Sermon on 3rd Sunday of Easter - Fr Sam Rossiter-Peters

May be given to me to speak in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen. Please do be seated.

I realise that I've said to enough of you enough times, this is probably my favourite piece of scripture, that this sentence has lost any kind of meaning. That said, this morning's gospel is my favourite piece of scripture. I love it, because of how tender Jesus is with the disciples.

That phrase, children, you have no fish, do you? Always sounds in my head, like a gentle and loving parent, lamenting with their child over a hurt, like a scraped knee. Since becoming a parent myself, that tone, which Jesus uses a few times throughout the Gospel of John, making it probably my favourite gospel, apart from the other three, means even more to me. It reminds me of the tone that I use, particularly with my daughter when I go into her room during the wee hours of the night, because she's woken up crying.

Those moments, though they are very hard, are also so precious. I wander in, bleary-eyed and exhausted, my head spinning, but there in the cot is the one I love most in the world, who's crying because she needs comfort. So, no matter how bad I feel, I can't help but have a tender tone, even if I wanted to sound any different.

I like Jesus with the disciples, I greet her, I lament with her, I remind her it's okay and I rock her on my shoulder until she falls back to sleep. And I greet her like that, I do all of that. Because no matter how bad I feel, it's important to me that she knows that she's loved, that she's safe and that she's wanted.

It doesn't matter that she's woken me up, it doesn't matter even if it's the fifth time that night. It doesn't matter how I feel, or at least it doesn't matter to how I interact with her, because to me she is precious, whether or not she's allowed me a decent night's sleep. In our Gospel reading, the disciples are hurting.

You can almost hear the crack in Simon Peter's voice as he said, I'm going fishing. The last few days had been brutal on him, on all the disciples. Their brother, Judas, had betrayed them all by giving Jesus' location over to the authorities at a time when he could be taken and arrested unfairly, unjustly, but without a crowd to object.

Most of the disciples had scattered, but Simon Peter and John had followed that arresting mob, had seen and heard the unjust trial, heard the lies of the witnesses, felt the injustice of a trial held at night which was totally illegal by Jewish standards. Then, as if matters couldn't get any worse, Simon Peter had denied even knowing Jesus. Whilst Jesus was undergoing this total injustice.

Denied him not once, but three times, just as Jesus had said he would a few hours earlier. He had been one of the inner circle with James and John. He was invited into the room of Jairus' daughter to see her be raised from the dead.

He was invited up the Mount of Transfiguration, saw Jesus revealed in his glory. He had proclaimed that night that he would go with Jesus to prison and to death. And then, when he'd had the opportunity to prove it, to put his actions where his words had been, he turned coward.

He spent that night, we're told, and probably the next day weeping, knowing that Jesus was dying a brutal death. Knowing that Jesus had seen his final act as a disciple, at least, what Peter assumed would be his final act as a disciple, denying his rabbi, the one who he believed and affirmed is God. The disciples had hidden away, terrified.

And then they'd heard a crazy story from Mary Magdalene about Jesus rising from the dead, but they couldn't bring themselves to believe it. Not long after that, they'd seen Jesus himself and known the truth. He'd even allowed Thomas to put hands into his wounds caused by the nails and the spear.

And whilst this was, of course, a cause for much rejoicing, I'm sure for Simon Peter, it was also an agony. Because, of course, he had, up to that point, believed that Jesus is the Son of God. He'd seen the transfiguration.

He knew the things that he'd experienced. But believing and then experiencing the resurrection are very different things. When Peter encountered the risen Jesus, he didn't just believe that Jesus was God.

He knew that Jesus was God. And that meant that he hadn't just betrayed his rabbi, his leader, his friend. He'd betrayed and denied his creator and his God.

So what did he do? He did what we often do when we're at our wit's end. He regressed back to his safety zone. He went back to the Sea of Galilee, his old place of work.

And he went back to fishing, his old job. We're not told why, but I've often wondered whether a part of him felt that he'd messed up so badly that he had to dig out his old career. Surely Jesus wouldn't want him now, but he still had a family to feed.

So he had to get back to his old life. To his boats and his nets. And how truly he went back to square one.

A whole night of fishing and he and the disciples caught nothing. Just like that first night, the one he had worked to exhaustion and then come to the shore in the morning, only to be disturbed by a wandering Galilean who wanted to borrow his boat so that he could preach to the crowds on the beach. Here again, that wandering Galilean met them.

And they were equally exhausted and doubly broken. But Simon Peter was wrong. Jesus hadn't finished with him.

Instead, he repeated the miracle that had first brought Simon Peter to his knees. A miraculous catch of fish, so extravagant that the nets broke. No wonder John, who was at that first miracle catch, shouted, it is the Lord.

No fisherman would ever forget a miracle like that, or the one who had performed it. You could see here how Jesus might have been frustrated with the disciples. They'd heard his teaching for the last three years.

They'd seen the crucifixion and they'd experienced the resurrection. So why on earth were they back to their old lives as if the past hadn't happened? Didn't they understand that their work now began in earnest? But of course, Jesus wasn't frustrated. He didn't demand more of the disciples than they had to give.

Instead, as a parent tenderly gets down onto the level of their child when they need comforting, Jesus went back to square one with his disciples. He allowed them to come to him exactly the way they had first come to him, to experience the wonder of that first miracle he did for them all over again. He knew that they needed time to be in despair, to come to him in their despair, and to be gently led out of it.

They didn't need to be berated for falling into it. And like that first time, Peter encountered his Lord Jesus who called him back to service. But again, as a parent leads their child through hurt rather than denying the hurt exists, so too Jesus led Peter through his trauma.

The events might have recalled that first meeting between Peter and Jesus, but much had passed between them since then. Three years of discipleship, Peter proclaiming Jesus as the Christ, the arrest, the crucifixion, and most importantly for Peter, the denial. Peter was hurting and Jesus needed to address it.

And so to heal three denials, Jesus asked Simon, son of John, do you love me? Three times. Giving Peter the chance to affirm his faith, their relationship, and to heal what had broken when he died him. He let Peter know that he was forgiven, that Jesus understood that there was redemption even after the worst moment of Peter's life.

And this is the Easter message, that there is redemption even through the worst moments of our lives, the worst mistakes we've made. As with Peter, Jesus doesn't deny that bad things happen and he doesn't need us to either. To be redeemed, we need to have something to be redeemed from.

To be healed, we first need to be sick. Jesus begins by entering into our hurt, our grief, our sickness, dwelling with us exactly where we are. Sometimes we need to go back to square one and just hurt in our safe space for a while.

And if that's you right now, that's okay. Jesus is there with you. But when we're ready, he will lead us out.

He'll help us to see that whatever the hurt is, it isn't the end of the story. There is healing. There is forgiveness.

There is newness of life. Nothing is so bad that it cannot be drawn into his love. And finally, after healing and forgiving, you'll be sent out, just as Peter was.

And as Jesus said to Peter, it won't be easy. There will be challenges. You'll be sharing love and forgiveness with a world that often isn't ready to hear it or accept it.

But you'll have that Easter message to guide you. Jesus will always be there on that shore, waiting by the fire for you. And whenever you need it, he'll be there to hold you as his child.

Amen.