You can call me a “fish” man. As children, my brother and sisters and I had fish for our meals almost everyday. Our town lies on the coast of a strait that teems with a species of flying fish locally known as barongoy.
Cheap, perhaps because of its abundance, we had it for breakfast, lunch and supper, mostly fried or stewed in vinegar, together with boiled corn and vegetable soup. My father’s salary as public school teacher allowed us no menu higher than this, which has marked us for life. Because now, no matter where we are and what food is before us, we still long for that simple meal of childhood—of vegetables, corn and fish.
How gratifying then to read in the Gospel of Luke that, after his Resurrection, when he appeared to his disciples and asked for something to eat, Jesus received a piece of baked fish.
Jesus had earlier appeared to two disciples who were travelling to Emmaus, and who rushed back to tell the others of their experience. In the course of their narration, Jesus appeared and stood before them, saying, “Peace be with you.”
The disciples thought that Jesus was a ghost and were understandably terrified. Jesus saw this and said, “Why are you troubled? And why do questions arise in your hearts? Look at my hands and my feet, that it is I myself. Touch me and see, because a ghost does not have flesh and bones as you can see I have.”
And so he showed them his hands and feet. To prove that he had a real body, he asked for something to eat, and was given a piece of baked fish, which he partook of in front of everyone.
When the disciples had had enough proof of his physical presence, Jesus reminded them of the prophecies about the Messiah in the scriptures, and that they were fulfilled in him.
“Thus it is written that the Messiah would suffer and rise from the dead on the third day and that repentance for the forgiveness of sins would be preached in his name to all the nations, beginning from Jerusalem.”
As parting shot, he put them in mind of their mission, “You are witnesses of these things.”
Incidentally, what fish did Jesus eat? Scholars surmise that it might have been tilapia, with which the Sea of Galilee abounded. And it might have been dried and baked or grilled, which was largely the means of preserving fish, refrigeration not being available then.
Personally, I associate fish with the Resurrection. Aside from Luke, John writes that, on the shore of the Sea of Galilee, the Risen Jesus invited the disciples, who had gone fishing during the night, to a breakfast of grilled fish. Apart from the fact that fish was perhaps the only food available, and that the apostles were mostly fishermen, Jesus’ and their partaking of the fish was a nudge that they should devote themselves to their task as fishers of men, and that, like Jeremiah, they should literally eat the words of God.
In fact, the early Christians, especially during the time of persecution, used the fish as their secret sign. The Greek word for fish is ichthys, an acronym of the first letters of the words “Jesus Christ, Son of God, Savior.” It is told that, when a Christian met a stranger, he would draw one arc of the fish on the ground, and would know that the stranger was a Christian too if he drew the other arc.
As well, fish suggests the Eucharist, which the miracle of the Multiplication of the Loaves and Fish implies. But that’s another story.
I’m not sure if Elizabeth Bishop was aware that her poem, “The Fish,” contains allusions to the Risen Christ. There she speaks of catching a huge fish and finding five hooks hanging from its lip, with lines and a thread still attached to the hooks, which the fish broke in order to get away. (We may ask, why five hooks? The Christian that I am finds here a suggestion of the five wounds of Christ?)
After staring at and contemplating the fish at length, she suddenly came to the realization that “victory filled up / the little rented boat.” What prompted her epiphany was the the pool of bilge, on which the oil had spread a rainbow to almost every part of the boat—the engine, bailer, thwarts, oarlocks, gunnels. Such that she saw nothing but “rainbow, rainbow, rainbow!”
“And I let the fish go,” she said.
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