From April 18, 2010

Dear friends: grace and peace to you from God our Father and from our Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ

Let's pray: Heavenly Father, you know us. And you love us. Come to us, and teach us, please. You know that we have minds that jump here and there, not staying in one place long enough to listen or think. Focus our attention on you now, In Jesus' name we pray, Amen.

The central event in the whole of human history, Bishop NT Wright says – the central event in the whole of human history is Jesus' crucifixion and resurrection. He says, “Easter is that moment towards which everything was rushing and from which everything emerges new.” God said He would do something about the brokenness of life – and Jesus did it. He broke the power of sin and death, and is at work making everything right – new creation. We are made new creations by the grace of God in Jesus. And as new creations, we are given a job – we are made agents of new creation, called to work for God in God's kingdom.

“Afterward Jesus appeared again,” John says. Coming out of the God-dimension, Jesus appears to the disciples a third time, by the Sea of Tiberias – also called the Sea of Galilee – where some of the disciples were fishing. After the crucifixion and resurrection, after Jesus appeared – twice! - in the locked room, I imagine the disciples didn't know what to do. They had been fisherman, plucked from the sea by Jesus. They had followed, Jesus died, rose, and.... now what?

“I'm going fishing,” Peter said. Poor guy. Always saying and doing the wrong thing – a little like you and me, in that way. Well, I guess that's it, he's thinking. Jesus died, raised, and now let's get back to normal. “We'll go with you,” the others said. So, like other times before, they fished all night and caught nothing. Jesus – and they didn't know it was Jesus – Jesus from the shore said, “Friends, have you caught anything?” “No.” “Well, throw your nets to the right side.” So they did. And they caught a mighty load of fish – 153 of them – large fish, so they couldn't get them in the boat, but had to tow the net to shore – about 100 metres.

John – the disciple whom Jesus loved recognized the signs and said, “It's the Lord!” And Peter, because it wasn't polite or kosher to meet someone in your underwear, threw on his outer garment, jumped into the water. The others followed towing the net full of fish to where they could haul it onto land. Peter helped get the 153 fish ashore. And there Jesus was, food ready – fish and bread, charcoal fire ready for some of those 153.

I love the details of the eye-witness. John who recorded the Gospel is the John who said, “It's the Lord!” He saw it and wrote it down – down to the charcoal fire and the number of fish. Now, why 153 fish? Some wanna make it a metaphor – they say it's 153 fish, because that represented every known fish in the day – that the disciples would catch one of each fish – each tribe and nation. I think it's because John was an eyewitness, and that's how many there were.

And what about the charcoal fire? The fire was for cooking the fish, but the charcoal fire was also for Peter's sake. Have you noticed how Jesus deals with us as individuals? In John 20-21 - the most complete telling of Jesus' resurrection. Jesus meets each one where they are - Mary, Thomas and Peter - and he gives them a task. Mary - He calls her by her aramaic name - Mariam - go tell. Thomas, you want to see and touch - here you go. "Now, believe!"

And Peter. How does the resurrected Lord Jesus meet Peter? He meets him most intimately this third time by the sea, on the beach by a charcoal fire. Charcoal fire had me wondering – that sounds familiar. We see it only one other time in the New Testament – also in John. Looking for it we find Peter, warming himself by a charcoal fire, back in John 18. And where was the fire? The fire was in the courtyard of where Jesus was being held and questioned after his arrest, and around the fire, three times Peter denied knowing Jesus. The smell of charcoal was the smell of sin and death, for Peter. But on the beach, Jesus turned that smell around.

I remember hearing, 20 years ago, of a woman who had gone to a Christian counsellor in what used to be a motel outside of Kitchener Ontario. Her first time there, she confessed to the counsellor that the room in which they met was the very room to which she used to bring her many lovers back when it was a motel. It was a place of sin and Jesus made it a place of healing, restoration and new life.

On the beach, by the charcoal fire, Jesus publicly asked Peter three times – Do you love me? “Yes, Lord, you know I love you.” Jesus' repetition isn't meant as rebuke but as absolution: 
three invitations to confess 
in order to wipe away three denials just days earlier. 
In and through this pattern of question and confession 
Peter is restored – to himself, to his Lord, to the discipleship community.* 
The smell of charcoal is changed for Peter by the grace of Jesus. And yet it is more than that, too, 
for Peter is not merely forgiven and restored but also commissioned. “Feed my sheep. Follow me.”

Jesus comes to each of us as individuals, calls us as individuals, offers forgiveness for our specific sins, whatever they are. And he calls us to a task and into a community. He does not call us so we can go back to the same old same old. He calls us into something bigger.

But the trouble is, we go on with our lives as if our fishing nets, or Latvian curling on tv, or our doll collection, or our garden, or our job, or our schooling, or our sex life, or our friends, or our cel phone, or our x-box, or our wardrobe, or our appearance, or our family is the most important thing in the world, and Easter does not matter.

In his best-selling book The Reason for God, Tim Keller, pastor of Redeemer Presbyterian in Manhattan, shares the story of a woman in his congregation who was learning how the grace extended to us through the work of Jesus on the cross can actually be more challenging than religion. He writes:

“Some years ago I met with a woman who began coming to church and had never before heard a distinction drawn between the gospel and religion [i.e. the distinction between grace and what is often a works-based righteousness]. She had always heard that God accepts us only if we are good enough. She said that the new message was scary. I asked why it was scary and she replied: If I was saved by my good works then there would be a limit to what God could ask of me or put me through. I would be like a taxpayer with "rights"—I would have done my duty and now I would deserve a certain quality of life. But if I am a sinner saved by grace—then there's nothing he cannot ask of me."

She understood the dynamic of grace... This woman could see immediately that the wonderful-beyond-belief teaching of salvation by sheer grace has an edge to it. She knew that if she was a sinner saved by grace, she was (if anything) more subject to the sovereign Lordship of God. She knew that if Jesus really had done all this for her, she would not be her own.

We are not our own. God has grabbed hold of us, redeemed us, and sent us out with a purpose. He sets us right – that is, He forgives our sins, redeems situations and relationships, He dwells in us, as in a temple, he makes us new creations – not so that we can go back to fishing, but so we can be part of his new creation work in the world.

You might be feeling like you have blown it so many times that God must be fed up with you. Nothing could be further from the truth. It is never too late to confess our sin and come to Jesus for forgiveness and a new start in Kingdom work. Peter received forgiveness of sin and a commission, though he had got it wrong so many times, not just once but all through his life. What is your charcoal fire that Jesus wants to redeem, to make right, to change by His grace?

And how is God calling you to serve Him in the world? Who are you connecting with that God wants to get at through you? If you are retired, what can you do in the Kingdom? If you are starting out, what job can you do to serve the risen Lord? Jesus does not call us in order that we might lose ourselves, but so that we might find ourselves in our partnership with Him. He sends us out, but leads the way, saying “Follow me.” Amen

* This paragraph is lifted from David Lose's article found here: http://www.workingpreacher.org/dear_wp.aspx?article_id=327