This first week of Easter we have been listening to how the first disciples experienced the risen Christ in their lives. It is amazing to see how the risen Christ is in all aspects of their lives – so much so, that at times they don’t recognize him at first. He is on the road with them while they share their mutual concerns, fears, and sadness, in the breaking of the bread (the mass), in their meetings, in moments of prayer, in their hiding places, and in their despair. Today we find a group of the disciples back in Galilee, just where the risen Christ told them to go. Galilee is that ordinary place of our common everyday life. Surely, they were still full of confusion and sorrow after Jesus’ death and maybe even more so after some had the experience of seeing the risen Christ. I am sure they had been looking for Christ. Wondering: Where is he? Why doesn’t he do this or that? Thinking: I know what he should do as the Christ.
While seven of them are gathered, they decide to go out to work together. They put their lives together in a project for the common good: work, fishing, food. They are professional fishermen, so they know how to do this. But their physical efforts alone, their knowledge and expertise about fishing, and their good intentions of working for the common good produce nothing.
The risen Christ appears in their midst with fish and breakfast already prepared. When they work together according to his Word, they find an abundance of fish and they are able to recognize him. Christ was already there in their midst. He was waiting for them with everything already prepared.
Today we see the joining of our common work and lives united with the Word of God produce a unity of the human and divine – an encounter with the risen Christ. There is an overabundance of new life in the risen Christ always present in our lives. We tend to look for the risen Lord in the wrong places. The first disciples found the risen Christ in common, everyday experiences – today we see that encounter in working together for a the common good, sharing their resources and knowledge, and uniting their intentions to the Word of God. Uniting our common, everyday lives to the will of God produces new life, an experience of the resurrection.
Image: https://www.jw.org/en/library/books/jesus/final-ministry/sea-of-galilee/