Our Sunday Message

With Jesus After Easter: John 21:1-19
Rev. Dr. Carol McCall Richardson
April 22, 2007
Third Sunday of Easter

  It is after Easter, after the glorious resurrection celebration as we celebrated with dancers and stringed instruments, inspiring music, the preached word of hope and our magnificent flowering Old Rugged Cross on the front lawn. It was a day to remember, wasn’t it!
But now we are post-Easter. It is not easy to feel Easter two weeks afterwards, especially in light of this week’s unexpected events—the resignation of our loved and respected pastor of 12 years.
  And so in this post-Easter time, I feel it is important that we name what we are feeling—many are bewildered; many of you are at a loss of what to do next; many are feeling that we have lost a dear teacher, mentor and friend. It is post-Easter and we are sad, very sad.
  And so today I think we can especially identify with the disciples in our gospel story. And let me say before we enter this story in order to find our own story that stories are so important and sharing them with one another is one of the oldest and most precious ways we have of weaving strong webs of relationships with one another as we try to work out our salvation, as the Apostle Paul would tell us.   Marilyn Chandler McEntyre, professor of literature at Westmont College says of story: Stories bind us into community and sustain us by reminding us what we are about. Our foundation stories are our native ground: the “classics” [of literature], the tales of our [heroes and heroines], instructive allegories like Pilgrim’s Progress and Brave New World and our biblical narratives. Finding ways to fashion our own experiences into narrative, listening to life stories, and sometimes retelling them, can serve our most urgent needs for healing and guidance.1
  And so today we enter the biblical story to find our own source of healing and guidance for the living of these days. I think we can identify with these real biblical people, for they are doing the same things that we do as we try to make sense of life experiences even as we go about our daily lives.
  So where do we find these disciples after Easter, after Jesus has appeared to them twice now, giving assurance of his bodily resurrection? We find them as we find ourselves today in a state of shock, even sadness that their intimate friend and teacher will now relate to them in a whole new way, a way in which they are not quite sure makes sense to them as yet. And so they do what perhaps many of us have done, we simply resume life’s routine. We simply “do the next thing.” “Doing the next thing” is good advice for someone who is grieving, for whom life doesn’t make complete sense. Many of us return to our work and so did they.
  They have left Jerusalem and have made the long trek back to Galilee. It was home for them, the place where everything had begun for them, which made it the natural place to return once it seemed that everything had come to an end. There were seven of them, John says, which means that they were already coming apart at the seams, some of them going in one direction while the others went another.   These seven decide to go fishing, and that makes a lot of sense. Fishing is a good excuse to be quiet and ponder—right Richard? It’s a good excuse for just sitting still and allowing silence to do its healing work. It is a good thing to do when you want to do nothing, nothing but sit and watch your cork drift, knowing that your line is down there somewhere in the deep waters, just like you are, waiting to catch something, to hook something that will make it all worthwhile.
But fishing has added meaning for these seven, because it is their occupation—or was, before Jesus showed up. As Barbara Brown Taylor, Chair of Religion and Philosophy at Piedmont College says, they do not fish for pleasure; they fish for a living. They do not fish with lines and hooks; they fish with big, heavy nets that smell of seaweed and dried fish scales, hauling them out of the bottom of the boat with hands that are calloused from years and years of casting and knotting and straining against the ropes, so when they decide to go fishing, it is not a decision to day dream but a decision to return to their former way of life, to go back to the only thing they know how to do without him.2
  He is gone after all. They have not seen him since Jerusalem, and while that was a powerful time none of them will ever forget, it is time to get on with life and so they do. We read what Peter’s response is to the empty tomb, to the strange and wonderful appearances of the risen Christ. He simply says, “I’m going fishing. Anybody else want to go with me?”
  On this particular occasion, they fish all night, only to catch not a single fish. Time after time they cast their nets and their nets come up empty, a perfect match for their hearts…and ours.
  And then at daybreak, same time of day as the time of resurrection, Jesus comes to where they are. Our scripture says, “Jesus showed himself again to the disciples by the sea” (Jn 21:1). Remember, Christianity is a “revealed religion.” It is based not on human discovery but rather on divine self-disclosure. There would be no story, no gospel, no good news if the risen Christ had not shown himself.
  They cannot see him, but they can hear him, someone, calling out to them across the water, guessing the truth—that they have no fish—and suggesting that they try the other side of the boat. So they do, and the water begins to boil, all at once so dense with fish that some of them are pushed right out of the water.
  It is, John, the beloved disciple who is the first to recognize him, “It is the Lord,” he says. And with that our impetuous Peter throws himself into the water, leaving the others with all the hard work. They scramble for their oars, catching him just as he reaches the beach, and when all of them arrive they find a charcoal fire with fish on it and bread, and Jesus—serving them as before.
  “Come,” he says, “and have breakfast.” Jesus is not serving supper this time. That was the last meal of their old life together. This is the first meal of their new life together—a resurrection breakfast, prepared by the only one who knows the recipe.
  As Jesus sits there with them on the beach sharing food, it is a new day, new world for the disciples. Their eyes are open and they see Jesus, the risen one before them. It’s reminiscent of his post resurrection appearance with the two on the road to Emmaus. Remember? It is only when Jesus shares a meal with them that their eyes, too, are opened.
  Sharing meals seem to be important to Jesus. Maybe it’s because eating is so necessary for life and so is he.
  And then he turns to them—to the same disciples who had forsaken him when he needed them the most and he commands them to feed his sheep. He tells them, if they love him, the way to love him is to care for those for whom he cares. “Follow me,” he says.
  It’s quite a story. So where do we find ourselves in it today? What truths of the story speak to us today in our grief?
  First, I think we can say that no matter where we are that Jesus comes to where we are. He speaks. He reveals himself to us. Pay attention tomorrow when you are sitting at your desk, or washing the clothes, or sweeping the floor, or reading a book or simply crying when the realization sweeps over you afresh that he is gone, our pastor, that is. Easter is true and Easter means, among other things, that Jesus is loose and that he is looking for you and desires to be with you.
  Second, we cannot, nor need we try to sustain Easter joy because life often takes us into places that we do not expect or would ever choose. So what we do is to go on about our business—we just do the next thing—catching fish or whatever we do for a living, and He will find us. As the dark night of the soul passes and day dawns, he comes to us. We believe because the risen Christ has come to us and revealed himself to us.
  Third, when the risen Christ comes to us, when he graciously reveals himself to us, he calls us. He calls us even in our grief and says, “I have work for you to do. You may continue to shed your tears, but the work I call you to will help heal your own hurt.” He says to us, “Feed my sheep.”
  It’s about being involved in the lives of others. I’ve found it so true in my own life when I grieve. If I find someone with a need greater than my own and involve myself with that person, somehow there is divine healing that takes place because it is in the act of the life-giving mission, whatever that is for you, that Jesus appears.
  And so, First Baptist, take heart. The risen Christ comes to us, seeks us, reveals himself to us, and then gives us work to do together. “Feed my sheep and follow me,” Jesus says to us. And we can be assured that it will be a brand new day, the future bright.


1 Marilyn Chandler McIntyre, Learning not to Share, Weavings, Vol, XXII, No. 3, June-July, p. 25.
2 Barbara Brown Taylor, Gospel Medicine (Boston, Cowley Publications, 1995) p. 85.