Easter Friday

Readings: Acts 4:1-12; Psalm 118; John 21:1-14

There are many numbers mentioned in today's readings. The community at Jerusalem is now five thousand strong, a very significant group, which may explain the growing concern of the authorities. When Acts says 'five thousand men' it probably means the same as it did at the feeding of the five thousand, that is five thousand 'not counting women and children' (Matthew 14:21). So the faith is spreading and the preaching of the apostles is bearing fruit. Remember how, a few years ago, a contagious disease spread rapidly across the world? It is important to recall that good things too can be contagious - qualities like faith, kindness, compassion, and love. But the growth of the community of believers provokes the authorities to opposition and very soon to open persecution of them, firstly of the apostles (Acts 5), then of Stephen (Acts 7), and finally of the whole community (Acts 8).

There are four numbers mentioned in the gospel reading. Jesus appears to seven disciples who have gone fishing. They are two hundred cubits, or a hundred feet, from the shore. They catch one hundred and fifty three fish. And this is Jesus' third appearance to the disciples.

In the days of allegorical interpretation preachers felt obliged to find deep meanings in any number mentioned in the scriptures. Some numbers seem well qualified to receive such attention, because of their importance in the history of God's people - the number forty, for example, or the number twelve. Other numbers are not so obviously significant. Here though the very precise and unusual number '153' has attracted lots of attention across the centuries. The usual interpretation is that it represents all nationalities known at the time. Its use here serves to indicate that the fishing of men in which the apostles will engage under the direction of Jesus will reap a universal harvest.

It is reasonable to assume that this number must have some significance: is it credible to imagine that while some of the disciple were having breakfast with Jesus, others were counting the fish they had caught? Perhaps they did, in order to tell others about it later.

The distance from the shore - 200 cubits or 100 feet - seems to have no particular significance. We are told that it means they were not far from the shore. But it may have been far enough to explain in part why the disciples did not immediately recognise Jesus. The beloved disciple did, but tradition tells us that he was the youngest and so perhaps the one whose eyesight was clearest. (We can also of course give that a deeper meaning: as the disciple Jesus loved he was best equipped to recognise him.)

There are two more numbers in the gospel reading. Jesus appears to seven disciples. Peter, James and John are a familiar threesome. They are joined by Thomas and Nathanael, each of whom figures in important ways earlier in the gospel of John. There are also two unnamed disciples, although if the beloved disciple is one of these two rather than John, the son of Zebedee, then we know who six of them were. There remains at least one unnamed disciple. Is it that there was confusion later about which of them was present on this occasion? Or should we take it allegorically and see the seventh disciple as 'every Christian'. So it is you, and me, and everybody else who gets involved in following the Lord? We are participants in the apostolic mission in one way or another, we are invited to breakfast with the Lord and to receive the blessed bread from His hands.

Finally there is the number three: this was the third time that Jesus was revealed to the disciples after he was raised from the dead. There is a bit of clarification needed about that. Either the appearance to Mary Magdalen is not counted as being 'to the disciples' or else the one week apart appearances involving Thomas and his doubts are being counted as a single two-part appearance. The more likely solution is the first, that the appearance to Mary is not counted as an appearance 'to the disciples' and so this is the third time Jesus appears to a group of them. 

It could be that this third appearance is important as confirming the claim that Jesus has risen from the dead. It is common throughout the scriptures to be told that any claim needs to be supported by the evidence of two or three witnesses. Perhaps, therefore, this significance was seen in this appearance of Jesus: it is the third piece of evidence and so the claim is supported, it is proven.

However, there is yet one more number in the readings today and that is the number one. In the first reading Peter tells the authorities that Jesus Christ is the (one) stone that was rejected but that has become the cornerstone. (The church's one foundation, as we often sing, is Jesus Christ the Lord, a hymn written, appropriately, by one Samuel John Stone!) Peter goes on to tell the authorities that there is just one name under heaven given to the human race by which we are to be saved. It is the name of Jesus Christ.

This is implied also in the gospel reading: Jesus stands alone on the shore, He is the one and the only Lord. The charcoal fire reminds Peter of his threefold denial of Jesus. But the rejection not only of Jesus but of the Lord, the God of Israel, which came from the mouth of the chief priests  - 'we have no king but Caesar', John 19:15 - is a devastating apostasy which is now corrected and transformed. 'It is the Lord', says the beloved disciple, and the rest of them then recognise him at the breaking of the bread (John 21:12).

In the end, one is the only number here that really matters. 'The Lord, our God, is one Lord' (Deuteronomy 6:4). Know assuredly, Peter says in an earlier sermon, that God has made this Jesus who was crucified both Lord and Christ (Acts 2:36, read on Easter Tuesday).