SERMON PREACHED AT St PAUL’S, ARROWTOWN
and St Peter’s, Queenstown
THIRD SUNDAY OF EASTER
(May 3rd) 2025
Readings
Revelation 5: 11-14
Psalm 30
John 21: 1-19
You may or may not recall, but
during the reading of the passion, On both Good Friday and the Sunday before
Easter, there is that moment when Peter denies Jesus for the third time, and
the cock crows. Every year as I read that passage this is a moment at which I
feel a shiver down my spine. This is probably because I know my own capacity to
deny my faith under duress, and history demonstrates that however strong a
believer a person is sometimes the sheer psychological trauma of persecution
and threats defeats their expectations of faith.
Would I be brave enough when
Hitler's brown shirts came marching to my house in the middle of the night, or
indeed when Mr. Trump’s goons arrived on the flimsiest of evidence and against
the law of the land to drag American residents and refugees off to a Peruvian
prison, would I be brave enough to stand up for them? And indeed in the United States
where Christianity is being defined as legitimate only when it places trump and
his agenda, and for that matter the American flag into a place of higher
priority then the cross of Jesus Christ, would I be strong enough to stand up
against the tyranny. If I were told that only believers in Trump's alleged form
of Christianity were allowed to worship and all others were traitors and
subverters, would I be brave enough to hold fast?
The question is more relevant today
in the Europeanized world than it has been at any time since the mid 1940s. Never
did I expect that I would be preaching at a time when belief in the
compassionate and justice seeking Christ put fellow believers in a western
nation at risk of their freedom. So the shiver that runs down my spine when I
encounter Peter’s denial of Jesus is deeply visceral. We have probably all seen
the meme that reads this is so and so, be like so and so. We have in the
scriptures the potential meme this is Peter, do not be like Peter.
And I say all this because the
scene today is a powerful moment of reconciliation between the disciples, all
the males of whom fled from Jesus in his most poignant time of need, reconciliation
between them and there is and but absolutely the same Jesus.
Aha, you might say, but was he the
same, for no one recognised him? And yet the gospel writers, Matthew, Luke and
John are determined to make it clear that in all matters of what we might call
mind and spirit, this is one and the same person. Furthermore they are adamant
that we are dealing not with some immortal soul but the Risen One, as able as
you and I to chomp on a piece of fish. It is a strange detail, but not one to
be ignored.
Leaving aside however Jesus with a hungry belly – after all death and resurrection are an exhausting business – the remarkable dimension in this moment is the profound reconciliation between Jesus and his betrayers. We generally refer to Judas as the betrayer, but the desertion committed by all 2018 02 24 1038athe men (And seemingly not the powerless women) was equally betrayal. These betrayers and deserters are here reconciled to their victim.
For a moment I imagined myself in
the shoes of the disciples, mystified by the resurrection appearance, and
deeply worried as to how this their friend would treat them after their
desertion. And at the risk of becoming a bit mystical and speculative I begin
to get a glimpse of what we call heaven. I don't believe we won't see into this
mystery that lies beyond our graves nonchalantly demanding our place at the
table. But I do believe, with Paul, that's beyond all understanding, beyond all
rationality this is the moment that we are reconciled not only with our God in
Christ, but with all who we have let down, even betrayed. Reconciled not with
an airy wave of the hand, box with those deep piercing eyes and a gesture of
welcome so well portrayed in the Narnia stories as Aslan greets the resurrected
children.
And beyond that mystical imagining
I can say little. The gospel writers found that it was beyond their capacity to
explain the encounters with the risen Lord. It is equally beyond our capacity
to understand what on earth this resurrection business is, or better still what
in heaven’s name this resurrection business is. Yet I stand solidly with St Paul,
for without this incomprehensible mystery we are simply wasting time, and we
all might find better things to do on a Sunday morning. But because of this
incomprehensible mystery we can stumble through the deaths of our loved ones
and indeed our own dying, and we can reach out our hands to receive these
strange elements of bread and wine, as Jesus taught us, and then go out into
the world strengthened and reawakened in our totally incomprehensible faith.
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