Thought of the day – Sunday 17th May 2020
John – A new kind of normal
The others had all left now and John was all alone at the side of the sea of Galilee or Lake Tiberius as most of the locals knew it. He sat and gazed at the still glowing embers on the beach, the final remains of what had been the fire that had heated their meal. It had been so good to be back with Jesus, sharing a meal as they had so many times before, all chatting, wanting to learn from him, hungering to know more, but now, he was gone again, there seemed to be no way of knowing just when he would turn up and so far it had been as he’d told them earlier, like a thief in the night, unexpected, when they least expected him. Never had a truer word been spoken, this was twice that he had come to them now, John was the only disciple at the Cross that night, he was one of the first of them to see the open tomb on Easter Day, he’d seen an angel, he’d seen a whole lot of unbelievable things over the last few years, now he was all alone with just his thoughts and memories.
The questions buzzing around in his head now were, what happens next? Jesus had told them to wait in the city until he sent a helper, they’d tried that, they’d been locked away behind closed doors, partly for safety’s sake, partly because that was what they’d been told to do. It was awful, they had been used to working on the open seas, being out in the country and nobody could keep that up for any length of time, Thomas had been the first to crack, poor old Thomas, he hadn’t been there when Jesus had come. John thought back to that moment, seeing Jesus again, at the time they were so happy that they didn’t ask questions, he knew that Jesus had been dead, yet there he was standing right in front of them, He’d told them that as God had sent him, he was sending them out into the world, but what did that mean, he was a fisherman, not some great intellectual. They’d stuck with lockdown as long as they could stand it, but let’s face it, nobody could cope with being shut away from the world for so long, they had to do something, they wanted everything to go back to how it had been, to “normal” but what was normal? Prior to meeting Jesus.
Normal had been going out in the boat fishing, he walked across to the water’s edge, that’s what they were, fishermen, who had they been trying to fool? That was normal for them, as he stood looking at the waves lapping the shore, it had made sense when Peter had suggested it, had the last three year been a dream? It had been good being back out in the boat with the lads, doing what they did best, it didn’t feel quite as good as day broke, they hadn’t caught a thing, that was the point that the bloke on the shore had told them to drop their nets on the other side of the boat, it was common knowledge that somebody standing on the shore could see the school of fish and sure enough he’d been right, it was only as they pulled the nets on board that John had realised who the man was, they’d had another wonderful time with him, but now he was gone again.
John sat on a rock near the fire and gazed at the embers, did he really want life to go back to what it had been before? He wasn’t sure, perhaps he needed a new kind of normal, perhaps the things he’d experienced over the last few years would change the world forever? Who knows?