May 7 2006 Lectionary Reading

Reading: “They knew it was the Lord” John 21.12(NIV)

Will Grant, the writer and hillwalker, was known for his very strong sense of place, his lyrical descriptions of hills and walks in Southern Scotland. Here he writes of the dawn seen from high up in the Pentlands.

‘The Loganlee Valley was filled with haze, and the tops of the Black Hill, the Kips Scald Law and Carnethy looked strangely beautiful as they stood out above the mysterious purple rimmed hollows.. In the deep blue above the peaks the morning stars were singing still. Then, very faintly at first, the Eastern sky began to lighten…… above the violet coloured horizon, a soft pink glow was spreading quickly - the colour changed to a bright crimson, it rose higher, patches of lavender grey cloud were in turn caught with fire of gold….. all the eastern sky was afire…then the burning of the crimson hues passed, the colours gradually faded, till all trace of the morning glory had vanished…. leaving a great and silent space.’

We read in John’s gospel chapter 21 that it was dawn on the sea of Galilee. But the focus is not on the beauty of the skies or the sunrise, but on a meeting, and encounter, between the disciples and the risen Lord Jesus Christ.

But what a completely different situation this is from just a few days before in Jerusalem. There, the disciples are in the Upper Room, behind locked doors , in the darkness of the night, threatened by Jerusalem, the great city round about, when the Risen Jesus appears, with the marks of the cross – the One who has overcome, sends the disciples out into that same city and world in the power of the Holy Spirit.

Now, here are the disciples back in Galilee, back it seems for a while, to ordinary life. New Testament scholars tell us that this is in order to earn something just to eat, and stay alive. There are seven disciples: Peter, Thomas, Nathanael, James, John and another two. They start fishing at night, the best time for fish, but catch nothing. But in the early hour of the morning, they meet the risen Jesus the distant figure waiting for them on the shore.

Now you might remember from last week, what we are told in John’s gospel chapter 20: We see Jesus in the Upper Room, the risen Lord, who comes and stands among the disciples, and shows them the marks on His hands and in His side is the One who was crucified. He who stands risen in the midst of the disciples is the One who has the marks of the cross, and the wound of that spear upon Him. He is the One who was crucified on the cross, but is now Risen. The victory is His…. take heart ! he says - I have overcome the world. In this meeting with the disciples, who are hiding in fear in the Upper Room, locked in, the risen Jesus reveals to them that all their strength, and confidence, and hope are in Him, because His is the victory. The victory is His…. take heart ! he says - I have overcome the world. Though threatened, sometimes on every side, so often almost overwhelmed, it sometimes seems – we have the victory in Him. take heart ! He says - I have overcome the world.

Now the situation here at the lakeside in Galilee is different. The disciples are not in an upper room, but in gently moving, drifting fishing boat. There are no locked doors, here but the mist drifting over the open water. Instead of the city, the broad hills round about. Not the deep darkness of the night but the hour just before break of day. Here it seems, the disciples have come back to ordinary life, the life they know, in Galilee, doing the ordinary things of life. And here it is now, that the risen Lord Jesus waits for them on the shore.

Archbishop William Temple, reading this passage, points out to us the sheer wonder of this. That the risen Jesus waited there on the shore for the disciples, came to meet them in the midst of ordinary life – not in the Temple in Jerusalem, not even on the mountain summit they knew so well – but in the midst of ordinary life. In the midst of life’s prosaic routines, and daily worries and cares, the things we fret about, the things that we are taken up with – Christ is there. Christ comes to meet us. And isn’t this, in a way, just what the whole New Testament declares ? That in Jesus, who has come among us as a human being, knowing human life, just as we do, God has come to us ? In Jesus who says ‘I and the Father are one’ the living God has come among us.

As J.S. Stewart once said

“The love that came to us at Bethlehem and Calvary and the empty tomb;

the love which through the Holy Spirit is for ever coming to us still, new every morning; the love divine all loves excelling which is in fact coming to us at this very moment is God loving you not in some aloof impersonal way, but passionately and eagerly, longing to take you by the hand and recreate your courage and your hope, and send you on your way rejoicing.

The risen Lord Jesus waited there on the shore for the disciples, stepped forward to meet them in the midst of ordinary life. Christ is present. Christ comes to meet us. This, is what the whole New Testament declares !

Yet, at the lakeside, while the disciples are taken up in the ordinary tasks of throwing the nets overboard, untangling the ropes, steering the boat….. as they had done so many times before….. this particular dawn is actually different, in a significant way. For as the sun comes up, having spent the whole night fishing, they have caught absolutely nothing. These fishermen whose whole life was spent doing this, who knew these waters, and every rock and contour of the shore, who had learnt their trade from their fathers…… as the sun comes up, having spent the whole night fishing, they have caught absolutely nothing. All they have are empty nets.

In the Upper Room, the risen Lord revealed to them His victory over the world . And we know, therefore, that though threatened, sometimes on every side, so often almost overwhelmed, it sometimes seems – we have the victory in Him. For He says take heart ! - I have overcome the world.

Here in the early dawn, He tells them to fish on the right hand side of the boat, and they make a full catch, of 153 fish, so that the net is full nearly to breaking.

Here is revealed to us – this, that in Jesus Christ, crucified and risen, is richness and abundance far beyond the power of human telling. That the gift of God in Jesus Christ is always more than we can receive, that our resources in the risen Christ are never exhausted. That yes, like the disciples, we may feel that, casting our own nets, for all our labours, it seems we are drawing in nothing, that the hope we had, like the disciples, of drawing in something that would make all worthwhile, has faded. And the nets are empty. The message of John’s gospel, is that for our emptiness, there is Christ’s fullness, when life seems shallow like that lakeside in Him is to be found life, and life in all its abundance, this, the Lord tells us, is why He has come – I have come that you might have life and life in all its fullness.

As J.S. Stewart said of this fullness of life – “we can begin to live — begin to taste, even here on earth — the life ofthe world to come.

This is a tremendous thing to claim, with change and decay around us and within — the remorseless years going on, time running its inexorable, irreversible course, but, he goes on, the New Testament unequivocally declares that eternal life is not to be regarded as something beginning only on the further side of death. It begins, for those who belong to Christ, here and now. We are still pilgrims and strangers and sojourners; but in Jesus Christ, we know the fullness of life here and now, , a foretaste, a first instalment, of what we look for on that day to come……..when God’s Kingdom comes.

Abundant life in the risen Lord Jesus Christ a present possession.

AMEN.