Third Sunday of Easter 2025

James explores the beach breakfast of John 21 — Jesus cooking fish for exhausted disciples, the threefold restoration of Peter, and the simple, repeated question: do you love me? A sermon on failure, grace, and re-commissioning.

Transcript

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And so, Heavenly Father, come now by your Holy Spirit, help us to reflect on your words to us this morning that we would have an encounter with the risen Christ. Amen. I think it's the case that at the heart of the Christian faith, at the heart of the Christian experience, is an encounter with the risen Christ Jesus. The foundation of everything that we do is an encounter with the risen Jesus. And in our Acts reading and in our gospel reading today, we see two saints, Saint Peter in Acts and Saint Paul in Acts and Saint Peter in John, encountering the risen Jesus and being utterly transformed by it. So that's what I would like us to reflect on this morning. But before we get there, just a few notes of introduction. I'd like to make the case that you are transformed, but you're not disfigured. That the person that you are after the moment of encounter, after the experience of transformation, is still you. Still you with all of your foibles and mistakes, transformed nonetheless. And this is where this is a tension that lives at the heart of Christian life. This is why so often Christians are called hypocrites, because they purport to have been transformed by an encounter with the risen Christ, and yet nevertheless, they still seem to be them with all of their mistakes and their sinfulness and their erroneous living. And the second thing I'd like to claim is that life is actually full of these moments of transformation. You might be familiar with the phrase being born again. And that phrase brings some of us out in hives because it reminds us of a certain type of conservative American Christianity. But the idea there is really to say that the Christian life starts with an encounter with the risen Christ in which you are born again, an important and biblical phrase. But I'd like to go further than that and to say that there are these moments of transformation that greet each of us throughout our lives at different times. Maybe for you in marriage, or in the birth of someone you love, or in the death of someone you love, through ordination, if you're a priest, in baptism and in confirmation, these spiritual experiences of being born again and again, perhaps an illness that has radically changed the way you think about the world, or an experience of an acute revelation, an epiphany. These moments mark our lives like land like lines in the stand, and we cross a threshold into an entirely new mode of existence, where suddenly we are completely changed, or suddenly, for our experience, the world is completely changed, things can never be the same. And yet, we still find ourselves being us. We carry ourselves over that threshold, and so these old foibles reassert themselves. And let me just say so that no one's feeling panicked, you'll have plenty of these over the course of your life, or you might not have many. They might be extraordinary experiences, Damascus Road experiences like they were for St. Paul, or they might be kind of gentle and pass you by. So I don't want anyone to feel like this doesn't account for my experience of life. And then, secondly, there are times when you'll have lots of these, or some really big ones, and there might be decades where you have nothing that feels like a transformative experience. And again, please don't panic. This is not to impose upon you a way of existing in the world. Come to this text in a way that matches you. But this morning, what I'd like us to do is to walk through the story that we've just heard, a very poignant and beautiful story of Saint Peter meeting the risen Christ. And I'm going to paraphrase the story and then hopefully bring out some helpful salient points for us. And I'd love what I'd like us to do is notice the ways in which Peter is utterly transformed and the ways in which he's still him. Hopefully there'll be some interesting and helpful reflections for our time this morning. So, their disciples gather. Simon Peter, Thomas called the twin, Nathaniel of Canaan Galilee, the sons of Zebedee, two other disciples who aren't named, they gather together in the aftermath of Jesus' death. The Romans have crucified him, they lay low for a couple of days, they stay at home, they don't go out, they wait for the dust to settle, they wait to make sure the Romans aren't coming after them as well, and then they regroup, and Peter says to them, I'm going fishing. And they say, Oh, sure, okay, we'll join you. And they went out to the boat, but they caught absolutely nothing all night. St. Peter and the disciples are still living on Good Friday or Holy Saturday. They have lost everything. Their lives have been completely shaken by what has happened to them, and they don't know where to turn. They thought they were part of this revolutionary movement. Jesus was moving and shaking. He was having conversations with the political leaders and religious leaders of the day. They saw incredible miracles and teachings, and something was happening. Maybe they were even going to overthrow the Romans. And then, just like every other Messiah movement before him, Jesus is identified by the Roman war machine and is stamped upon, crucified, as they clamp down and the Romans consolidate power. So the disciples do what anyone would do having experienced this sort of loss. They go back to what they know. Before they'd ever met Jesus, they were professional fishermen, and so they go back to their boats with their mates, and they try to catch some fish. And they're out there all night in the dark, doing the thing that they're supposed to be able to do, and they catch nothing. All hope is lost. And then just after daybreak, as the sun is coming up over the mountains, the glow of a beautiful sunrise, Jesus stands on the beach and he calls out to them, Children, you have no fish, have you? And they answered him, No. And he says to them, Try casting your nets on the other side of the boat, and then you will find some. They shrug and do it. And what happens is a catch that they're unable to haul into boats because they find so many fish. Now, in this interaction, Jesus, as described in the Gospel of John, is recapitulating the very first time that Peter ever met Jesus. It's documented in Luke chapter 5. Let me read it for you. Jesus is walking along the side of the boat, and exactly the same things happen. These professional fishermen are unable to catch any fish, and Jesus says to them, Cast your nets on the other side. And when they had done so, they caught such a large number of fish that their nets began to break. So they signaled to their partners in the other boat to come and help them. And they came and filled the boats so that they sank. And Simon Peter knows he has just witnessed a miracle, and he falls at Jesus' knees and he says, This go away from me, Lord. I am a sinful man. The very first time that Saint Peter meets Jesus, a professional fisherman doing his work and failing, he meets Jesus, and Jesus performs this miracle in front of him, and he and Jesus calls and invites Peter into a new mode of ministry. Don't just be a fisher of fish, become a fisher of people. And Peter's response is to say, Lord, you do not know me. You do not know me by half. I'm a sinful man. I'm not the sort of person that you want in your uh band of disciples. Please, Lord, get away from me. You are holy and I am not. I am sinful and you are not. I do not want to be anywhere near you. I'm gonna run away from you. So what happens to Peter? How is he transformed by three years of hanging out with Jesus and by meeting him again in the resurrection? The disciple, whom Jesus loved, turned to Peter and said, It's the Lord. And Simon Peter, hearing that it was the Lord, put some clothes on for he was naked and jumped into the sea. But the disciples came in the boat, dragged the net full of fish, and they were not far from where land, maybe just a hundred yards off or so. John turns to Peter and says, It's the Lord. And this time, three years after spending time with Jesus and meeting him in the resurrection, Peter no longer says, Get away from me, Lord, but now he runs towards the Lord. And this very strange moment, he puts on his clothes and jumps into the sea. Three years after listening to Jesus and learning that Jesus loves him, Peter in his sin and his shame no longer flees, but moves towards the risen Jesus. When Hannah and I got um got engaged, uh I tried to do my best to plan everything down to the last letter, and I was visualizing what's gonna happen in each of these different places as we go through the different course of the weekend. And um, because I'm a hopeless romantic, I took Hannah to Paris uh for our engagement, and I had imagined us standing under the Eiffel Tower and me getting down on one knee and presenting her the ring. It was gonna be like one of those movies, it was gonna be awesome. In my imagining of that moment, what I hadn't accounted for was anyone else being under the Eiffel Tower, which is a major oversight when you think this is one of the premier tourist destinations in the world. And so we got to under the Eiffel Tower, and there was this moment of awkwardness between Hannah and I, and we were surrounded by tourists, and I absolutely bottled it. And I thought, I can't do this. This isn't the way I imagined it. This I hadn't planned to do this in front of other people, but now the clock's ticking, isn't it? Because I've missed the moment we've walked off. Hannah's thinking, what on earth is going on? He's dragged me all the way to Paris, and I the moment's gone and the clock's ticking because I knew we were about to have dinner, and I had to do this before dinner started because I wanted to enjoy my meal and I wasn't going to be able to eat anything feeling as anxious as I was feeling. And so I knew I had this kind of 20-minute stretch of time from where we were to sitting down at the dinner table, and so I'm just panicking, looking, sweating. My blood pressure is even higher than usual, and I'm heart beating. And so, as we walk into the restaurant, there's an opportunity for us to kind of pop down this small corridor, and the corridor was long enough that I knew there were people at one end and there was nowhere in there, and there were people at the other end, but we were finally alone for the first time in 20 minutes, just the two of us in this corridor. And so I just kind of stopped Hannah and got down on one knees and started kind of talking rubbish, really. I didn't know what I was saying. And Hannah, in that moment, starts taking her jacket off, and it made me laugh. And I'm like, Why are you taking your jacket off? It's like, I wasn't planning on wearing my jacket in this moment, and so she starts taking her jacket off and she's holding it in her arms while I'm on one knee, and um, and she said yes, and the rest of history, and we had a lovely meal, and that was the end of it. Every time Hannah and I recount the story of getting engaged, we mention the moment when she takes her jacket off because it was such a strange thing to do, but we were our emotions were heightened and our anxiety was high, we weren't thinking straight either of us, and so I've got to take my jacket off. Why does John document that Peter, in meeting the risen Jesus, puts on his jacket before jumping into the water? Professional fishermen in the first century don't put on their clothes before they go for a swim. Tumble dryers don't exist. They have one pair of clothes. If it gets wet now, they're wet for the rest of the day. But Peter, in his anxiety, at the moment where he meets the risen Jesus, isn't thinking straight. He feels naked and ashamed, and so he puts his clothes on before jumping into the water. And it's such a strange thing to do that every time they tell the story after that, the disciples say to each other, and do you remember what Peter did? He put his jacket on to get into the water. And then we caught 30, 153 fish. And the boat was only about 100 yards off, so it was easy to pull it in. These are the stories, these are the sorts of tidbits that you add to a story that actually happened. This is what, this is the evidence that this is eyewitness testimony, not a myth that was made up centuries later by people who were trying to propagate Christian ideology. This is a real encounter between Saint Peter and the risen Jesus. And so, how is Peter transformed and how is he the same? Well, he's still an impulsive, loud-mouthed sinner. But now he knows that Jesus loves him and wants him to draw close to him and not to run away. Peter has discovered the good news of Christianity. The determining factor in your salvation and in mine is not what I've done or what I haven't done, but in who Jesus is and what Jesus has done for us. You will always be a sinner. You're going to turn up to church every week for the rest of your life, and after a short prayer of preparation, you will put your hand in the air and say with your brothers and sisters in Christ, These are the sins that I have committed this week. I confess them to you now, and you'll receive absolution. And you do it with one another so that none of us should be surprised when we get things wrong and make mistakes. This is the beauty of confession. But my prayer is that, like Peter, you would know in your sin not to say, Depart from me, Lord, I'm a sinner, but to run towards him, trusting not in your righteousness, but in his love for you. It is so easy, is it not? When you say that sharp words to your spouse that you shouldn't have said, or you treat your children in a way that feels that you you feel embarrassed about later, or you do something or work that you shouldn't have done, it's so easy to run in those moments. Say, well, I'll just keep my distance from God until I feel better about the situation. Please, friends, as Easter Christians, in our sin, would we run towards the risen Jesus? So eventually the disciples get to the shore and they're greeted by Jesus, who has already made a coal fire and is already cooking fish which he prepared and provided by himself. And they're required to bring in the hall that they caught, and they find the 153 fish, and Jesus invites them to a resurrection, new creation breakfast. And everyone knows who this man is, and they're all too nervous to ask him about it. And then we have the second callback to another coal fire, and Jesus invites Peter into a conversation, the man who denied him three times. And so three times Peter is asked, Do you love me? And three times, one for each time he denied Jesus, he replies, Lord, you know that I love you. And in the culmination of that threefold forgiveness, Peter receives from Jesus the same command that he got on the first day that they met. The same command that you and I receive. Follow me. So let me just point out two things in closing. Firstly, Jesus does all the providing for this new creation breakfast. As an Easter Christian, we believe that we cannot sustain ourselves. What we need to live this Christian life is an encounter with the risen Christ, who gives us everything we need. And so in a moment, you'll be invited to come forward and hold out your hands and receive a morsel of bread, sustenance for the life and road ahead. And then, secondly, let's just note that Jesus does not say to Peter, Ah, it's okay, Pete, never mind, water under the bridge. Jesus very gently and very carefully holds him accountable for his actions and in so doing sets him free. Wouldn't it have just been easier to say to Jesus for Jesus to say to Peter, ah, no hard feelings? Instead, what Jesus does is what one theologian described as heart surgery on Peter. He asks him this question: Do you love me? That is the question for each one of us this morning. Not, are you sorry? Not do you believe in me? Not even, do you spend a lot of time at church? And are you a good volunteer? And have you filled out the electoral roll? And have you remembered to fill out your gift aid form this morning? No, there's one question. Jesus asks each one of us, do you love me? And so Peter is transformed, and yet somehow he's still the same. The final commandment that Peter receives is the very same he received on his first day of meeting Jesus. Follow me. And yet now Peter is transformed by the resurrection and his encounter with Jesus. He knows that when he messes up, he can run towards, not run away. And he knows that Jesus will provide all that he needs to sustain him. Amen.