JESUS' DISCIPLES HAD FISHED all night. They caught nothing. Morning broke and they heard a voice from the shore, "Children, have ye any meat?" They answered, "No." Jesus then said, "Cast the net on the right side of the ship, and ye shall find." That was unusual advice—because it is generally harder to catch fish in the daytime when the fish can see the net. But the disciples "cast therefore, and now they were not able to draw it for the multitude of fishes."
Eventually they were able to pull the net full of fish to shore—"an hundred and fifty and three," all of them "great fishes" (see John 21:4-13). That number is thought to represent the entire number of species of fish known at the time (The Interpreter's One-Volume Commentary on the Bible, p. 727). It was not just a remarkable illustration of abundance, but of infinite supply. As the disciples came to shore, there was another important aspect to this story. They saw that there was already bread and fish laid on the coals. In other words, Jesus already had fish, even before the disciples arrived with their bountiful catch.
That morning meeting with the disciples at the sea of Galilee was one of Jesus' last times with his disciples before he ascended. In one of his final acts, he showed them—and us—not just the abundance of supply, but the immediacy of it. And that the source for this unlimited good is God.
