John 21:4Meaning & Commentary from the Church Fathers

The teaching through Christ is conceived as incomparably higher in honor and glory, and far better than the commandments of the law. Truth is without doubt higher than figures, the Master than the servant, and the justifying grace of the Spirit than the condemning letter of the law. Therefore Christ’s teaching must be placed on the right side, since the right side indicates to us its superiority over the law and the prophets. Immediately obeying our Savior’s command, the divine disciples let down the net. This indicates to us that they did not seize for themselves the grace of the apostleship. Rather, by His command they went out to spiritual fishing. For He says, “Go, teach all nations” (Mt 28:19). They say that “at the word” of Christ they cast the net. They catch by nothing other than the words of our Savior and the evangelical teachings. Then within the nets that had been cast there was a certain great multitude of fish, so that the disciples could draw them in only with difficulty. Indeed, those caught and brought to faith are countless. This miracle is truly beyond and above the power of the holy apostles. It is the work of Christ, who by His own power gathers the multitude of those being saved into the Church on earth, as into an apostolic net.

By His deeds He spoke to the disciples about the very mystery of His Resurrection, as though saying: I no longer appear to you on the sea, because I am not with you in the waves of disorder. Therefore elsewhere, after His Resurrection, He says to the same disciples: “These are My words which I spoke to you while I was still with you” (Lk 24:44). He was not with those to whom He was then appearing bodily. He denies that He is with those from whose mortal body of flesh He was separated by immortality. As there, while being with them, He confesses that He is not with them, so here by the position of His body He shows that He is already on the shore, while they are still sailing.

Thus, when He drew near to Luke and Cleopas as they were going to Emmaus, and walked with them, it was not early morning. When they drew near to the village where they were going, “He made as though He would have gone farther. But they constrained Him, saying, Abide with us, for it is toward evening” (Lk 24:28).

After He broke the bread and gave it to them, they recognized Him, and He became invisible to them. Rising that very hour, they returned to Jerusalem and told the other disciples what had happened to them on the way. While they were speaking, Jesus Himself stood in their midst. This, of course, was at the end of the day, after that evening had passed.

Again, on another occasion, after a meal, He speaks to Peter and appoints him as our shepherd over His rational sheep. For “when they had dined,” says the Evangelist, “He said to Simon Peter: Simon, son of Jonah, lovest thou Me?” When he answered in the affirmative, he heard in reply: “Feed My lambs; feed My sheep” (Jn 21:15-17).

How, then, could this also be a “Matins” appearance, and be so named, when in fact it did not occur in the hours of early morning?

Yet the appearances of the risen Savior, whatever part of the day they occurred in, are called “Matins,” or better, “dawn” appearances. And such they are in reality, for the following reasons.

Christ, the Sun of Righteousness, is without beginning and before the ages. He is unmoved and unchanging, since He has no change or shadow of turning. He knows neither end nor setting, radiating the true and supramundane light, and bringing forth the day without evening, the unending day.

In that day the souls of the righteous dwell together with the good angels. After the end of this age, the righteous will also be heirs of the Light with their bodies, and sons of the True Day.

Since this Day is without evening and indivisible according to the notion of time, it has and had no morning, because it is without beginning. But night surrounds us, and the shadow of death encircles us. We fell into sin and thereby lost the power of sight which, by grace, had been ours from God. Through it we perceived the Light that leads to true life.

Thus death also brought night upon our nature. This does not mean that the True Light turned away from us. Rather, we ourselves turned away and became powerless of ourselves to look upon that life-giving Light.

But the Source of the ever-existing Light and the Cause of true life had mercy on us. At the end of the ages He not only came down to us for our sake, becoming a man like us. For our sake He also accepted the Cross and death.

By His death He destroyed the kingdom of Hades. On the third day He rose again, once more manifesting in our nature the light of pure and immortal life, and making the radiance of the Resurrection His own.

Since His Resurrection became the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep, the light of immortal life will surround His disciples at His Second Coming. Then the true Day, indivisible according to the notion of time, will shine forth for all.

For this reason the Lord’s Resurrection became the notion of the dawn and morning of that coming Day. Therefore all Gospel readings that tell of the Resurrection are “dawn” and “Matins” readings.

For this reason, all the appearances of the risen Savior, regardless of when they occurred in terms of the sensible day, whether morning or evening, are equally “Matins” appearances and are so called.

But the Matins Gospel read aloud today is doubly a “Matins” Gospel. It not only sets forth what concerns the Lord’s Resurrection and His appearance afterward. It also speaks of events that took place at the dawn of the sensible day.

“When morning had come,” says the Evangelist, “Jesus stood on the shore; yet the disciples did not know that it was Jesus.” At the beginning, however, the Evangelist says that Jesus appeared to His disciples, after rising from the dead, at the Sea of Tiberias.

Yes, He truly appeared. But since they were in the boat on the open sea, away from the shore, and were absorbed in fishing, they did not yet recognize Him.

The casting of the net on the right side of the boat in the morning, and the catch of fish, showed the success of the Gospel preaching after His coming into the world. It was morning because the Sun of Righteousness Himself had appeared to us in the flesh.

The teaching that gathers and draws out the multitude of those being saved was favorable and successful. Epidexios means right, favorable, and successful.

He did not mean bread, but what is added to bread at table, here fish. The disciples answered, “No.” Then the One standing on the shore advised them to cast their nets on the right side of the boat and promised success. The success was extraordinary. The seven could not draw in the nets because of the multitude of fish. Later they counted, for each brother except one, twenty-two large fish. This successful catch probably reminded John of their earlier miraculous catch. He surmised that the Lord Himself was on the shore and immediately told the others. As soon as Simon Peter heard this, he threw himself into the water to come to Jesus more quickly, or so that He might not depart from them. The others also arrived there immediately. On the shore it was no longer they who offered Him refreshment, or a meal, from their catch. He Himself did so, distributing bread and fish to them. If the catch foretold to the disciples the effect of their preaching, then the drawing of the catch to Jesus’ feet foreshadowed the end of their activity in this ministry. It also foretold what success they were to expect. The meal given by Jesus signified the reward from Him in His Kingdom, or the supper in the Kingdom of Heaven. Thus this supper recalled the Last Supper in Jerusalem before the Passion. Yet it also had another special relation to those events.

When the Evangelist John wrote his Gospel, he was about ninety years old. It was very possible that some Christians, recalling Jesus Christ’s words about His beloved disciple, thought that he really would not die. Therefore the Evangelist John explains with special care that the Lord’s words must be understood conditionally (21:22-23). Moreover, in the prediction to Peter of the destiny awaiting him as a preacher and confessor of Christ, the destiny of all Christ’s followers is also prefigured. It concerns their relation to the unbelieving world, among which the Gospel of the Kingdom of God will be preached. The time of this appearance cannot be precisely determined. In general, it belongs to the time when the apostles, at Jesus Christ’s command, returned from Jerusalem to Galilee. It was the third appearance among the appearances to many disciples: the first was 20:19, and the second 20:26. The purpose of this appearance was the restoration of the Apostle Peter, who had denied Christ three times, to his apostolic dignity. Therefore the Risen One appears not just anywhere, but precisely at the Sea of Galilee. He appears precisely during the apostles’ fishing and after the miraculous catch made at Christ’s word. All this had to remind Peter and his companions of the history of their call to follow Jesus, when it was promised that they would one day become fishers of men (Lk 5:1 and following). Just as the fishing figuratively indicated to the apostles their preaching labors, which would be successful with Christ’s help, so the meal Christ then prepared could point its participants to the enjoyment of the blessings of eternal life. This would be their reward for faithful and zealous service to the Gospel. It may also have been significant that the Lord prepared this meal by means of fire. This fire was to remind Peter of the fire in the high priest’s courtyard, around which he denied Christ.

They remembered how their nets were filled with a multitude of fish. John looked at the Man standing on the shore, recognized Jesus in Him, and immediately said to Peter, “It is the Lord!” Peter looks toward the shore and sees that it truly is He. Beside himself with joy, he seizes the first garment at hand, girds his naked body with it, and throws himself into the water to swim to shore as quickly as possible.

Mary Magdalene, immersed in her grief, does not recognize the Lord until His voice leads her out of her stupor. Her soul first recognizes the Lord, and then her eyes are opened. The disciples walking to Emmaus thought of the Lord as dead, not rising to the thought of His Resurrection, and their eyes were held. Their hearts burned, in the Evangelist’s expression, when the Lord walked with them, but they did not recognize Him. Yet in the breaking of bread their soul recognized the Lord, and then their eyes were opened. In this event on the Lake of Tiberias, the night’s labors and the failure of the catch occupied the disciples so much that their thoughts were far from the Lord. Therefore they did not recognize the Lord. The Evangelist John, it seems, even says with some wonder: “The disciples did not know that it was Jesus.” Yet he is the first to recognize the Lord in verse 7. His loving soul could not be so wholly absorbed by earthly tasks, and it continually returned to the remembrance of the Lord Jesus. Therefore he recognized Him first. Is this not a general law of the spiritual life?