Where Have You Seen Jesus?

Their breakfast table?

The Rev. Kathi Johnson

C Easter 3 – 10 April 2016

Text: John 21:1-19

Our Redeemer Lutheran Church, Grand Prairie, Texas

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Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.

This is one of my favorite gospel stories: the long night of fishing, the post-resurrection cookout on the beach, and the commissioning of Peter by Jesus. We visited the site alongside the Sea of Galilee where tradition says that the cookout and commissioning took place. It was a beautiful, clear day and the water itself was also beautiful and clear. The beach is made of up pebbles – many, many pebbles – and then, not far from the water’s edge, stands the Church of the Primacy of St. Peter.

The Church of the Primacy of St. Peter

Go into the church, and you realize the building has been constructed to focus upon a large stone, now set in the floor. This is the stone, tradition says, that Jesus used as his table when he served the disciples that breakfast on the beach. There were a few places on our Holy Land trip that felt extra-holy to me, and this place was one of them: this little church, built of sturdy rock, filled with pilgrims like myself, visualizing the scene from today’s gospel lesson in our minds. It was very easy to picture Jesus, in that place.

Where have you seen Jesus?

In today’s gospel lesson, the disciples have, apparently, returned to their daily lives. Many of them are fishermen, and they have been away from fishing in order to follow Jesus. Facing an uncertain future following Jesus’ death and resurrection, they return to what they know, and they climb into their boat for some fishing one night.

And it’s a bad night of fishing. Not one fish.

They’re nearing the shore and they see Jesus on the beach, but they don’t recognize that it is Jesus right away. He calls out to them to ask them about their catch and they respond that they have nothing to show for their full night of fishing. So then, safely from the shore, Jesus calls out for them to put out their net onto the other side of the boat. They must’ve been exhausted, after a full night of fishing. But they do what Jesus says, even though they don’t know yet that it’s him. (look over right side of boat)

The net – it’s full!

And that is when they recognize Jesus, after they catch 153 fish in that net. That’s a lot of fish. It’s so many, that they can’t even haul the net onto the boat. They go from nothing…to an abundance.

Where have you seen Jesus?

There are some preachers out there who see Jesus in material abundance, and they preach that this story is proof that the gospel is really about our material abundance – just look at all those fish that the disciples catch! However, the message of this story is not about the material abundance that comes when we follow our poor Savior (who didn’t even have a roof of his own over his head). This story points us directly to the abundance of grace that falls upon us when we follow Jesus, for God’s grace comes to us in abundance.

One of the beautiful things about this story to me is that, in this case, the abundance of God comes to the disciples as they are going about their daily work. There they are, just fishing away, doing the best they can, and Jesus meets them in their daily life – meets them there, on the beach, giving them grace alongside their breakfast.

This is how grace is – it finds us. We don’t have to find the grace of God – the grace of God finds us! Certainly, grace finds us here – it finds us in the “grace-filled water of life” that Katie will have poured over her in a few minutes at her baptism. Grace finds us in our time of confession and forgiveness. Grace finds us in the Lord’s Supper. Grace finds us as we greet others with peace. Grace finds us.

But – I want you to think about outside these walls – outside this time on Sunday morning together. Where have you seen Jesus? Where has Jesus met you in your daily lives?

For we don’t live our lives in here. I don’t even live my life in here, and I work here! We live our lives in our homes and schools and workplaces, out with friends, taking care of family, managing responsibility after responsibility – those are the moments in which grace really needs to find us, right? In the moments of our daily lives.

Maybe this is why Jesus chooses this morning on the beach to commission Peter. “Feed my lambs,” Jesus says to Peter. “Tend my sheep. Feed my sheep,” Jesus says – repeating the same idea again and again for emphasis, as if to say, “This is the work to which I call you, Peter – to feed the hungry and care for my people. Go. Do it.”

For we can and do receive grace – and grace in abundance – here, in this place. But grace is not a pretty jewel that we sit here and stare at while we’re here, setting down on our chairs when we head out the door. We are washed with grace! We are fed with grace! We have the abundance of God’s grace that we carry with us, so that, in our daily lives, we can see that Jesus meets us, even when we are on our stinky fishing boat, so to speak, tired after a long night of empty fishing.

We have the grace of God in abundance. Live your life in that grace, full of that grace, and fully confident of the love that God has for you. “…[B]y grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God…”

Amen.

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