Today we have two accounts of resurrection appearances
each of them focused on the response
of the two most prominent apostles,
how each of them was encountered by the risen Lord,
and how each responded:
Peter and Paul.
Here are two very different apostles,
but both of them very much in the grips of
the commanding spiritual power of the Resurrection Jesus.
Let’s look at them
and see if we can see anything of ourselves and our world in them.
Paul first, or Saul as the name he was first known by:
I have always wondered about Saul,
a good, religious person,
a very highly observant Pharisee,
scrupulous in conforming his life to Torah,
the commandments of God.
What was it that caused him to become such a zealot
and in such opposition to this new budding sect of Jesus followers
that he would resort to violence and jihad,
that he would pursue them and seek them out
in order to harass and imprison and even kill them?
We see too much of such religious extremism today,
such intolerance and exclusiveness in dogma and right belief.
Saul, the terrorist.
But God’s mercy and love is so incredibly great
that instead of waging war on the terrorist,
God’s wrath endures but the twinkling of an eye,
as it says today in Psalm 30 - the briefest nanosecond,
but God’s favor/God’s grace/God’s mercy/God’s love
goes on and on for a lifetime.
And the Resurrection Jesus appears to Saul on the road to Damascus,
an appearance like what Peter and James and John must have seen
on the Mount of the Transfiguration,
a resurrection appearance so blindingly brilliant
that it sears Saul’s eyeballs.
And I always have a special fondness for Ananias,
a disciple of Jesus put in a very difficult position when he is told:
“Go and minister to the very enemy who is seeking to do you harm.”
And Ananias reaches out to Saul
calling him brother and offering him healing,
“and immediately something like scales fell from [Saul’s] eyes…
and he got up and was baptized…
and immediately he began to proclaim Jesus…”
Whatever it was that had been behind Saul’s extremist religion and terrorism,
was reconciled, forgiven and healed in this resurrection encounter.
Well, it’s easy now-a-days to point fingers at other groups
and to call them extremists and terrorist,
THEM and not us.
But don’t think for one moment
that there isn’t a latent terrorist buried beneath your skin too.
The potential is there.
Every act of domestic violence,
every occasion of verbal abuse even,
shows us how close we are to becoming terrorists ourselves.
But our risen Lord intervenes in our lives with mercy,
and oftentimes through some modern day Ananias,
someone who doesn’t play the “them and us” game,
who returns evil with love.
Watch out. Maybe we too will be called upon by Resurrection Jesus
to be Ananias to someone we are on the outs with.
Now for the other resurrection appearance,
this in a more peaceful setting:
Peter going fishing with his old buddies.
Well now, have you ever wondered why Peter suddenly wants to go fishing?
Sure, he was a fisherman, that was his occupation, so it seems natural,
but is that the sort of thing you would expect of someone
who had been through the whole events of Holy Week
and who had seen the risen Lord
and upon whom that risen Lord had breathed Holy Spirit
and entrusted to them the ministry of reconciliation?
Did Peter just say to himself, “Well, that was an interesting experience.
Now I might as well go back to what I was doing before all this began.”?
I wonder if Peter might still have been feeling remorse
for his denial of Jesus that fateful night,
if he felt that he had so blown it
that he no longer had the right to consider himself Jesus’ disciple.
He better just go home.
And, notice, he wasn’t alone.
But this professional fisherman and his fisherman colleagues
apparently had lost the knack,
couldn’t do what they had done so often before,
couldn’t go back to the way things were.
And so this resurrection appearance comes with
loving, and even maternal, compassion and caring on the part of Jesus:
with a touch of humor
– try throwing your net on the other side of the boat -
and then directing the fish to come swimming right up to them,
and having breakfast waiting for them on the beach.
Jesus meets them where they are
in their confusion and difficulty in recognizing him.
Yes, this is something we can more readily identify with.
How often do we experience confusion in our faith about
who Jesus is,
where is God,
why is this happening to me,
how am I then to live?
How difficult does it seem at times to recognize the risen Lord
present and active in our lives?
But if we were to pause at frequent intervals and say to ourselves, like John,
“It is the Lord!”
what might be revealed to our hearts,
how would the eyes of our faith be opened to us?
But this Gospel story doesn’t stop here.
Peter is led right back into discipleship
with dreadful resoluteness by Resurrection Jesus.
He may not have been struck blind like Saul was on the road to Damascus,
but he too was experiencing intervention in his life
so that he would never again deny he knew Jesus,
so that he would be a faithful witness to the Resurrection,
so that he would be faithful even to a martyr’s death.
Three times Peter had denied knowing Jesus,
and three times Jesus asked him, “Do you love me?”
Three opportunities for restoration…
The passage contains a number of subtle references
to the process of calling a disciple.
Peter is being called again into discipleship with Jesus,
a fresh start, a new beginning
in the new creation of resurrection.
And this is not just so that Peter can get it
that he is restored to right relationship with Jesus.
Discipleship with Jesus is for a purpose, a job, a ministry,
and Peter’s is pastoral leadership among the followers of Jesus.
Okay, where are we in this story?
Do we want to be considered as disciples of Jesus?
Are we afraid about what this might entail
if we were to let ourselves really answer that call?
Are we confusing discipleship
with being active church members?
You know, much of what we do as “ministries” around here,
is simply sharing the chores.
Discipleship ministry goes out from this safe, comforting space
and engages us in reconciliation in the world,
in our homes, in our workplace, in the marketplace,
in our associations,
in our outreach and volunteer activities in the community.
And do we understand that discipleship includes, indeed, is mainly
being a witness to the Resurrection?
Being a witness to the Gospel good news that there is new life,
a new creation possible in each of us,
an abundance of love to be experienced and to give.
