Working-Community: Fish Connection

Logical deductions. We make them all the time. Subconsciously, we fill in data like the edges of a cropped photograph.

The Gospel writers cropped the photograph of Jesus’ life. And like a cropped photograph, they leave us edges from which to complete the picture.

One such cropped edge is the scene at the High Priest’s gate in the John 18:15-16. It is the night Jesus was betrayed. The guards have arrested Jesus. Peter and another disciple follow.

At the gate, the disciple is allowed to enter because he is “known to the High Priest,” but Peter is not. This other disciple talks to the gatekeeper, and she allows Peter to enter.

The compelling two-part question follows: who is this unnamed disciple and how is this disciple known? One plausible answer is that the disciple is John, son of Zebedee, who supplies fish to the High Priest.

The implications of this fish connection combine with other factors to inform four periods of the SpendaYearwithJesus story. Labor marked Jesus’ experience as well as the lives of his disciples. Though their trade ceased to be the defining feature of their lives, the disciples continued to work periodically maintaining their work connections.