Year C / 3rd Sunday of Easter
Readings: Acts 5,27-32, 40b-41/Ps 30 (R/v 2a) / Revelation 5.11-14/ John 21.1-19
Before and after videos.
We have all seen them, or at least heard of them.
Of the video of the acne-ridden teenager whose face scrubs
give her a flawless Beyonce-like skin.
Or, of television’s Kitchen Crashers,
with its makeovers of bad kitchens
into beautiful and functional spaces.
Or, of videos to trim down, muscle up and sweat it out
to look good for your big moment,
like a wedding, a graduation,
or, for me, an ordination.
Before and after;
the old and the new;
the transformation of what was to what can be.
Let me invite you to contemplate
this theme of before and after,
which our readings offer us as a lens
to understand Peter,
but more so, the grace of Easter faith.
This morning we see two faces of Peter, two phases in his life.
In our first reading, we see the “after”
while in our gospel reading we hear the story of “before”.
First, we see him and the apostles
proclaiming Christ Crucified and Risen,
which the Sanhedrin reprimands them for.
Instead of being downcast, they rejoice,
thankful to suffer for the sake of Christ.
And they courageously continue preaching Christ.
This is the “after” picture of Peter:
he is filled with the Holy Spirit,
brave in proclaiming Christ,
and living out his Christian hope for others.
Like most videos showing the “after”,
this is a happy, inspiring picture
of Peter the betrayer transformed.
But this picture of Peter
is only possible because of the story before.
In our gospel story, we hear of how Peter and the apostles
revert to their old ways after the Resurrection:
they go fishing, fishing in the dark again.
And they fish nothing.
But the Risen Jesus
comes to them and reveals himself in two ways.
First, by providing for them,
repeating what he told them once,
"lower your net to the right side of the boat,"
and, second, by feeding them with bread and fish,
as he once did by multiplying five loaves and two fish.
In this moment
the disciple Jesus loved tells Peter,
"It is the Lord."
And in this moment
when Peter recognizes, meets and interacts with the Lord,
this moment of reckoning,
we see the miracle
in today’s “before" and "after” picture of Peter.
We find it in Peter’s response
to what this reckoning more truly is;
Jesus beckoning Peter, in loving forgiveness,
to look forward to the future
and not to stay in the past,
weighed down by his betrayal.
Peter’s response,
his confession of love three times,
opens up the smallness of his heart
into an even more expansive love for Jesus,
This is the miracle.
Like the morning light
that dispels the darkness,
which is the setting for this scene,
Peter’s confession of love
opens him up to the Risen Jesus
who leads him to no other place but God.
This is what Easter hope is about.
And so it is must be for us
who have encountered the Risen Jesus
on Easter morning.
No matter much how much or how little,
no matter how saintly or how scarred by sin it is,
what else is our gratitude
on Easter morning and in these two weeks of Easter
but really our love for the Risen Jesus
who saves us for God.
Indeed, no matter how limited or how generous
our love may have been before,
as it is now,
this gratitude, this love
did swelled up in each of us then,
as it has swelled up in us this morning
bringing us here.
And this love, dare I say,
still fills us up
as grace that keeps expanding our hearts
and empowering us to love not only God better
but another and another and another,
again and again and again.
This kind of loving saves others
and saves us into fullness of life with God.
There is no finger-pointing in this miracle
except towards the future,
towards the hope-filled call
to love God and to live for others.
This is the call Jesus
made to Peter then,
as he makes to us today,
when he says, “Follow me.”
As we look back
on our own Eastertide thus far,
is not the “before” story of Jesus beckoning Peter
into resurrected faith,
also the “before” story of who we are today,
we who come here to give thanks,
come here to feast on him who is our daily bread,
come here to let God bless us,
break us and give of ourselves to one another?
Like Peter, hasn’t our “before” story in these past weeks
been one of the Risen Jesus coming to us
through family and friends, even strangers
-- to watch out for you in your recent struggles?
-- to provide for others in their poverty?
-- even, surprisingly to still feed us who struggle to live better lives?
If our answers to these questions
are ‘yeses’ or ‘maybes’
or ‘I hope so’, or even, ‘I’m not sure but I’d like to think so’,
then the miracle of the opening of Peter’s heart
to greater love for Jesus
is also our miracle, our Easter gift
in the here and now.
But we must not hoard
or squirrel away or possess
this miracle selfishly.
Peter’s expansive love for the Risen Jesus,
expressed with holy and daring boldness
in lavishing it upon others so that they can live fully,
is really how we too can give
voice to our Easter joy
and a face to our Easter truth,
that Christ is risen and we are indeed saved and made new.
Then, others seeing
our Easter faces and hearing our Easter voices
will perhaps say of us, “see how they are not as before;
see how after the Resurrection, they are truly human, truly alive!”
Preached at Blessed Mother Teresa of Calcutta Parish, Dorchester, Boston
photo:dawn at jervis bay, australia by peter white
View comments