I don’t know about you, but I love it when I see people in Scripture behaving like…well, like people. Like I would do. I love seeing how they were humans just like me. They mess up, they say the wrong thing–sometimes the stupid thing–and sometimes…sometimes they even just revert to default behavior when they don’t know what else to do. We can see a great example of this with Peter and the others after Christ’s resurrection, before His ascension:

¹ Some time later, Jesus once again revealed himself to his disciples at the Sea of Tiberias, in the following manner. ² Simon Peter, Thomas called the Twin, Nathanael from Cana in Galilee, the sons of Zebedee, and two other disciples were gathered together. ³ Simon Peter said to them, “I am going out to fish.” The others replied, “We will go with you.” They set off and got into the boat, but that night they caught nothing.

⁴ Shortly after daybreak, Jesus was standing on the shore, but the disciples did not realize that it was Jesus. ⁵ Jesus called out, “Children, have you caught anything?” When they answered, “No,” ⁶ he said to them, “Cast the net over the right side of the boat and you will find something.” They did so, and they were unable to haul the net on board because of the great number of fish.

~ John 21:1-6

Let’s imagine for a minute that we’re there with the disciples. They’d gone through Holy Week with Christ. They’d seen him crucified. They’d gone to the empty tomb. Christ Himself had appeared to them in a locked room, not once but twice. And John tells us that Jesus performed other signs for the disciples that weren’t recorded. In short:

They knew. They knew their Lord had defeated death. They knew He’d been raised to life again. They knew it.

But…then what?

Haven’t we all been there? We had that shock, that jolt, that lightning bolt epiphany. It’s real! He’s alive! He really is Christ, the Messiah, the Son of God! We are filled with joy unspeakable. Amazement unfathomable. Peace unknowable.

And then…what? Life is going on, ticking by, but what are we supposed to do? Jesus didn’t give us instructions, most likely. He hadn’t given them any at this point. We know that for at least a week, quite likely more, they were just hiding out in that upper room where He’d appeared to them twice. They must have been getting antsy. They must have begun to ask, “Now what? What are we supposed to do? Do we go out…? But we might get arrested, then what good would we be? Do we just sit here? Wait for Christ to visit us again, and press Him for some instructions this time? WHAT DO WE DO?”

I can just imagine Peter–bold, daring Peter–slapping his hands to his legs and standing up. He’d had enough of sitting around, and if he didn’t know what to do…well then, he’d just do what he’d always done. “I’m going fishing.”

Fishing. A normal, everyday activity. More, the one he’d been raised for, trained in, the thing he’d made a living at all his life, until three years ago. Fishing. The thing he knew best. But not only that. Fishing–the thing he’d been doing when Jesus first called him.

I don’t think that had ever struck me before. In a way, Peter is just returning to his default setting, right? Going back to the thing he knows best. Reverting to old behavior. He’s pressing the reset button, unplugging the machine, returning to factory settings.

But it’s not only that. He’s also returning to the place, to the activity, where Jesus had met him before. He’s doing the thing that had first made him aware of Jesus’ holiness, to where Jesus had said, “From now on, you’ll be a fisher of men.”

Sometimes we just need that reminder. We need to go back to where it all started and remember. We need the comfort of those old nets in our hands, our boat under our feet. We need fresh air and water lapping the hull and our best friends, our brothers beside us. Sometimes, we just need to go back to the place where our faith began.

Why? Well, we see that in this story too. Because Jesus meets Peter there again–in fact, we see a replay of their first meeting. The lack of a catch, the instructions to cast again on the other side, the net-testing haul.

But this time, they didn’t have to ask who this Man was. They knew. I imagine Peter squinting toward the shore, but unable to see the figure he’d heard so clearly. I imagine John–the youngest–elbowing him in the side, his own eyesight just fine. “It’s the Lord!” he proclaims. And that’s all Peter needs. He takes his cloak, jumps in the water, and swims to shore. There’s no stopping him, no waiting for that heavy-laden boat to be rowed back. He knows his Savior is there, right there, and nothing will keep him away.

I hope that’s how we all are when we revert to the comfort of our default position. I hope we see it, not as something just to fill our time or give us something to do or make us some money. I hope we see the comfort of the familiar as the gateway to the Divine. That we see it as putting ourselves in the place where we met Jesus, so we can encounter Him again.

And I pray that when we hear His voice, we listen, just like Peter did. I pray that the moment someone says, “It’s the Lord!” our hearts quicken within us, and we JUMP. Jump for the fastest way to meet Him wherever He is.

I pray that our default position becomes “meet the Lord.” Whatever that might look like for you.

Many signs and wonders were done among the people by the hands of the apostles. They all used to assemble in Solomon’s Portico. ¹³ No one else dared to join them, but the people esteemed them highly. ¹⁴ More believers, men and women, were constantly being added to their ranks. ¹⁵ People brought those who were sick into the streets and placed them on cots and mats so that when Peter passed by, his shadow might fall on some of them. ¹⁶ A large number of people also came from the neighboring towns around Jerusalem, bringing with them the sick and those tormented by unclean spirits, and all of them were cured. (Acts 5:12-16)

We’ve all read those chapters in Acts. We all know how vibrant the early church was, how amazing, how miraculous. Recapturing the Church of Acts has been the explicitly stated goal of many a start-up congregation over the centuries. And the why is easy to see.

They were performing miracles. They were healing the sick. Casting out demons. They gathered, and people flocked to them. Believers were being added constantly to their ranks.

I’ve read this chapter countless times, marveled each and every time over Peter’s very shadow being part of healing. This time, I just want to dwell with that thought for a minute, and I hope you’ll dwell with me.

There are, as usual, several parts to these miracles. First, people have to believe enough, have faith enough to come. In this case, I have to think that often it was not only the sick person with faith, but the friends and family members. They believed so much in the apostles’ ability to continue the healing work of Christ, that they brought their loved ones to them. Not enough room at the Portico? That wasn’t going to stop them–they’d line the streets. Crowds too big to actually get Peter’s attention? His shadow would suffice.

His shadow. Think about that.

Generally when we think of shadows and darkness and the blocking of light, we think of evil. Something, after all, in the way of the light. But this is a unique kind of shadow. This is a literal blocking of sunlight, sure. Peter, standing between the sick person and the sun.

Peter, standing between the sick person and the Son. But standing there, not as a block or a filter, but as a mirror. Reflecting that Light even as he blocked the sunlight. Walking in that authority. Sharing it with all who dared to believe.

Do we dare? Do we dare to believe enough to seek the shadows of the faithful, knowing that their mere presence can impart His blessing upon us? Do we dare to believe anyone can really act that much in Christ’s stead? Do we believe we can be so full of Christ that His will shine that brightly through us? Do our shadows, when coupled with the faith of our fellow believers, result in healing?

The Church of Acts didn’t vanish, my friends. It’s still alive and vibrant. It’s still here, we are still its members. And do you know how to tell if you or anyone else still has that kind of authority? You show up. You do the work. You do it every day. You walk like Peter walked, like Paul walked, like Jesus himself walked. You look for the people who need His touch.

You shine the light. You cast the shadow. You put yourself there, an intercessor between God and whoever needs His touch. You do it always, every day.

And then you watch the people keep coming. Because if we’re truly walking in His light, people will come. They’ll be drawn to it. If they aren’t…then maybe we’re living in shadows instead of casting them.

Today is Holy Thursday, Maundy Thursday. The day when Christ celebrated the Passover with His disciples–the Last Supper. Tonight He instituted what may be the most sacred of the sacraments–Holy Communion, the Eucharist. He took bread, took wine, and declared them His body and blood, the things by which we are saved.

This year I read an absolutely amazing book about the Last Supper and how it didn’t really end until Christ died on the cross, called The Fourth Cup by Scott Hahn. I highly recommend it for anyone interested in that Passover meal and the new covenant and communion. But it began by touching on something we all have to know and remember that comes to us from the days of Moses.

The Passover was not “remembered” every year. It was REpresented. It was lived anew. The words said, the rituals, the tradition was not just meant to teach or instruct, it was telling each person at each meal, “You were there too. We were all there. This is what God did for YOU and for ME and for US as a people.” You can see that in the words of Moses himself, not only when he first hands down the law, but when he is giving it again to the people about to enter the promised land.

Those people were not the same people who had left Egypt–that’s very clear. Every single member over twenty years old of that original generation had to die in the next forty years, so a fresh people, a people who had not doubted, had not worshipped the golden calf, could be the ones to take the land. But when Moses is giving his final address, he wording is so very pointed. When you were there, he says time and again. When God did this for you. You saw the plagues.

They didn’t–not literally. But as he speaks those words, he’s teaching them that our God is not bound by time. That our God is king of all creation, all ages. Our Lord did His work for them just as surely as for their parents and grandparents. It needs to be more than a memory–it needs to be the reality, ever present in their hearts and minds. They need to be there. They need to know it’s more than words, that by taking part in that ceremony, they are in fact living it with their ancestors. It isn’t just a representation, it’s a RE-presentation. It’s happening again for them…or rather, it’s drawing them back to that original happening. The event isn’t repeating, the participants are instead defying space and time and partaking of the original. This is the odd reality that Moses speaks to the new generation, and it was the understanding carried forth from that day all the way to the day of Jesus and beyond.

This is the same lesson we need to learn when it comes to Christ’s Passover. When we eat the bread and drink the cup of the new covenant, we aren’t just doing it in memory–we’re doing it knowing that the same truth that saved the people alive in His day, watching Him on the cross, saves us too. Because His work is not bound by time or space, and each occasion of the Eucharist is, like the Passover was for the Jews, a REpresenting. It isn’t happening again, but it is pulling us back into that first time it happened. We are partaking of the original, the one and only, the complete and perfect sacrifice.

That is the miracle of our God. The miracle we rely on when we place our faith in a Man who lived two thousand years ago but somehow saved us. The miracle we embrace when we said He did the work of salvation “once and for all”–that doesn’t mean one finite action that began and ended, like our idiom might indicate. It means once, forever, for all of us. It means it’s continually working, because we are continually partaking, because it’s an action outside of the confines of time.

This is the cup of Christ. The work of the cross. The cup of salvation poured out as His blood. The cup we are invited to drink from, not so that we remember but so that we become part of it. We become the people escaping Egypt; we become the people entering the Promised Land; we become the disciples watching from beneath the cross; we become the women at the empty tomb.

We become His.