Scripture: Jeremiah 31: 31-34; John 21: 1-19
Sermon: All Things New
Topics: old, new, dark, light, commission, baptism, Lord’s Supper
Preached: April 11, 2004
Rev. Mike Abma
Jeremiah 31: 31-34
The days are surely coming, says the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah. 32It will not be like the covenant that I made with their ancestors when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt—a covenant that they broke, though I was their husband, says the Lord. 33But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the Lord: I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. 34No longer shall they teach one another, or say to each other, ‘Know the Lord’, for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest, says the Lord; for I will forgive their iniquity, and remember their sin no more.
John 21: 1-19
After these things Jesus showed himself again to the disciples by the Sea of Tiberias; and he showed himself in this way. 2Gathered there together were Simon Peter, Thomas called the Twin, Nathanael of Cana in Galilee, the sons of Zebedee, and two others of his disciples. 3Simon Peter said to them, ‘I am going fishing.’ They said to him, ‘We will go with you.’ They went out and got into the boat, but that night they caught nothing.
4 Just after daybreak, Jesus stood on the beach; but the disciples did not know that it was Jesus. 5Jesus said to them, ‘Children, you have no fish, have you?’ They answered him, ‘No.’ 6He said to them, ‘Cast the net to the right side of the boat, and you will find some.’ So they cast it, and now they were not able to haul it in because there were so many fish. 7That disciple whom Jesus loved said to Peter, ‘It is the Lord!’ When Simon Peter heard that it was the Lord, he put on some clothes, for he was naked, and jumped into the lake. 8But the other disciples came in the boat, dragging the net full of fish, for they were not far from the land, only about a hundred yards off.
9 When they had gone ashore, they saw a charcoal fire there, with fish on it, and bread. 10Jesus said to them, ‘Bring some of the fish that you have just caught.’ 11So Simon Peter went aboard and hauled the net ashore, full of large fish, a hundred and fifty-three of them; and though there were so many, the net was not torn. 12Jesus said to them, ‘Come and have breakfast.’ Now none of the disciples dared to ask him, ‘Who are you?’ because they knew it was the Lord. 13Jesus came and took the bread and gave it to them, and did the same with the fish. 14This was now the third time that Jesus appeared to the disciples after he was raised from the dead.
15 When they had finished breakfast, Jesus said to Simon Peter, ‘Simon son of John, do you love me more than these?’ He said to him, ‘Yes, Lord; you know that I love you.’ Jesus said to him, ‘Feed my lambs.’ 16A second time he said to him, ‘Simon son of John, do you love me?’ He said to him, ‘Yes, Lord; you know that I love you.’ Jesus said to him, ‘Tend my sheep.’ 17He said to him the third time, ‘Simon son of John, do you love me?’ Peter felt hurt because he said to him the third time, ‘Do you love me?’ And he said to him, ‘Lord, you know everything; you know that I love you.’ Jesus said to him, ‘Feed my sheep. 18Very truly, I tell you, when you were younger, you used to fasten your own belt and to go wherever you wished. But when you grow old, you will stretch out your hands, and someone else will fasten a belt around you and take you where you do not wish to go.’ 19(He said this to indicate the kind of death by which he would glorify God.) After this he said to him, ‘Follow me.’
This is the Word of the Lord
Thanks be to God.
INTRODUCTION
In 1985 I was in graduate school at the University of Toronto. The winter had been long, the school year tough. I was living in Toronto. Shirlene – now my wife, at that time my girlfriend — was 500 miles away at Laval University in Quebec City. As I said, the winter had been long. With the coming of spring and with the celebration of Easter, I was suddenly filled me with a certain unexplainable joy.
While taking a break in the spring sunshine I had this conversation with one of my fellow students.
Me: “I simply love Easter”
Friend: “Yeah?” he answered, dully, “What’s there to love?”
Me: “Well, it is the whole miracle of the dead coming to life” I said, “Not only the dead of winter suddenly coming to life in spring but, you know, Jesus dying, then amazingly rising.”
Friend: “I find that Jesus stuff pretty difficult to believe,” he answered.
Me: “Would you at least grant the possibility that Jesus thought of himself as someone called to bring something amazingly new by dying and rising?”
Friend: “I guess I could believe that he had thoughts he was doing something special. But he really wasn’t, now, was he?”
Me: “Why not?” I asked.
Friend: “Cause, the world hasn’t changed much, has it? If he died then rose again to make this world a better place, he certainly didn’t succeed, did he?”
Suddenly my Easter enthusiasm was being stretched by this savvy skeptic.
What could I say?
STORY OF OLDNESS
Now, many years later, his point still hangs there.
Things seemingly haven’t gotten any better.
A case could be made that they have only gotten worse.
Open the paper and more people are dying in Iraq and the West Bank.
Open the paper and certain nations are still teetering on the brink of starvation.
Open the paper and read about all the worry over our the health of our schools, our cities, our jobs.
But it isn’t only the news that seems to be the same old fare.
Even the information we package seems to smack of déjà vu.
A few weeks ago the NPR radio program, On The Media, interviewed the editors and writers for a number of specialty magazines. It was amazing how frank these magazine editors were in admitting that they basically repackage the same old thing month after month:
A women’s fitness magazine has a story on how to help reduce hips and
thighs in every issue.
A fitness magazine for men has an article on how to flatten your stomach in
every issue.
A golf magazine has an article on how to add 30 feet to your drives in every
issue.
Every month, they cast their nets into the same waters – that life is about a
slim figure, rippling abs, and a John Daly drive.
Same-old, same-old.
The Gospel of John, chapter 21, starts right in the middle of the same-old, same-old. It starts with the disciples back in their old hometown, back at their old job, back in their old boats, doing the same old thing they had done before. The story puts doing the “same-old” in the dark. That’s important. John’s gospel plays a lot with images of light and dark. When things are in the dark, we have a sense that they aren’t quite the way they should be. So here are these disciples, busy at the same-old thing and they are doing it in the dark. The key words are “night” and “nothing.” They were busy all night, but they caught nothing. That is the inevitable outcome of the same-old, same-old of life — emptiness.
STORY OF NEWNESS — BAPTISM AND LORD’S SUPPER
But everything changes with the coming of light.
A new day is dawning.
Everything changes when the man on the shore starts calling.
Suddenly a new way of seeing things and doing things begins.
What is amazing is that the disciples listen without even realizing exactly
who it is on the shore.
Perhaps they listen because they are so tired, so heart-broken, so frustrated,
they don’t know what else to do.
That this is the risen Lord speaking to them from the shore takes them by
surprise.
The reality, the flesh and blood reality, of the Resurrection always seems to
take people by surprise.
In Mark’s gospel, the women left the empty tomb trembling and bewildered.
In Luke’s gospel, the two travelers to Emmaus are stunned and amazed that
it is Jesus who is breaking bread with them.
And in the previous chapter of John, Thomas will not believe until he is able
to see with his eyes and feel with his fingers.
Seeing the risen Jesus is the last thing people expect. It is always a surprise.
It is the surprise of Newness. In a world addicted to the same-old ways, it is the surprise of a new world, a new creation, a new Israel, a new covenant.
Peter dives into the water and arrives before Jesus dripping wet.
Jesus then gathers the disciples to feed the whole lot of them breakfast.
I can’t help but see in these two actions echoes and images of both baptism and the Lord’s Supper.
Diving in the water then rising from that water is the beginning of something
new for Peter.
Receiving a meal – and meals are always very important occasions in the
Bible – receiving a meal on this new day, from this new person, in this new way, makes this more than a typical meal. It has all the overtones of a new celebration.
EASTER NEWNESS
Why do we start our Easter liturgy remembering and reaffirming our
baptism?
And why will we end our Easter liturgy celebrating the Lord’s Supper?
Somehow, in coming through the water of baptism, we share in the dying
and rising of Christ.
Somehow in sharing in bread and wine, we are sharing in and becoming
bonded to our risen Lord.
Somehow his new-creation life becomes our new-creation life.
Somehow in this food, this ordinary bread and wine, we taste the
extraordinary reality that this is a new world, this is a new day, there is a new hope, and we live a new life.
But I still wonder if any of this would convince my graduate school friend of years ago? I think he would say it all sounds too churchy. “If Jesus rose, it sounds like he rose in the church, for the church. But what about the rest of the world?”
If the good news of the resurrection is good news for us, it is good news for
the world.
If the risen Christ transforms us, the risen Christ must also be transforming
the world.
NEW COMMISSION
This is where the amazing second part of this narrative comes in.
For this dripping wet, just-fed Peter, is called aside by Jesus for a little ‘mano-a-mano’ talk.
This we can call the new commission.
Again, like the whole movement of this chapter,
it is a pull from darkness to light,
from old to new,
from death to life,
from sin to forgiveness.
Jesus, in an amazingly frank way, asks Peter three times, “Do you love me?”
Richard Sytsma tells me there is an expression in Japanese that conveys a sense of words making our ears hurt — that is how hard the words are to hear.
These words make Peter’s ears hurt.
By the time Jesus asks the third time,
could Peter hide the fact that he had denied Jesus three times?
Could he pretend he didn’t curse and swear and run away?
How much Jeremiah’s words would have been ringing in Peter’s ears too: “You are cowardly, you are corrupt, you are doomed.”
But Peter, the dripping wet, recently fed Peter, stays with Jesus.
He doesn’t run away. He doesn’t hide.
His hurting ears also hear words of grace.
“Feed my lambs. Tend my sheep. Feed my sheep.”
And lastly, the one we often forget in this passage “Follow me!”
Again, we must see this as something new happening.
Peter is not only forgiven, he is made new.
In a way, he is recreated. The old Peter is dead. The new has come to life.
The new Peter is entrusted with the message of the resurrection:
that all things are being made new through Jesus Christ — this is what he is to feed the lambs and sheep of this world.
We don’t simply feed the world with words.
We feed the hungry with food.
Tend the homeless with shelter.
Care for the married people who have forgotten how to love,
And the unmarried people who long for the chance to learn how.
Care for the Palestinian boys throwing stones at Israeli tanks and
the Israeli soldiers who drive those tanks.
Care for the flabby who feel pressured to hate their bodies,
and the fit who feel pressured to idolize their bodies.
We care, we feed, we tend them all.
CONCLUSION
As I got to know my graduate school friend better, I eventually learned that he had a secret lingering desire to be persuaded that the Resurrection is in fact true – that all its newness, all its promise, is in fact the only hope we have in this same-old, same-old world.
Isn’t that the secret lingering desire that sits in each of our hearts?
So listen to the voice of the one standing on the shore,
calling to all of us laboring in the dark,
calling to all of us busy with the same-old, same-old
yet feeling empty.
Come to this table.
Come to this new celebration.
Taste and see that in the risen Jesus Christ all things — you, me, the whole world – all things are being made new.
Amen
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