Sermon for Easter 3, 4th May 2025

Welcome friends. MAY the words of my mouth and the meditations in our hearts be acceptable in your sight O Lord, our strength and our Redeemer. <Amen>

The disciples are overwhelmed. Life recently has been throwing an awful lot at them.

They went from the dire fact that Jesus, their Lord, was dead, crucified at the hands of the Roman authorities and urged on by the crowds. Peter was traumatised over his denial. The group was scared, confused and overwhelmed.

Then Mary shows up on the morning of the third day with the news. The tomb is empty. What does this mean? Their hearts raced. Their voices trembled. Could it be Jesus HAD risen from the dead?

Then Jesus starts turning up all over the place. He appears to marry in the garden. She thought he was the gardener. Jesus pops in when the disciples were hiding from the crowds in a locked room. Jesus breathes the Holy Spirit on them and then takes off. Yet Thomas was out and he missed that and he didn't believe. So Jesus makes their hearts flutter one more time, appearing to them again, including Thomas.

From the devastation of the cross to the emotional high of the empty tomb to Jesus' continued appearances, life as a disciple has recently been, well, simply overwhelming.

So what do you do when you are overwhelmed? When life gives you just too much to handle? Do you read a book? Go gardening? Cry? Talk to your spouse, family, friends? Maybe, like a certain someone I know you go for a run.

Well Peter knew exactly what he needed to do. “I'm going fishing”, he says. A few other disciples decided they go with it. There's nothing like a night out on the lake to calm the mind. They'd be guaranteed some quiet time alone and some fresh food. Goodbye overwhelming feeling, hello fishing. It turns out though that things didn't go according to plan!

They were out all night and caught nothing. But just as dawn was breaking, the disciples catch a glimpse of a figure of the beach. Somehow he knew they caught nothing and the man yells cast the net to the right side of the boat and you will make a catch. So they did and the net got so full they couldn't even haul it in.

Who was this miracle man on the beach? One fisherman, perhaps John, figures it out pretty quickly. “It is the Lord”, he said to Peter, who then leaps into the lake and swims frantically to his master on the shore.

You’ve got to love Peter's enthusiasm. The other disciples in the boat, well they had a different approach. They rode calmly, slowly to the shore. They have those full nets to think about.

Now here's the thing. A simple reading of this text could go something like this. Peter was the good disciple. He knew it was Jesus on the shore. He jumped in straight away and swam to the Lord.
So our lives of faith should be always like Peter's, quickly jumping at the first glimpse of the Lord. Ah yes, and in this simple interpretation we can find ways to admonish the other disciples who stayed in the boat. They rowed too slowly. Ah, they cared too much about the fish. They didn’t embrace the immediacy of the moment. They may have had faith, but it was stuck in second gear.

But Jesus does not make any distinction between Peter and the other disciples in the way of getting to the beach. In fact, when they finally get there, Jesus welcomed them all. And they had a breakfast together of fish and bread.

So, Jesus does not make any distinction between Peter’s instant enthusiasm and his dedication and the other disciples calm steadiness. They all got to Jesus and they were all welcomed by Jesus.

You see, when people recognise Jesus, they respond via their different temperaments. In our gospel, one was fervent and immediate. The others were slower, more contemplative.

Recognising the Lord is vital. It's a vital first step, and then so is responding. Allow me to put it this way. Neither recognition nor action alone makes up our lives of faith. One needs to join with the other. We need to unite the best of Peter and the best of the others if we are to continue to grow as disciples of the risen Christ.

When it comes down to it, each of our faith lives will be quite different, and our faith will change over time. It will ebb and flow with life experiences. Sometimes we'll need to rest on the faith of others. Sometimes our faith will be as reactive and immediate as Peter's jumping with excitement to respond to the next action of God in our lives. Sometimes we'll move forward with a clear, cautious, determined, and persistent approach.

This gospel is wonderful because it's less about holding up Peter as an example of diving in to show immediate commitment to faith. It's more about realising that whatever point we are at on our new journeys, (remember my last message from last week?), we are all moving towards Christ, and we are all welcomed by Christ.

So ponder, where are you in your new journey? Are you ready to jump in and swim? Do you need to sit back and be roamed for a while?

However, we are progressing along the road towards Christ. We do so at our own pace, and the important thing is NEVER stop. Continue your journey towards Christ.

Thanks be to God, the tomb remains empty, and Jesus is calling us, beckoning us to move forwards towards him.

Christ is risen. He is risen indeed. Hallelujah.

I runga e te Ingoa o te Atua, te Matua, te Tama me te Wairua Tapu. <AMINE>