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The Third Sunday of Easter If I had to come up with one adjective to describe the last week it would be grey. Grey. The skies were grey, the weather was grey, the news was grey, the mood of the country was grey. It was dark, it was gloomy, it was cold, it was heavy. We were rocked with the news of yet another incident of senseless violence, the needless loss of lives on a college campus even as we heard reports of an ever-increasing death toll in Iraq. Yes, it was a very grey week. But the sun comes out and life goes on. I wonder if this is what it felt like for Jesus’ disciples in the weeks following his crucifixion and resurrection. The disciples’ time with Jesus had ended quickly and violently. The teacher whose words and ministry they had struggled to understand was gone, and they were left behind wondering what it all meant. And then there were those mysterious appearances—first to Mary at the tomb, then to the disciples in the upper room, and again when Thomas was present. So they knew on some level about the resurrection, they had even had Jesus breath the Holy Spirit upon them. Now they were left to go on. Of course nothing was the same for them. How could it be? They had encountered Jesus and their lives were transformed. They were in that liminal place, caught between two realities—their lives before and after Jesus—working out what it all meant. And then they meet Jesus again. They’ve spent the night fishing without catching a thing when someone calls to them from the shore. “Children, you have no fish, have you?" When they replied no, no they didn’t, he directed them where to cast the net, and when they did so, it came up full to overflowing. And suddenly, the beloved disciple recognized the figure on the beach. “It is the Lord.” They returned to the beach to find that Jesus ALREADY had a meal prepared for them—he asked for some of their catch, but there were already fish cooking over the fire. Jesus broke bread with them, and he fed them an abundant meal, all the while not saying anything about who he was, and the seven disciples present knowing yet not daring to ask for confirmation. There are many aspects of this story we could focus on—how the disciples came to recognize Jesus, the similarities between this meal of bread and fish and the earlier feeding of the 5000, the appearance of Jesus outside of Jerusalem, in Galilee, the instructions Jesus gave Peter to care for his sheep in the part of the story we didn’t hear this morning. Commentators on the Gospel of John often view this story as a later addition to the text. After all, they reason, the resurrection has already been established. Jesus has appeared to these disciples before. There are two verses at the end of the previous chapter that sound very much like a conclusion to the gospel. So why add this story here? Whatever the original intent of the gospel’s author, I think this story illustrates something of utmost importance to us 21st century Christians. And that is this: Just as Jesus appeared to these seven disciples unexpectedly, at an unlikely time and place, so too does Jesus come to us in our ordinary daily lives, often when we least expect it. We are like these disciples in many ways. Like them, we have celebrated Easter and we have proclaimed the joy of the resurrection. Although we don’t have the benefit of knowing Jesus during his earthy life, of being eyewitnesses to his ministry, although we weren’t there when he was hung on the cross, or when Mary came running to proclaim the empty tomb or when he breathed the Holy Spirit over those gathered in the upper room, we still “know” that Jesus is risen. And even though we were not eyewitnesses to the original events, we do have the benefit of knowing what comes later—we know that a band of scared, distressed, confused followers of Jesus were completely transformed by those events, and that they took Jesus’ message, the Good News of his life, death and resurrection and spread it around the world, building a vast church. We are eyewitness to the results of those actions, things the disciples could not have foreseen and we know that we have been transformed by that resurrection through the waters of our baptism. But even knowing all that, we sometimes feel very much like the disciples must have in the first weeks after the resurrection, struggling to comprehend what it all means. Like the disciples we exist in that liminal space where the Kingdom of God is already present but not yet complete. Like the disciples we must figure out how to live in that new reality. And when we encounter those grey days, days like we had this past week, days, when we may wonder just where God has gotten off to anyway, it is so easy for us to fail to recognize Jesus when he is right in front of us, just as the disciples failed to recognize him standing on the beach. And here’s the good news for us. Jesus’ feeding of his disciples on that beach, his presence there with them did not depend on them recognizing him first. He was there for them, with them before they knew who he was or even that he was there. So it is in our lives. Jesus is here for us in the Eucharist for certain, but he is with us in the most ordinary events of our lives as well; he is here even when we fail to recognize his presence, and he feeds us whether we know it is he or not. Jesus is here in all the greyness, all the coldness, all the heaviness. He is here even when we feel his absence most keenly. He is here. That’s the good news, and here’s the challenge that comes with it. Knowing that Jesus is with us, how can we come to recognize his presence in our lives more fully? It’s hard to say just what it was that made the Beloved Disciple recognize Jesus standing on that beach, and it’s just as hard to say for sure how we will recognize Jesus with us now. Will we encounter him in the face of the homeless person we meet on the street? Or in the kindness of a stranger? Or a hug from a loved one? Will it be in an encounter with nature? In moment of quiet meditation or in a crowd? Will we find Jesus standing on a beach? Will we feel his presence when we find the strength to deal with something we’d thought unbearable? My prayer for us is that we might be able to open our hearts and our eyes to recognize Jesus’ presence in our lives wherever we might encounter it, and that in doing se we might live more fully into the Kingdom of God he promises. AMEN
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