Sermon 17th April 2016

Today, one of our Lay Readers, Trevor Tayleur, preaches. The reading is from John 21:1-14

Risen Jesus on the Beach

A defendant was on trial for murder. There was strong evidence indicating guilt, but there was no corpse.

In the defence's closing statement, the defence lawyer, knowing that his client would probably be convicted, tried a trick. “Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, I have a surprise for you all," said the lawyer. "Within one minute, the person presumed dead in this case will walk into this courtroom."

He looked toward the courtroom door. The jurors, somewhat stunned, all looked on eagerly. A minute passed. Nothing happened. Finally, the lawyer said, "Actually, I made up the previous statement. But you all looked on with anticipation. I, therefore, put it to you that you have a reasonable doubt as to whether anyone was killed, and I insist that you return a verdict of not guilty."

The jury retired to deliberate. Soon the jury returned and pronounced a verdict of guilty. "But how?" inquired the lawyer. "You must have had some doubt; I saw all of you stare at the door." The jury foreman replied: "Yes, we did look, but your client didn't."

Of course, unlike the corpse in this story, the risen Jesus did appear, not at the courtroom door, but on the shore of the Sea of Galilee. Last week we looked at John 20, and the closing verses seemed to have brought John’s Gospel to an end; “But these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name.”

Yet John wrote some more. It seems that John added chapter 21 after completing the first, and main draft, of his Gospel. So why did John add this extra chapter on at the end? One reason, it seems, was to set the scene for the encounter between the risen Jesus and Peter that Cameron will be speaking about next Sunday. But the verses we’re looking at this morning also have a purpose of their own. As I’ve said, John concluded the previous chapter by writing; “[T]hese are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God…” And it seems that John wanted to add something to his Gospel story to further encourage belief in the risen Jesus.

In chapter 20 John had already recounted some of Jesus’ resurrection appearances. First Jesus had appeared to Mary Magdalene, then to the disciples in Jerusalem, and then again to the disciples to show himself to Thomas who, as Gill explained last week, missed Jesus’ appearance to the other disciples. But now John wanted to emphasise the reality of the risen Jesus even more. The reality of the risen Jesus was vital to the early church. Luke, the writer of the next phase of the Christian story, the Acts of the Apostles, wrote at the start of Acts: “After his suffering, [Jesus] presented himself to them and gave many convincing proofs that he was alive. He appeared to them over a period of forty days and spoke about the kingdom of God.” Similarly, John may well have added chapter 21 of his Gospel to witness to the reality of the risen Jesus.

The resurrection isn’t just part of the Christian faith. It’s the heart of it. St Paul himself wrote; “And if Christ has not been raised, our preaching is useless and so is your faith.” (1 Cor 15:14). For the early church, the resurrection wasn’t simply a spiritual truth – it was based on historical fact. Bertrand Russell, a very famous 20^th Century philosopher, once wrote; “I cannot think it right or wise to cherish beliefs for which there is no good evidence, merely on the grounds that fairy tales are pleasant." But John and the other Gospel writers were very keen to emphasise that the resurrection is no fairy tale, but a fact of history. The central claim of the Gospels concerns the resurrection of someone who was a contemporary of those who claimed it happened. Indeed, not just a contemporary – but a close personal friend, a friend whose life and teaching and miracles were unparalleled, a friend whom death could not hold. The claim that Jesus had risen from death was an extraordinary one; people in the first century knew as well as we do that dead people don’t come back to life. Something had changed those first followers of Jesus.

Yes, initially the first disciples had followed Jesus in the hope of national renewal and Israel’s restoration. But they had seen Jesus crucified and all their hopes had been dashed. Indeed, in many ways, objectively speaking, nothing had changed. Israel hadn’t been liberated. The Romans through Pontius Pilate still governed Judea. Injustice and oppression were still on the loose. And yet something had happened to convince them that a great new day had dawned and there was no looking back. The impossible had occurred – Jesus had risen from the dead, and they were utterly convinced of this. It was one of these faith enthusing experiences of the risen Jesus that John describes in John 21:1-14. The events of chapter 20 took place in Jerusalem, but now the scene has shifted to Galilee. After the Passover period, the seven disciples referred to in our passage had gone back to Galilee, their home territory. They were home again, but without Jesus things probably felt a bit strange – and no doubt they had many burning questions about what they had gone through.

So, back in Galilee, they decided to go fishing. We’re not sure why. As we can see from verse 3, it was Peter’s idea. “I’m going out to fish,” he said. And the others joined him. Peter was a practical man. He wasn’t the sort of man to sit around waiting, even if dramatic events had been occurring. He was going to do something familiar, something safe, something where he knew where he was.  And as we know, it didn’t work. They were experienced fishermen; they knew where the shoals of fish congregated – and yet they caught nothing. And they knew that if you didn’t catch fish at night, you’re even less likely to do so in the day. And then, as we see in verse 4, Jesus appears, standing on the shore. At first they don’t recognise him, just as Mary Magdalene hadn’t originally recognised him in the garden.

We do well, as we think about the risen body of Jesus, to remember that we are talking about a great mystery. When the Gospel writers write about it, they are on the very frontiers of language and experience. Yes, we know that there is similarity, but there is also dissimilarity.  The Lord we know is no longer bound by material and spatial limitations. This is a Lord who can walk through a sealed tomb or a locked door. This is a Lord who can immediately appear or disappear in an instant. At times his appearance must have been reassuringly ordinary, and at other times blindingly radiant. But this is no ghost or disembodied spirit. This is a new body, unfettered by time or space, free from any dependence on its environment. Gloriously transformed. Yes, this is a real body, and in a true sense it’s the same body, yet also it’s a transformed body with a sometimes hard to define difference that momentarily delays recognition.

The seven disciples, despite having seen the risen Jesus in chapter 20, don’t realise it is him. Maybe it’s just the early morning light, maybe it’s some lakeside mist; who can tell? But throughout this passage there is sort of nervousness amongst the disciples. There is a degree of hesitancy of recognition as they meet the Lord again, and it hints there is something special about Jesus – a certain humanity-plus.

The story continues to unfold. Jesus calls out to them in verse 5. “Friends, haven’t you any fish?” They seem not to recognise his voice, but something in its note of authority inspires enough confidence in them to take his advice, and so they throw their nets on the other side of the boat. And of course there is a huge haul of fish. Peter and John react immediately. The penny drops for John, the disciple whom Jesus loved. There’s a moment of revelation, of recognition, and he says, in verse 7, “It is the Lord.” Peter, as ever, is the action man, while John is the reflective one. Peter sees this as a summons to action, and in verse 8 he jumps into the water and heads for the shore. And there, on the shore, is Jesus with just what they need after a long night on the sea – a cooked breakfast on the beach. Jesus has a breakfast of cooked fish and bread waiting for them – just what the tired, wet, hungry and confused group of disciples need. Jesus is thoughtful, loving and prepared.

And in verse 10 Jesus graciously invites them to contribute to the breakfast from their own catch, a catch they have struggled to bring ashore. And all the time the disciples must have been overwhelmed by their awe at whom they were with. As John writes in verse 12: “None of the disciples dared ask him, ‘Who are you?’ They knew it was the Lord.”

They probably had a hundred questions on their mind at that point, but they are all silenced by their unshakeable conviction that this is the Jesus whom they knew – now unmistakably alive but unmissably different, having overcome the great enemy - death. There could only be one possible answer to the question, “Who are you?”  It would be; “It’s me – the risen Jesus.”

John tells the story principally to build faith and belief in the risen Jesus. As he says in verse 14, “This was now the third time Jesus appeared to his disciples after he was raised from the dead.” And he also tells it for our benefit – that the resurrection is real, that it is something that actually happened and that it is not a figment of someone’s imagination. Jesus is risen. He is risen indeed! And this means that there is another starting point for thinking and living. There is a starting point that isn’t the market economy, that isn’t some ideology or that isn’t some self-help mantra or anything else. We are the disciples of Jesus and have the privilege of saying; “It is the Lord” and following him.

John’s account has a personal dimension – a dimension that calls for an individual response. But it also has wider dimensions. And briefly now I’ll look at just a couple of these wider dimensions.

Firstly, this passage points to Jesus being the Lord of all creation. The disciples were experienced fishermen; they weren’t ignorant. They knew that this catch was another miracle – a sign of Jesus’ supreme authority over nature itself. Perhaps Jesus on the shore had had a better view of where the shoal of fish were – or perhaps not. I don’t think we need to explain this sign away, because however Jesus did it, supernaturally or not, it points to Jesus’ authority and power over all things. As Paul puts it in Colossians, “For in [Jesus] all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things have been created through him and for him.” (Colossians 1:16).

Nothing we can see, nothing that we cannot see, nothing from the past, nothing in the present or in the future, nothing is beyond the reach of the risen Lord. And whether it’s a shoal of fish, or the safety of a nation, or my individual future, all are subject to the authority of the risen Lord.

The first dimension I’ve picked out relates to Jesus being the Lord of all creation. The second relates to something more down to earth – the mission of the Church. In this passage we are meant to see echoes of what happened in Luke chapter 5 when Peter, John and others were first called to be disciples. Back then, they had fished all night and caught nothing, and Jesus had told them where to find the fish, and they had been overwhelmed by the catch. And Jesus had told them that they would become fishers of people. And Jesus confirmed the mission of the disciples in chapter 20, by breathing God’s spirit on them and sending them into the world, just as God had sent Jesus. The disciples were to spread the good news of the risen Jesus, but if they tried to do it their own way, they would fail. They would toil all night and catch nothing. The way ahead for them was to listen to Jesus’ voice afresh and to do as he said. And indeed that is what they did, and they were able to transform the world.

And we, too, in 21^st Century Herne Hill, continue the mission of those first disciples, to bring the good news of Jesus to the world. That’s why we have our Community Action Support Group to bring God’s love to the parish, with a focus on the Milkwood area. That’s why a group from the church regularly visit Brixton Prison and why we have Zone 2, JGL Cafe and our children’s church – to spread the good news of the risen Jesus, to spread God’s love.

And as we do these things, these very worthwhile things, let’s remember, like the disciples, we need the power of the risen Lord to transform our effectiveness. Like the disciples, we need to listen to Jesus.

The first aim of this story is to make quite clear the reality of the resurrection. The risen Jesus was not a vision, nor the figment of someone’s over-excited imagination. It was Jesus who had defeated death and who had come back. But this risen Jesus had given his disciples a mission to spread the good news of the resurrection to the world. And as we follow in the footsteps of the disciples, we need to look to Jesus for our help and strength.

Let’s pray. Father, help us recognise the reality of the resurrection, the risen Jesus, in our daily lives. And as we strive to fulfil our mission in Herne Hill, help us to remember that we can’t do it all on our own, that we don’t need to do it all on our own, but we can put our trust in the risen Jesus.

Amen.

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[i] With acknowledgement and thanks to a sermon by David Turner at All Souls Langham Place

[ii] 17 April 2016