Third Sunday of Easter [C]. John 21.1-19
John always has deeper spiritual meanings in his Gospel writings. Written almost 70 years after the resurrection, John had seen the impact of Jesus’ life, death and resurrection over a number of generations …. and hence his insights are rich and profound.
This is particularly true of today’s readings …. so lets take a moment to break open this Gospel a little bit, and draw out one of the insights that is contained within.
There were seven in the boat with Peter out fishing early that morning, and none of them were perfect ….
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- there was Thomas, who doubted that Jesus had risen.
- There was Nathanael from Cana who, when he heard from Andrew that they had found the Messiah from Nazareth, said very slyly, “Can anything decent or good ever come out of Nazareth?”
- There were John and his brother Andrew, the Sons of Zebedee, who had once asked their mother to ask Jesus to put them in charge of everybody, that they would be Number One and Number Two in the Kingdom,
- And there was Peter, who had denied Jesus three times
Yes, there were many different kinds of people in that boat. Yet, despite the obvious drawbacks and failings of those in the boat, or indeed of any of the people of that time who were disciples of Jesus, God chose to reveal Godself to them and to call them into a greater vision of who they were, a greater vision of who God is, and a greater vision of reality.
It is very much like our church today, is it not? Very much like you and I. None of us is perfect. All of us Struggle with doubts, like Thomas. Struggle with prejudice, like Nathaniel. Struggle with ego and wanting to be in charge, like John & Andrew. Struggle with denying our faith when it is inconvenient, like Peter. All of us have room to grow to be more loving, more forgiving, less judgemental. All of us have room to grow to be more honest about who we are. Especially to ourselves.
Yet we are here today because, deep within us, there is something missing. An emptiness that seeks to be filled. A God-shaped hole in our humanity. A yearning for completeness and wholeness.
God reaches down to touch that basic yearning of every human being. That yearning can only be satisfied by the love of God coming into our hearts, God reaches down — as God does to every single human being, into the deepest part of our hearts, where the yearning for completion is born with us and stays with us no matter how many sins, no matter how many betrayals, no matter what we do, there is that hunger of the heart — and God, in God’s great generosity, forgets everything else and reaches down and says to us, as he said to Peter:
“I love you. I trust you. Feed my sheep. Take care of them for me.”
And whether the sheep be our children, our grandchildren, our neighbours, or the billions of brothers and sisters we have in the human family, God calls us to share God’s love with them. And in this, God reveals to us what God revealed to the early disciples that morning on the seashore. God reveals to us – as imperfect and wounded as we are –
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- A greater vision of who we are.
- A greater vision of who God is.
- A greater vision of reality.
- A greater vision of the meanings of our lives.
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And so, like the disciples who were gathered on the shore and encountered Jesus in the “breaking of the bread”, we too are gathered into a meal, a holy meal which we ourselves know as the Mass. And just as our greater vision allows us to see our God, our Risen Lord in the breaking of the bread, we are called to open our eyes, ears and hearts wide to see, hear and experience the Risen Lord coming to our life in all the various forms, circumstances and events of our life.
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- The Risen Lord present in our friends and well-wishers
- The Risen Lord present in those who visit us and encourage us in our sad and desperate moments.
- The Risen Lord who visits us in the form of unexpected help from the least expected persons.
- The Risen Lord is right there in the people we encounter.
- In the love that we share.
- And in the service we offer to our brothers and sisters in need.
John, in his Gospel, saw that deeper yearning than can only be filled by God. The question is, do you?