peter's math

What is the difference between zero and 153?
Zero is darkness. Zero is blindness and nothing. Zero is neither hot nor cold.  Zero holds the keys to hell.  If we see life as giving us nothing, zero, then we are giving Satan back the keys to the gates of hell; and he gladly opens his dominion in our lives, behind our back, beneath our blindness.  We are Polyphemus crying, “Nothing is killing me!”
    Jesus says, “You’ve got it all wrong.”
    What happens beyond the horizon?  We don’t know. Only the sun knows.
    What is the purpose of life?
    Jesus says, “Loving me is giving. Loving me gives purpose that eternally calls and eternally satisfies.” 
    The young get what they want—go where they want. Those are brief satisfactions. They end when the goal is attained.  So, therefore, that goal, that frame, must constantly be replaced by another goal another frame. It is eternally unsatisfying.  “I’m going to get fish.”  Wrong goal. Wrong “why.” Wrong frame. Satan just can’t wait to see those empty nets.  
    I’m sure Peter would ever reflect; maybe even while hanging inverted on his cross; remembering his nets, full to the bursting with 153 fish, as he helped drag them to shore:
    Others will always—eternally—be unsatisfied, eternally dirty, hungry, thirsty, sick, hurting, dying.  I will help. I will cast my nets the right way and for the right goal.  I will stop being young and become old. I will make myself sicker, hungrier, dirtier, and die, because I know better—Christ taught me better—because I know how to satisfy. I know, now, the goal set before me by Christ: ‘Feed my sheep.’ 
The lamb that willingly sacrifices himself—sacrifices his wants, his goals, exposes his vulnerability— feeds all sheep, and becomes a new, perfect lamb willing to walk to the alter again. It is living.  It is sacrifice.
It is the Way, the journey, that satisfies.