you can tell it the other way around: God blesses you, so try. God does not despise our abilities, however small or weak they may be. „Bring a few, a little. To what I give you, you add your share – what you can do, what you are good at.“

We see one more such interesting thing there. They didn’t recognize him first. Realizing that Jesus, God, comes to me in my daily life is not easy. He comes so inconspicuously, it could have been any of the locals; he could have stood on that shore. He goes unnoticed, so it takes work to get to know him. The disciple whom Jesus loved, according to tradition, is Saint John, says: „The Lord is it.“ Jan is the youngest of them. Jan has no function there, no role. Petr controls the whole thing: „I’m going to fish.“

„We’ll go with you. You are the leader here.“ The youngest recognized Jesus. He could have said to himself: „ So I’ll use it to climb those steps to make them feel that I also mean something, that I have some abilities too.“ Won’t do. He will share this joy with them. And the critical thing, brothers and sisters, so that our community can divide each other in a good way, we would say, and encourage each other in a good way. „The Lord is it.“ And then it’s all set in motion, and it’s all different, because the gap, the question: „What are we going to do now? Who do we entrust our lives to? Who will we rely on? Who will we follow?“That question has already been answered. Lord, it is.

Brothers and sisters, there are moments in each of our lives when we make decisions. The scripture says that Jesus was standing on the shore when it dawned. When dawn comes, a new day begins. We are starting a new activity. The shore of that lake is also a symbolic place. Something starts there. A person sits in a boat, bounces off, and sets off on a journey. Or he will come to the shore with that boat again, get out, and the journey is over. So a constant beginning, a constant end, a blending, it’s just life. And the halo writer wants to say: „And it is in these situations, in these everyday beginnings, but after all also the ends, the conclusions, the moments of decision-making, that Jesus wants to enter into all this. He comes and waits. He will wait to see if we include him in our plans, in our thoughts, in short, and well, if we count on him. Likewise, he would like it and is waiting for it. And when we finally stop by for breakfast. The Risen Jesus makes breakfast for the apostles. As I said, they are soaked, hungry, and thirsty. Jesus takes care of them.

Brothers and sisters, no one would invent such a God who cares for man. After all, we believe that God created the world and that He constantly cares for it, but we should realize that He cares so well and so carefully because He knows us and cares about us. Let’s accept this care of his, this concern of his, and invite him into all our plans, into what we want to start, and thank him for it. With his help, we can, for example, complete things.