Instead of a Session this Sunday, take this Bible Lesson given by Mary Baker Eddy in her early ministry, an inspired presentation of what the disciples went through in their last days with Jesus. Drink in the atmosphere. Let it change you. (Found on p.129 of the Red Book.)
John 21: 5 – ‘Children, have ye any meat? They answered him, No.’
"According to the gospel narrative St. Peter was an impulsive man, and at times morally vacillating; he tested as well as rewarded the wonderful patience of his Master. He was the spokesman for the twelve disciples, and his mental activity and sudden strength stormed the citadel of other minds, dispossessed them, and then capitulated. It was thus that his more moderate brethren fell into his temptation, and went back to their nets. When the Master was no longer with them to rebuke and lead on by his calm courage and moral grandeur, the tension was great, and the scoffs of men and their struggle with self seemed to overpower them, and they yielded to their rule.
In the days of their true leader’s prosperity, they left their several vocations, changed the channels of their lives socially and religiously, with the hope, no doubt, of following him spiritually in word and works. Now, when ambition to see the kingdom restored to the Jews was blasted, their leader no longer a victor, but vanquished, slain and silent as the sepulchre where they had laid him, they who had followed him for worldly prestige or power, turned away, weary of their Lord. It took stripes, imprisonment and mockings to atone for their dire actions, and bring them in humility to the foot of their Master’s cross, where they could say, ‘I count it all joy that I am found worthy to suffer for Christ’.
In his palmy day, when the full-orbed glory of divine power – healing the sick and raising the dead – shone as the very Shekinah in their midst, and the anointed of his Father rode triumphantly into the city that stoned the prophets, his disciples appeared to follow him; but when the pall of crucifixion was enshrouding them, and the Master bade them watch with him one hour, they slept. When they would wag their head directingly and the finger of scorn was pointed at them, their pride overcame their pity, and Peter profanely denied that he knew him. This was the hour Jesus spoke of to that disciple to prepare him to meet it as befitted a true follower of him, but he doubted him and replied impertinently that it was no so. This was the hour when the loving Godlike Jesus should be tempted by the power of death and the grave, and worse than these, the malignity of his foes, contrary to human law, should engirdle him on every hand, and he should voluntarily surrender his body to their brutal cruelty, and listen speechlessly to the impious taunts of maudlin hypocrites.
The scene with which our text is connected opens on the shore of the sea of Tiberius, the sea of Galilee. The night was dark, the clouds hung loweringly over the dark abyss of waters, the silence was profound; nought was heard but the startled call of the lone night-bird among the boughs along the outskirts of the pebbly shore. The silence is broken by approaching footsteps, and we behold seven men with sad, dejected countenances, seven disappointed, mistaken men walking slowly to the dull dark shore. They have with them the paraphernalia for a fishing voyage, and there lies the old leaky boat so long unused; but they enter it again, fasten their light to the bow, hang their net to the stern, and launch into the dark depths of waters; they go backward and forward in the darkness, even as Job said of his experience, ‘I go forward, but he is not there; and backward, but I cannot perceive him’. The very fishes avoided them. They would not be caught in their company. They will not be duped by dupes. They toiled all night but caught nothing. They whom Jesus called away from their nets are now ensnared in them. The teachings of Jesus that had made them fishers of men are cast aside. The allurements of the world have won them into by-paths. They had promised to Christ more than they had given; hence their present loss.
The disciples must have realized this in their vain toil and remembered how great a thing it was to be made fishers of men, able to draw all men after them, to heal the sick and reform the sinner; and comparing this great gift with the fallen sense of getting gain where there was only loss, they turned their boat toward the shore. It was the darkest hour before the dawn. This high resolve saved them. The Christ had not departed from them, but they had left him, and lost him because they would not watch and work in the hour of his crucifixion. In the days of his prosperity they followed him afar off, and forsook him when they lost the hope that he would restore the kingdom of the Jews. Lessoned by their afflictions, they would now retrace these false footsteps with this preparation of heart. At this moment of self-surrender and consecration they hear from over the dark wave the loving call of their Lord asking, ‘Children, have ye any meat? They answered him, ‘No’. And he said, ‘Cast the net on the right side of the ship, and ye shall find’.
But this was the point to be gained to know which was the right side: Was it material or a spiritual life that they should seek and strive to attain more devoutly than they had done? Here man’s extremity was God’s opportunity, and the students of Jesus chose for the first time without a single consideration of self, the right side, the spiritual side, and now they could trust the loving Father to crown their labors with rich reward. This was the same as saying, ‘We are now convinced of our folly and will return and follow Christ nearer and more faithfully than we have done’. So the impulsive Peter leaped into the cold wave, not attempting this time to walk over when his Master was not by his side to help him, but he was willing to beat the wave and swim for the shore to work, watch and pray until he himself had risen so as to behold the risen Christ, and gain a higher sense of Truth and Love. This could now be done when he sought Truth, not for the loaves and fishes, but for Truth’s sake, and willing to bear that cross before receiving its crown. Thus prepared for a blessing, he found it, and lo, the barley loaf and him on the shore.
Christ, the Truth of Life, always gives us enough to begin with when we are ready to serve Him. We shall know the Truth when we are ready to receive it, and then the Truth shall make us free. Now they were made willing in the day of his power to work with small support, they would now begin with one fish and one loaf to work who once had baskets full left of their supplies. They could sup with the Saviour with humbler terms than they would once.
This last lesson that Jesus taught his students was the most advanced, and this was that lesson: repentance, humility, self-consecration. This was our Lord’s last supper with his students, and it commanded a higher experience than the feast of the passover to remind his people of the passage of the Israelites out of the Egyptian bondage. It was his last human act that showed the divine love for men in a higher sense. It was the disciples’ first and last spiritual supper with their great Teacher. This supper with their Lord was the perpetual passover; it pointed the way to everlasting victories, the final destruction of sin, sickness, death, victories spiritually made through that which held no fellowship with material modes, the crucifixion of the flesh, and the faith that cometh by works, the demonstration of the divine Principle that governs man in the order of Science."