So,
Now that Easter has come and gone, even though, “Every Sunday is Easter Sunday from Now On”, what do we do with the knowledge that he is risen.
It would be easy I think to go back to just dealing with life the same way as we always have without any noticeable change. But it seems to me that doing that would in some ways fail to acknowledge the power and wonder of the resurrection.
It’s funny, one of the lines in this Presbytery’s mission statement says something about “living resurrection every day”. It’s an odd thing to hear, I think, put that way, because for most of us, we just don’t think of resurrection that way.
We think, like most of those who have decided to follow Jesus, that he died on Good Friday at Calvary, and then he rose on Easter Sunday, and that’s it.
Well that, and the notion that someday we will rise too.
(By-the-way, the “we will too” is really a big deal, but we’ll deal with that another day. Today, we are wondering about today!)
So, in our heads, resurrection was then, it happened, and it’s over and done.
And our resurrection, well, that is way in the future, so it really doesn’t impact today.
Resurrection, for all practical matters is a faraway thing, back then and up ahead, but not now. It’s just not a today thing.
Unless you say something goofy like, “We are living resurrection every day!”
What are we to do with that?
The statement seems to suggest that the resurrection should change our day to day thinking, our day to day behavior, our choices, and the results.
But how?
And that kind of brings us to today’s scripture story, the one about Jesus teaching on the shore, and Peter done fishing for the night, and then Jesus getting all, “let’s go fishing” in Peter’s face.
For us to live resurrection every day, we would need to see resurrection every day, its power and its purpose in real day-to-day lives.
And it seems to me, that’s exactly what Jesus did, he introduced Peter and the others to living resurrection power, in their everyday world!
The story as you heard it, is about Jesus teaching down by the shores of Lake Galilee.
Folks gathered in around him pretty tight, trying to get a spot where they could see and hear. So, in order to talk to the whole crowd, Jesus commandeered an unused fishing boat to put out a way into the water.
He even got one of the fishermen, Peter, to row it out a way. It probably was not a small boat, and Peter let it then sit at anchor just far enough off the shore so folks could see and hear. And then Jesus did some fine preaching.
But it’s what happened after the fine preaching that mattered.
Did you hear that!
Kind of just like Sunday morning. It isn’t the preaching that transforms the world, it’s the people of God living resurrection power, that transforms the world. It’s what happens after the fine preaching, and I mean fine preaching!
So, after that preaching, resurrection power is revealed, when Jesus invites Peter to go back fishing so that he and the other fishermen could see for themselves what resurrection power was all about.
A boat so full of fish the boats were sinking. Think about that! Not a few fish. Not a “good” catch. Every fish in Galilee in their nets, almost like God was in charge or something.
Jesus didn’t ask these fishermen to scale a mountain. He didn’t suggest they go and preach to a land far away. He didn’t ask them to fix the Coronavirus, or fix the economy, or even confront those wily politicians in Jerusalem.
No, Jesus just asks for them to go and do what they always do: fish! Something they knew well. Something they all did for a living. Something that they knew better than anyone. And then Jesus introduced them to resurrection power in everyday life.
And note, Jesus doesn’t tell Peter how to fish, where to fish, about his mystery techniques for “amazing fishing results”.
No, Jesus just said, according to Luke, just, “go out to deep water and let down your nets”.
Resurrection power is not about doing amazing stuff for God. It’s about doing what God has already called us to do and seeing resurrection power at work in it.
Peter was tired, Peter was ready to be done, but he listened to Jesus and let down the nets one more time and saw resurrection power in all of its overwhelming abundance.
And they all saw what God could do with their gifts and with their willingness.
And, that’s all God is asking of you. To do what God has always asked you to do, and let resurrection power change the results.
Living resurrection every day is seeing and believing that though we think the sea in front of us hasn’t another fish to offer us, God has plans we do not yet understand.
That God can use us.
That God can bless us.
And that God can use us as a blessing for others!
For He is Risen! Hallelujah and Amen.
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