John 21:1-4 “Afterward Jesus appeared again to His disciples by the Sea of Tiberias. It happened this way: Simon Peter, Thomas, Nathanel from Cana in Galilee, the sons of Zebedee, and two other disciples were together. “I’m going out to fish,” Simon Peter told them, and they said, “We’ll go with you.” So they went out and got into the boat, but they caught nothing. Early in the morning, Jesus stood on the shore, but the disciples did not realize that it was Jesus.”
What strikes me about this text is that Jesus had already appeared to the disciples after the resurrection and what we see out of Peter is a desire to go back to what he knew. Verse three tells us that Peter said he was going to go fishing. Certainly Peter had to have known that his life would never be the same because of the resurrection and yet there seems to be a reluctance to embrace the new life that Jesus gave to Him.
I wonder if that is our response to the resurrection? We celebrated Resurrection Sunday last week and we tend to do things a little different. The question remains, however, of what are you going to do with the wonderful news that Jesus died on the cross for our sins and rose again from the dead so that our hope could be restored. Jesus has a wonderful plan for your life and mine, just as He did for Peter. Will we embrace that new life and the new thing that Christ wants to do through His Spirit, or will we simply go back to what we know and what we are comfortable with? You cannot encounter the Risen Christ and be unchanged. May we embrace the new life and the new thing that Christ has come to give us and live in faithfulness and obedience to that which He has called us to.