Fifty years ago an amazing thing happened and most of the world watched in awe as humans stepped out of a spacecraft and walked on the moon. Technology of the time was a bit primitive by today’s standards but satellite dishes, huge banks of computers, and hundreds of people in several countries made it happen.
Those folk who were old enough at the time remembered what they were doing at the time of the moon landing. We humans do that. Think of any of the dramatic events in our recent past and you will know for sure exactly where you were, and what you were doing: Cyclone Tracey, JFK’s assassination, Chernobyl, plane crashes, September 11.
Many people saw the landing on the moon and were amazed. They never doubted.
And yet there are those who declare that such things are conspiracies—they didn’t really happen. Apparently such events are covert plots by one country against another. That plane crash was to divert attention from a secret mission somewhere; immunisations are a First World plot to take over poor and undeveloped countries; President Kennedy was shot by the CIA, or the KGB, or Mickey Mouse. The X-Files are true. And the moon landing was an elaborate set-up in a movie studio somewhere in the US.
And that doubting includes mistrust about some of the wonderful things God does.
Sometimes the truth is too much.
It’s unbelievable, so there must be some kind of trick or cover up. Surely. Yes?
It’s funny how we react in a time of upheaval and change. We try to come to terms with things by grabbing onto the familiar, what we can know and understand. We are convinced that someone is lying to us. We are completely at sea when the unexpected and unpredictable happens. We just go into denial. It’s all too hard.
Peter was a bit like that, I reckon. In the last chapters of John’s Gospel we read about how Jesus appeared to his friends and disciples after his resurrection. There were many appearances. We hear how Thomas would only believe if he saw and touched the marks on Jesus’ body.
This must have been a truly strange time of turmoil and grief, with rumours and counter-rumours, conspiracy theories and whispers and just plain puzzlement. What was happening?
What on earth was God up to?
It was certainly too much for Peter. He said, ‘I’m going fishing.’ Back to the familiar. Let’s get away from all this.
What a typical response for many of us! But that’s not what is so wonderfully surprising about this story. John tells us that Jesus stood on the shore and told them to cast the nets out again. When they did, they caught 153 fish.
Wait. What? Someone counted the fish?
Why would they do that? The incredible appearance of a once dead and now fully alive man, standing in front of them, telling them to toss the nets out again, and then to haul in nets full to breaking with fish would have been more than the human mind could take in. Crazy stuff!
But perhaps to process the extraordinary things they had just seen they did a very ordinary, very practical thing. Something familiar, something they could do almost without thinking. They cast out the nets. And they counted the fish.
Instead of being suspicious, looking for conspiracies, trawling the interwebs for tricks and deceptions, we might just chill for a while. Go fishing, and ‘count the fish.’
Or if you’re an Aussie, you might stay calm and make a cuppa.
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Sheelagh Wegman, BA, IPEd Accredited Editor is a freelance writer and editor. She enjoys reading, music, sings in the choir of St David’s Cathedral in Hobart and lives in the foothills of kunanyi/Mt Wellington.
Sheelagh Wegman’s previous articles may be viewed at http://www.pressserviceinternational.org/sheelagh-wegman.html
Sheelagh Wegman is a freelance writer and editor. She is in the community of St David’s Cathedral in Hobart and lives in the foothills of kunanyi/Mt Wellington.
Sheelagh Wegman’s previous articles may be viewed at http://www.pressserviceinternational.org/sheelagh-wegman.html