by Donald Hancock

Created on: May 03, 2010   Last Updated: June 26, 2010

A Memorial Day Fish Story

I call this a Memorial Day Fish Story but actually it is a good story for any day! You might say that it is a “fantasy”, not because fish do not talk – they certainly communicate among themselves or they could not function as they do. It might be called a fantasy because we are not usually able to hear and understand them as we will today.

I conceived  the idea for this story several Sundays ago when my Pastor preached a sermon about what happened one day when Jesus' disciples were fishing. In the Gospel of John, chapter 21, we read how, after the resurrection of Jesus, Peter decided to go fishing. Several other disciples went with him. They fished all night but caught nothing. The next morning Jesus was standing on the shore and he called to them, “have you caught anything?” The disciples did not know that it was Jesus but called back to him, “No, nothing at all!” Jesus then said, “cast on the other side of the boat.” They did as he said and caught so many fish immediately that their net would not hold all of them. Jesus then invited them to bring their fish and then eat a breakfast that he had been preparing. This story became one of the important teaching miracles of Christ.

My part of the story comes from the following scenario. Several years and many fish generations after the Jesus story above took place, a grandmother fish is talking to her grand children fish on “Fish Memorial Day”. And, yes, of course fish observe Memorial Day! In this scene they are in Lake Galilee. The conversation goes something like this.

“Now, children, I want you to remember that today is “Fish Memorial Day”. It is a day set aside to remember our loved ones who have passed away. I want to tell you the story of one of our ancestors . Abraham Bass was your great, great, great grandfather. He lived here in the great Galilee Lake back when Jesus lived among us.”

“Well, there came a day when Jesus' disciples were in their boat, fishing. On this particular day, God wanted to perform a miracle to inspire the disciples. So God talked to all of the fish in the whole lake and told them that He wanted them to do him a special favor. He wanted them to all go to the other side of the lake and stay there the whole night so the disciples would not catch anything at all. Now, your grandfather Abraham was there and also his cousin, Abigail, who passed this story

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