Fish Dinner in Israel
Tabgha is an Arabic name derived from the Greek word for “seven springs” (heptapegon). Christians have traditionally associated this location with two events in the life of Jesus Christ: the feeding of the five thousand and the threefold re-commissioning of Peter to feed Christ’s sheep after the Lord rose from the dead. Both of these events remind us of the insufficiency of man and the sufficiency of Christ.
One wonders what kind of expression was on the apostles’ faces after Jesus told them, “Give ye them [something] to eat” (Mark 6:37). Five thousand men plus women and children—a veritable army—surrounded them. In their hands were five loaves and two fish, a mere snack for the twelve apostles, much less for the crowds milling around them. They blurted out, “Shall we go and buy two hundred pennyworth of bread?” (Mark 6:37). Translated into modern terms, “Should we spend over eight months of wages to give this crowd a single meal?” Surely Jesus was asking them to do the impossible. They were inadequate for the job.
Fast-forward past Christ’s resurrection, when He appeared to seven of his disciples as they were fishing on the Sea of Galilee (John 21). The disciples fished all night, and caught nothing. Once again, they were confronted by their inadequacy, here even to provide for their own needs. Later they met Christ on the shore, and three times He asked Peter, “Simon, son of Jonas, lovest thou me?” (John 21:15–17). Like a doctor debriding a wound, his three questions painfully cleansed Simon Peter of his three denials of Christ. How utterly humbled he must have felt, totally unworthy to serve the Lord as one of His apostles.
However, at each point, just as Christ uncovers our insufficiency He reveals His all-sufficiency. In the hands of Jesus, the five loaves and two fish multiply to feed the thousands, with baskets left to spare. At the command of Jesus, the fisherman cast the net on the right side of the boat, and hauled in 153 large fish. And each time Peter answered Christ’s probing questions with a humble, “Thou knowest that I love thee,” Jesus answered not with a rebuke or accusation, but with a fresh calling to ministry: “Feed my sheep.” Our insufficiency opens the door for the entrance of Christ’s sufficiency so that we can serve Him with confident faith.
This is a lesson that must be experienced: I am weak, but Thou art everything. Only when we have learned the lesson of the fish are we prepared to serve Christ by His grace alone.
