"Resurrection Abundance"
John 21:1-19
We’re now two weeks past Easter Sunday. But for a lot of folk, Easter already seems
long ago and far away. For some, great
joy and hope have given way to the routine of daily life: family responsibilities…health issues…work
concerns. In the midst of it all, what
does the Resurrection mean? What
difference does it make? Has it changed
anything?
In the last
chapter of John, we hear how, after the
Resurrection, the disciples’ lives don’t seem to have changed. They have seen the risen Jesus. But they’ve gone back to the same old thing
they used to do. They’ve gone
fishing.
The
disciples had given up everything to follow Jesus. But he’d been crucified and buried. They’re grieving…frustrated…confused. They don’t know what the Resurrection
means.
True, they
knew that Jesus had been raised from the dead.
But what did that mean? What
difference did it make?
So they go
back to something familiar—what they’d been doing before Jesus came into their
lives. They go fishing. They fish all night. But they don’t catch anything.
Yet, as the
disciples return to the way things used to be, the risen Jesus seeks them out
once again. He comes to them in their
ordinary lives, and he blesses them. He
appears on the beach—but the disciples don’t recognize him at first. He calls out to them, “You don’t have any fish, do you?”
No.
“Cast your
net on the right side of the boat, and you’ll find some.”
The catch is
so great that they can’t haul it in, because there are so many fish. Then John recognizes Jesus, and says, “It’s
the Lord!”
Once he
recognizes the Lord, Peter leaps into the water and swims toward Jesus. Jesus knows how deeply Simon Peter needs to
be forgiven for the three times he denied his relationship with Jesus on that
awful night before Jesus was crucified.
Jesus says, three times: “Simon, son of John, do you love me more than
these?”
Peter
responds with an affirmation of his love, saying, “Yes, Lord, you know that I
love you.” Jesus said to him, “Feed my
lambs.” Three times. “Tend my sheep.” “Feed my sheep.”
Instead of
praising his declarations, Jesus tells
Peter that one day he will stretch out his hands and someone will take him where he does not
wish to go. Feeding lambs and tending sheep can cost us—even
cost us our lives. It is work that will
link our lives to pain and suffering. It
will lead us many places we don’t want to go.
If we love Jesus, our relationship with him will change us.
On this
third Sunday in Eastertide, the lectionary gives us two stories of
conversion. The stories we heard are
about two great saints of the church, Peter and Paul. In the
book of Acts, we encounter Saul, who was introduced in chapter 7 as the young
man who was present when the angry mob stoned Stephen to death. Luke tells us that Saul took care of their
coats for them, that he approved of their killing Stephen, and that he was
ravaging the church by entering house after house, dragging off both men and
women believers, and imprisoning them.[1]
In the
story we heard today, Saul is “still breathing threats and murder against the
disciples of the Lord.” He has gone to
the high priest and gotten letters of authorization to the synagogues of
Damascus, so he can look for followers of the Way and bring them back to
Jerusalem in chains.
Now, Saul
was well-educated and devout. He was
someone who had his faith and values all figured out. His mission in life was to stamp out the
movement of those who followed the risen Jesus on the Way. Saul was very certain that he was right—and
they were wrong.
So far in
Acts, Saul is described almost entirely in terms of his certainty and his
violence. It is this violence that
Jesus addresses when he speaks out of the heavenly light, saying, “Saul, Saul,
why do you persecute me?”
By
identifying himself as the one whom Saul is persecuting, Jesus identifies with
the believers in their suffering, and he makes Saul’s violence a central issue
of his conversion.
The voice
of the risen Christ intrudes and devastates Saul’s self-confident journey. He opens his eyes, but he can’t see. He has to be led around by the hand, and he
doesn’t eat or drink for three days. Saul, who knew so much about religion, about
God…who could quote chapter and verse of the scriptures, is rendered helpless
by the blinding light on the road to Damascus.
He needs to be led by the hand, healed, and instructed by the very ones
he’d planned to round up and bind and drag back to Jerusalem to face the
religious authorities.
What
happens to Saul on the road to Damascus becomes a transformative moment.
Now,
relatively few of us are likely to have spiritual experiences that are as
dramatic and vivid as the one Saul had on the road to Damascus. And yet, I believe
that every real Christian transformation has some things in common with what
happened in Saul and Peter. For
one thing, Saul and Peter weren’t called by abstract, intellectual teachings or
doctrines or laws. Rather, they were
called into a personal relationship with Jesus.
In responding, they recognize that Jesus, the Crucified, is now alive
and addressing them in a very personal way.
I believe
that’s true today. The Christian faith
isn’t a religion about Jesus. It’s about
following Jesus on the Way of Love. It's about how God’s love is revealed to us
through Jesus on the Way and as we live together as a faith community.
When Paul
encountered the risen Christ, he was blinded by the brightness of the light of
Christ and transformed-- from a man
committed to aggression and persecution of those who were different, those who
challenged what he believed— to one who was lost and struggling. In the process of his conversion, Paul learns
that the agenda he set for himself was futile, and that God’s plan is the only
plan that matters.
Peter’s
encounter with the Risen Christ helped to transform him from someone who was
afraid to admit he even knew Jesus—into an apostle who was empowered to jump
out of his familiar boat into waters that were over his head and
walk bravely into the world with resurrection power and hope.
In this
third resurrection appearance, we hear Peter getting a new chance, as he experiences Jesus’ resurrection power
in a quiet way over breakfast.
Three years
before, Peter was called away from life as he had known it—an ordinary life of
a fisherman. Now again, in an ordinary
place and meal, the disciples receive a kind of re-commissioning. They are reminded who they are and what they
were called to be and do.
Easter is
about living out our identity and calling as if we truly believe that Jesus has
overcome sin and death. It’s about
living as if we trust in his gift of abundant, eternal life. It means following Jesus, embodying Jesus’
love. It means being with Jesus as we gather together to hear the good news…
and in the places we are led to serve.
“Do you
love me?” Jesus asks us.
Then feed
my lambs.
Jesus calls
his disciples to follow him. Yet we know
all too well that the compelling call of human need often feels like it is
taking us to places we don’t want to go.
Our ability and willingness to go there will be a testimony to the
clarity and passion of our Christian discipleship. Our ability and willingness to follow Jesus
is a sign of how we have changed…of how we are being transformed.
The first
disciples huddled behind locked doors, or went back to their old familiar
routines. They struggled with fear about
how Jesus calls his followers to go places where they don’t want to go.
When I get
impatient with myself for my lack of courage, or my reluctance to go some of
the places Jesus might call me to go in his name, I find comfort and hope in
the conviction that God isn’t finished
with me yet. God isn’t finished
with any of us yet.
Part of the
good news is that we are in a continuing, evolving relationship with our Lord
and Savior, who loves us with a love so amazing, so divine—that he gave his life
for us.
We have
Christ’s promise that he will not leave us alone. He will be with us, to help and to guide
us…to provide for our needs…and to comfort and care for us. The One who commands us to embody his love
and light in the world promises us that
we will be given the power we need through the Holy Spirit.
Again and
again, when it seems impossible to counteract the grim reality of sin and
brokenness in our lives and in the world, Christ reaches out in love to restore
us. Again and again, Jesus asks us, “Do you love
me?” This is no cheap grace Christ
offers us. Again and again, Jesus calls
us: “Follow me.”
Do you love
me? Jesus asks.
Feed my
lambs. Tend my sheep. Feed my sheep.
Just as
Jesus met with his first disciples at dawn on the Sea of Galilee, Jesus comes to us. The dawn
is breaking on new chances, the new life Jesus promises us. Jesus keeps coming to us to teach us and to
lead us to places where we’d never have thought to go.
The gospel
reminds us that God can make a way where there is no way, bringing abundance
where there is emptiness, and joy where there is only sorrow. Jesus’
resurrection gives us the promise of life after death, and the assurance of
God’s healing and restoration in this life.
Today, in this time and place, as
long ago, Jesus does many signs in the presence of his disciples. We have the witness of the gospel, which was
written “so that we may come to believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of
God…and that through believing, we may have life in his name.”
After the Easter flowers have been
carried out of the sanctuary and attendance is back to normal, Jesus keeps
coming back. Jesus meets us where we
work, where we despair, or where we question or doubt. Whether we’re still
feeling “up” from Easter or feeling let down, Jesus keeps coming to us.
Jesus meets
us in in our friends or in strangers. He
challenges us with a task to do—caring for his people. He gives us work that truly satisfies us, and
invites us to make him more and more the center of our lives. One way or another, Jesus comes back and
calls us to himself and to his new life.
Do you love
me? Then feed my sheep. Tend my lambs.
As
individuals and as a congregation, we often fall short of being the loving, compassionate,
generous, welcoming people God created us to be. We don’t always follow through. Sometimes we even fall away for a while and
go back to whatever felt familiar before we recognized the Risen Christ.
But Jesus
doesn’t give up on us. After each time
we fail…or forget… or are overcome by our fears, Jesus comes to us again and
invites us to try again, providing encouragement and nourishment, and calls us
to put our love into action, caring for the world God loves. If you love me, show it through your
actions. “Feed my sheep.”
Jesus comes to us today, this
morning, starting again Easter-fresh with each of us, saying, “Follow me.”
Thanks be
to God! Alleluia!
Rev. Fran Hayes, Pastor
Littlefield Presbyterian Church
Dearborn, Michigan
April 10, 2016
No comments:
Post a Comment