[Machine transcription]
Grace, peace, and mercy be to you from God our Father, from our risen Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.
Today’s sermon text is the gospel read earlier. Please be seated.
Well, has it happened yet? Just two weeks ago, we joined in singing those victorious and glorious Easter hymns. We rejoice that Christ is risen. He is risen indeed. Hallelujah. We stood confident that the one who had died for our sins was alive again, victorious over death and the grave. We found peace in the resurrection and in the knowledge that our loved ones who have died in the faith are in heaven, and we will be with them again forever. We held our heads a little higher with a confidence that we understood life a little better, saw God’s big picture a little clearer. We understood that we too would be victorious over death and would live forever in the paradise that God always wanted us to have. Perhaps we even smirked a little at our silliness of getting so worked up over the temporary things of this life, leaving our legacy, our mark on a world that, unlike us, is passing away.
And then, early in the morning on the second day of the week, before the sun came up, while parked in the median between Highway 183 northbound and southbound, a large pickup truck with a battering ram for a bumper rear-ends your cute little Volkswagen Beetle, and your Easter joy quickly fades. At least that’s how my Monday after Easter ends.
So I ask you again, well, has it happened yet? Has your Easter joy begun to fade? The devil loves to steal our Easter joy, our confidence of Christ’s love for us and his victory over all our enemies. Suddenly we feel ourselves settling back into that same old rut we were in before Easter. Frustration at work, bitterness and strife in our marriage or with our children. Failures in the plans we had for our life, illness, injury, the death of a loved one, or loneliness begin to drag us down, and that horrible question Satan loves to whisper in our ear echoes loudly. Is God mad at me? Does he love me?
Some days we just want a reset button on our lives. We want to reboot to a previous version of ourselves before that foolish or sinful thing that we did. We want to go back to the way things were before we had this aching emptiness in our heart from the loss of a loved one. What happened to those days when life seemed exciting and challenging instead of just difficult or frustrating and so much harder than it used to be?
In today’s Gospel reading, we are told, “After this, Jesus revealed himself again to the disciples by the Sea of Tiberias, and he revealed himself in this way. Simon Peter, Thomas called a twin, Nathaniel of Canaan and Galilee, the sons of Zebedee, and two others of his disciples were together. Simon Peter said to them, ‘I’m going fishing.’ They said to him, ‘We will go with you.’ They went out and got into the boat, but that night they caught nothing.”
Nothing. Just as day was breaking, Jesus stood on the shore, yet the disciples did not know that it was Jesus. Jesus said to them, “Children, do you have any fish?” They answered him, “No.” He said to them, “Cast the net on the right side of the boat and you will find some.” So they cast it, and now they were not able to haul it in because of the quantity of fish. The disciple whom Jesus loved therefore said to Peter, “It is the Lord.”
We aren’t told why Peter wanted to go fishing. We don’t have any record of him going fishing since he left his boats to follow Jesus and become a fisher of men years back. But perhaps it was his way of pushing the reset button on his life and going back to a simpler time. Maybe he wondered if he could go back to those days when the Jewish leaders didn’t want him and his friends dead. Those days before he had denied three times he even knew Jesus. The time before that dark Friday when all hope seemed lost.
How frustrating to do everything in his power to find a little peace, but instead, being confronted with a whole night of more emptiness and frustration, fishing all night and catching nothing. Likewise, we’re not told why Jesus used this opportunity to reveal himself to his disciples for the third time since his resurrection. But again, we can certainly imagine Jesus. It was to restore their Easter joy.
Just as St. John, recording it and passing it on to us, is for our Easter joy. As he says in the verse prior to today’s reading, “These things are written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God. And that by believing, you may have life in his name.”
You see, when St. John, a.k.a. the disciple whom Jesus loved, saw that large haul of fish, he knew the stranger standing on the beach directing them. Now, it wasn’t because they wanted to catch fish and Jesus made it come true that John knew this guy was Jesus. Likewise, we getting what we want in life is not the sign that God loves us or that Jesus is blessing us any more than we not getting what we want in life is the sign that God is mad at us. No, John knew it was Jesus standing on that beach because it had happened before.
When Jesus had first called them to be fishers of men, he had then also given them a super abundant catch of fish. St. Luke writes, “Sound familiar? Sound familiar? But at your word, I will let down the nets.” And when they had done this, they enclosed a large number of fish, and their nets were breaking. They signaled to their partners in the other boat to come and help them, and they came and filled both the boats so that they began to sink. When Simon Peter saw it, he fell down at Jesus’ knees, saying, “Depart from me, for I am a sinful man, O Lord.” For he and all who were with him were astonished at the catch of fish that they had taken.
And so also were James and John, the sons of Zebedee, who were partners with Simon. And Jesus said to Simon, “Do not be afraid. From now on, you’ll be catching men.” And when they had brought their boats to land, they left everything and followed him.
See, in today’s gospel account, Jesus had just pressed the reset button on their lives. This whole event wasn’t about Jesus giving the disciples what they wanted. It wasn’t about him blessing their fishing trip so they would know he still loved them. These two miraculous catches of fish, recorded by two different gospel writers, are the bookends of Jesus’ ministry with his disciples.
Luke’s account when Jesus first called them to follow him, and now John’s account after Jesus’ resurrection as he is calling his disciples again. And his message is clear. Nothing stands outside of his forgiveness. What Christ has done is more than just hit a reset button on his disciples’ lives. He didn’t just take them back to a happier time before all their sins and sorrows. Rather, he redeemed their past. Atoned for their faults and failures by his death and by his resurrection, he opened to them a new day.
Their sins really happened. His death really happened. And into that reality, Jesus stood alive again, victorious over sin and death. Their Lord and Savior, who was hopelessly dead and gone, was suddenly alive again. And just as he had in the past, he was helping them. He was eating a meal with them, and he was calling them to follow him.
In that meal that we heard about in our gospel reading, that meal on the beach, their risen Lord gave them a foretaste of the feast to come. He was alive forever and ever. Their days of fishing for more followers of Christ were not ended because he was not ended. In this meal, he restored them to being followers of him. Instead of being one who denied Jesus three times, Peter professed three times how much he loved Jesus.
It was more than resetting their lives so they could try again to get things right this time or a third time or a tenth time. No, not by their efforts, but by Christ’s. They were new creatures, newly called to follow him and be his fishers of men and shepherds.
Now, he didn’t make all their problems disappear, nor their future dangers disappear, but in the midst of their troubled life, he restored their Easter joy. By his real presence on that beach and in that meal, they knew he loved them, forgave them, provided eternal life in paradise for them, and that they mattered to him and to his mission. That is what continued to fuel their Easter joy and their service to Christ throughout their lives.
Dear Christians, whatever the devil is doing today to steal your Easter joy, there is one who was dead but who is alive again. Not as a ghost, but as one of us, the firstborn from the dead. And he sat on a beach and ate breakfast with his disciples. Ghosts don’t do that. Living people do that.
Whatever the devil is doing today to take your eyes off of the big picture of the eternal paradise where we are going to live forever and instead to get you so fixed on yourself and frustrated with the fleeting, temporary pleasures or tribulations of this world, there is one who stepped out of his grave and had a meal with his disciples.
And today, he has set a table before you in the presence of your enemies. The enemies of sin, death, and the devil. His presence here today is real. And through bread and wine, you receive his crucified and resurrected body and blood for your forgiveness, life, and salvation.
It’s not a reset button so that you can try again to get things right. It’s much more than that. It is communion with one who was dead, but who is alive again, to give you a foretaste of the immortality you have in Jesus and the everlasting paradise that awaits you.
It isn’t a magical meal that makes the struggles of this life just go away, but a clear perspective on how glorious our future will be. Jesus comes time and time again to the bright shore of a new day, calling you to come and be fed. He calls us to sit at the receiving end of his word and his sacraments. And he prepares for us a holy meal to assure us that he is with us and that we are welcome at his table as his family.
He feeds us life and forgiveness to restore to us the joy of his salvation. Jesus always feeds his children. So if it has already happened and your Easter joy has begun to fade, then with the sea at your back and your eyes fixed on eternal shores, come and be given gifts from the living one who prepares a meal of everlasting life and feeds us his Easter every Lord’s Day.
And rejoice that to us, from whom his Easter joy often fades so quickly, he still loves us so much, he would dare to say, “Follow me.” Amen.
May the peace which passes all understanding guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus to life everlasting. Amen.
