Sermon at All Saints’ Parish Church, Whiteparish – 3rd Sunday in Easter – Sunday 4 May 2025
Acts 9:1-6 [7-20]; Revelation
5:11-14; John 21:1-19
May I speak in the name of the
Father, Son and Holy Spirit and may these words be those of you, Lord, and may
they be a blessing to all who listen and hear them.
When I saw the reading for
today, I was absolutely delighted at their theme and I was equally surprised
that I had not preached on these passages before because, for me, they are the
fundamental cornerstone to our Christian belief and faith – that to know God
our Creator we need to know Jesus and have a relationship with him. That is why we call ourselves Christians –
followers of Christ.
In each of our readings we find
a situation where God reveals himself to ordinary mortals through Jesus. Our
first reading from Acts describes the conversion of Saul on the road to
Damascus where, as a Jewish Zealot, he intended to persecute Christians; in our
second reading from Revelation, John, in a vision, sees all of Heaven
worshipping the Lamb (Jesus) proclaiming him as the Worthy one and finally in
our Gospel reading from John, we see Jesus appearing to the remaining disciples
in the ordinary course of their work as fishermen instructing them where to cast
their nets, as once he did before. The
importance of this passage though is the dialogue between Jesus and Peter when
three times he asks him if he loves Him – the three times being significant in
absolving Peter from his three times denial on the night of Jesus’s arrest.
I want to look a little closer
at the first and last readings and for us to reflect on what these passages of
scripture teach us today.
First of all, Saul’s conversion
on the road to Damascus. For me, this passage is one of the most wonderful
stories in the whole of the bible. We
have previously read in the Book of Acts how Saul the Zealot had hounded the
followers of Jesus believing him to be a false prophet and a blasphemer. Saul
was well versed in Jewish law and all the rules and regulations which went
along with abiding by the Jewish Faith.
Based upon the Pentateuch or Torah, the first five book of the Old
Testament setting down basic Jewish Law handed down by Moses, the Jewish Faith
system had complicated it further by adding many other rules and regulations
which, on occasions, Jesus and his Followers had not adhered to. This made Jesus and his disciples heretics
and blasphemers in the eyes of Jewish lawyers such as Saul. Saul was determined to stamp out this
falsehood as he saw it – hence he was on his way to Damascus to confront
Christians there.
The story of the conversion of
Saul into the apostle Paul is too well known to repeat in detail here but what
we can say is that for all concerned, except the Trinitarian God, the events of that day and the following ones
could never have been envisaged – the complete reversal of Saul’s philosophy
and hatred into becoming one of the most ardent Christians the world has ever
known – such that his letters to the various churches of western Asia have
become the backbone of our own modern Christian doctrine. In my experience,
most of the evangelical churches in the world today spend most of their time
studying and preaching from Paul’s writings.
Our gospel reading is, for me,
one of the most important pieces of scripture in that it reminds us that Jesus
is still with us – that he is not just an historic figure. We read that Peter,
after all the excitement of his time as a disciple of Jesus, following him
around Judea and witnessing many extraordinary events, is perhaps bored. Jesus has appeared to the disciples,
post-Resurrection, on a number of sporadic occasions but they are in limbo. Peter suggests returning to the occupation
they know best and which took up most of their time before Jesus came into
their lives and called them. They go
fishing. It is whilst they are doing so
and catching nothing that Jesus appears suddenly and unexpectedly on the banks
of the Sea of Galilee. He asks them if
they have caught anything to which they respond “no”. He then does something which he had done before,
he asks them to cast their nets in a different place and their net is filled
with 153 fish – we don’t actually know the significance of this number except
that it was also my room number when I was at university in Liverpool! It is
probably at this point that the realisation hits them that this is Jesus back
with them.
They probably had thoughts that
he was a ghost at first and he dispels this notion by sharing breakfast with
them by once more symbolically breaking the bread and fish and eating a morsal
himself.
As mentioned earlier, there then
proceeds the dialogue with Peter about the disciple’s love of Christ and a
command to feed his sheep – to be a pastor and to be the rock upon which
Jesus’s church will be built. Although
not in this passage we can also remember the great commission which Jesus gave
all his disciples in the last verses of Matthew’s gospel – to go out and make
disciples of all nations adding “and I shall be with you always”.
Returning to the common theme of
these readings I want to just reflect on how Jesus appeared to Saul/Paul and to
Peter and his companions. At the time of
Jesus’s appearance in both instances, the recipients of Jesus’s approach were
carrying out what they considered their allotted roles in life – Saul the
Persecutor and Peter et al the Fishermen.
Jesus did not appear to them in some special Holy Place but on the
roadside and on the banks of the sea; just as he appeared to those disciples on
the road to Emmaus. On each occasion the
appearance was unexpected and life changing.
The essence of each of these
stories is that Jesus wants to have a personal relationship with each and every
one who accepts the Christian Faith. The
Christian Faith differs from other faiths in that it believes that God is of a
threefold nature – God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit. Jesus
became a human being, lived on our planet and died on the Cross so that we
might have a direct line of communication with the Father. He also left behind
the Holy Spirit which is alive and present with us now and through which we can
have that special relationship which he craves.
Our Diocesan strapline is
“Making Jesus Known” in our communities.
It is not about “Knowing about Jesus” and we must be careful not to get
the two confused. If I say to you “Let me introduce you to Jane Dunlop” that is
quite different from say “Let me tell you all about Jane Dunlop”. The question
which we should be asking people is “Would you like to know Jesus” not “Would
you like to know all about Jesus”. In
order to do that, though, we need ourselves to know him. There is that famous
painting by Holman Hunt of “Jesus the Light of the World” knocking at the
door. The door has no handle on the
outside so can only be opened on the inside. Only we can open that door and let
Christ into our lives – to invite him to be with us, to be like Mary, sister of
Martha, and sit at his feet and listen.
If you haven’t let Jesus through
your door yet, then I invite you to do so – to have a fulfilling relationship
with him. If you have done so, I ask you
to reflect on how and when that happened and think how you might encourage
others to do so. Here is a prayer to
help
"Lord Jesus, I come before you, seeking to know you more
deeply. I desire not just to understand your teachings, but to experience your
love and power in my life. Help me to see you in everything I do and to respond
to your call with a willing heart. Fill me with your Holy Spirit, that I may be
empowered to live a life that reflects your grace and glory. May I walk in your
light and be a witness to your love. Amen."
Amen
MFB/215/01052025
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