May 5, Easter 3C (John 21:1-19​)

I’m a Marvel Universe fan, and I’m very excited about the latest movie, Captain Marvel. The press has said that it doesn’t rank as high as previous Marvel movies. That’s fine with me; I always root for the underdog, anyway. And the way things are going in our country and in our world, we need a hero—even if it’s a woman in a red-and-blue uniform with a giant star on the chest. Between the comic books and the movie, the origin of her superpowers may have shifted, but Captain Marvel’s purpose is clear: to save humanity, by any means necessary.

In our Gospel passage this week, in which the resurrected Jesus appears, we see a hero who came to save humanity. We don’t need to go to the local movie theater and hand over our money to recognize a hero when we see one. A hero is someone who operates with courage and does something out of the ordinary for the sake of others. Heroes consider the welfare of others before their own. And they know that the most important thing is not their fame but their deeds and their intentions.

That’s what we see in the resurrected Jesus: a real hero. The one who died and then rose is now showing his heroic self to his disciples. Jesus has already shown himself to his disciples earlier (20:19–29); now he shows up again to seven of them. These seven disciples have gone fishing, and they have been out all night trying to catch something so that they can earn their living. They are working the night shift in order to make ends meet—and despite their best efforts, they have caught nothing.