EASTER DAY 2020 MATTHEW 28:1-10
Good Morning! I’m John Annable, pastor of University Baptist Church in Carbondale. This is Easter Sunday, so I greet you with the good news, “Christ is Risen” And I can hear your response, “Christ is risen indeed! Alleluia!”
The Easter story is very special; that is why I have a tie on this morning even though I am sitting here all by myself. We always dress up for the special stuff, don’t we? I am going to invite you to read, after I am finished, the Easter story found in Matthew 28:1-10.
But I want to read an Easter story to you from a different place in scripture; it goes like this: “After these things Jesus showed himself again to the disciples by the Sea of Tiberius; and he showed himself in this way. Gathered there were Simon Peter, Thomas called the Twin, Nathaniel of Cana in Galilee, the sons of Zebedee, and two others of his disciples.
Simon 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.
Just after daybreak, Jesus stood on the beach; but the disciples did not know that it was Jesus. Jesus said to them, “Children, you have no fish, have you?” They answered him, “No.” He 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 haul it in because there were so many fish. That disciple whom Jesus loved said to Peter, “It is the Lord!” When Simon Peter heard that it was the Lord, he put one some clothes… and jumped into the sea. But the other disciples came in the boat, dragging the net full of fish, for they were not far from the land, only a hundred yards off.
When they had gone ashore, they saw a charcoal fire there, with fish on it, and bread. Jesus said to them, “Bring some of the fish that you have just caught.” So, Simon Peter went aboard and hauled the net ashore, full of large fish, a hundred fifty-three of them; and though there were so many, the net was not torn. Jesus 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. Jesus came and took the bread and gave it to them and did the same with the fish. This was now the third time that Jesus appeared to the disciples after he was raised from the dead.”
Now I know you think I should be embarrassed because I have read the wrong story. You say there is nothing special about that. You say, “That isn’t the Easter story.” Most of us are more familiar with other Easter stories, like the one you will read in Matthew, rather than this one. Most of us know by heart the story of the women coming to the empty tomb early on Easter morning, finding it empty, talking to angels, and running back to tell the disciples. There is also the story of the disciples gathered behind locked doors on an Easter evening, and the risen Christ appears before them. Then there is Luke’s great story, the risen Christ appearing to a couple of disciples on the road to Emmaus.
But, in the account I read to you we have Jesus appearing to the disciples at breakfast. Often when we worship in church, we have a special meal – the Lord’s Supper, communion, or the Eucharist—whatever you feel most comfortable calling it. We believe that when we eat the bread and drink the cup, the risen Christ is present. That is a very special meal, a holy meal eaten in church.
Here, in the account I just read, the case is quite different. It’s breakfast. Few of our meals are more ordinary than breakfast. Most of us eat the same thing for breakfast every morning, without fail. If we stagger to the breakfast table and find the box of cereal empty, we are not right for the rest of the day. Few of our meals are more ritualized, more predictable, and more humdrum than breakfast. Breakfast is not the meal where we look for creativity. Rather, what we look for is routine, something to help us get up and get going in the morning.
And on this morning, Jesus, the risen Christ meets with seven of his disciples on a beach in Galilee, two weeks after Easter.
What I read for you shows the disciples already back to work in Galilee. Can you believe these disciples? They have gone home and gone back to their work of fishing.
Now I ask you, if you had come face-to-face with a person resurrected from the dead, would you be able to go back home and go back to work? On one occasion the risen Christ had appeared to them and had given them their marching orders: “Go into all the world and make disciples, baptizing them, teaching all that I have commanded you” (Mt 28:19-20).
What happened to that command? Rather than go out into all the world and make disciples, they are back home in backwater Galilee, trying to catch fish.
Do you think this was the way that you would have handled Easter? One can understand handling Good Friday this way. After all, who would be surprised that Jesus was crucified? This is the way the world treats its saviors and its prophets.
But after a resurrection? Could they have possibly been encountered by the risen Christ, seeing him on several occasions, was in his undeniably living presence, and still go back to Galilee and to fishing?
Eugene Peterson suggests that in our world it is easier for Christians to deal with a crucifixion than a resurrection.
Most of us think of resurrection as something that happens to us after we die, when we are taken up into another world. But, the resurrection of Jesus did not happen in the distant future, did not occur in some other world, it was here, and it was now. When the risen Christ encountered his disciples, they were not up in heaven; they were out in Galilee. They were not strumming on harps of gold; they were pulling in their nets.
So, perhaps, the trouble that the disciples had with resurrection was not simply that someone had been brought back from the dead. The problem was that the resurrection had moved from the future tense to the present tense.
Perhaps that is why we find the disciples back in Galilee fishing. “They need to reinforce their grip on everyday reality – the country they grew up in, the work they feel at home in, the sea and fishing boat, the fishing nets.” They had experienced a great shock, after all. You know how it is, when you have experienced some trauma. Helpful friends urge you to get back to work as soon as possible, to lose yourself in the routine, and the predictable. That is what these disciples seem to be doing. But they weren’t trying to get over the trauma of death; they were trying to deal with the trauma of life, eternal life, resurrection among them, Jesus, standing before them risen, right now!
The disciples have fished all night and they have caught absolutely nothing. They are back to the old, predictable routine of failure. They are failures at being disciples – by that I mean they did not obey Jesus when he told them to go out into the entire world and make other disciples. And they are also failures at fishing – they have caught nothing. They don’t like failure. Just as we can deal with the cross, find the cross perfectly understandable, because this is the way the world works, so it is also possible to deal with failure. This is the way the world works. This is the real world. These are the facts of life.
But then, as the sun rises, the disciples are surprised to look out and see Jesus on the beach. They are a long way from Jesus, about a hundred yards, and they do not recognize him. He calls to them, asking them how their fishing is going. Then he directs them to cast their nets on the other side of the boat. They do so, and their nets fill with fish.
They pull in nets now bursting with fish. John is the first to see and to cry out, “It is the Lord!” (21:7). John’s Gospel says Peter dives into the water and swims to the shore to be embraced by Jesus. Jesus has prepared a fire and has made breakfast for them on the beach. He invites them to eat. Once again, Jesus will feed their hungry souls. Because they have eaten from the work of his hand before, surely this helps them to recognize him.
The scene is so ordinary—but for me this is what makes it so extraordinary. It is not simply that Jesus is raised from the dead; it is that he appears to us, here and now. He feeds us. There, in ordinary Galilee, during an ordinary workday, he shares an ordinary meal with his disciples. This is where we meet the risen Christ, or more to the point of the story, where he meets us—in the everyday places and drama of our lives.
In one of his sermons Augustine notes that when we celebrate the Lord’s Supper, the bread that we break on the altar looks suspiciously like the bread you had this morning for breakfast.
The story of the Easter breakfast on the beach does not record any great ethical instruction by Jesus. I can’t find anything there that you are supposed to go and do tomorrow. Rather, I think this story is told to us as a kind of gracious promise. Here there is a promise. We will go back to Galilee, resume whatever it was we were doing before we came to this holy place, take up our everyday, work-a-day duties. That is where he promises to meet us. He comes to us, he calls us, feeds us, gathers us, strengthens us, is deeply, undeniably present to us. In so doing, he redeems all our lives, not just on Easter Sunday, but also on Easter Monday and all days after.
We said, in the beginning that Easter is supposed to be special! But perhaps Easter means so much to us because it is so wonderfully, gloriously ordinary. Maybe I did not need this tie at all!
Some of you have heard me speak of the experience of Tony Compolo who belonged to a black church in West Philadelphia. One Good Friday there were seven preachers preaching back-to-back. Now I know that is hard for us to imagine because many find it difficult to listen to one preacher for a whole sermon. But they were preaching all afternoon. Can you imagine the pressure that had to be on the last preacher preaching that day?
This one old preacher got up to preach and he soon had the whole congregation in sharp attentiveness as he moved them with one phrase, “It’s Friday, but Sunday’s Comin’”. He started his sermon real softly by saying, “It’s Friday; it was Friday and my Jesus was dead on the tree. But that was Friday, and Sunday’s comin’!”
He slowly began to pick up volume and speed as it said, “It was Friday and Mary was cryin’ her eyes out. The disciples were runnin’ in every direction, like sheep without a shepherd, but that was Friday, and Sunday’s comin!”
He continued, “It was Friday. The cynics were lookin’ at the world and sayin’, ‘As things have been so they shall be. You can’t change anything in this world; you can’t change anything.’ But those cynics didn’t know that it was only Friday. Sunday’s comin’!
It was Friday! And on Friday, those forces that oppress the poor and make the poor to suffer were in control. But that was Friday! Sunday’s comin’!
It was Friday, and on Friday Pilate thought he had washed his hands of a lot of trouble. The Pharisees were struttin’ around, laughin’ and pokin’ each other in the ribs. They thought they were back in charge of things, but they didn’t know that it was only Friday! Sunday’s comin’!
He kept on working that one phrase for a half hour, then an hour, then and hour and quarter, then and hour and half. By the time he had come to the end of the message, people could hardly stand it any longer. At the end of the sermon he just yelled at the top of his lungs, “It’s Friday!” And all five hundred of the people in that congregation yelled back with one accord, “But Sunday’s Comin’”!
The good news for us today is—Sunday has come! That is the word that we want to hear on this Sunday. When we have gone back home to the real world, where perhaps we are psychologically depressed, we hear the good news, Sunday’s here. The darkness has been dispelled. Here in the right now when we feel we can never know love again we hear that the stone was rolled away. When, in the real world, where we know better than to expect miracles and no longer expect great things from God, we need to hear that God raised Christ from the dead.
We must go to a world where many are huddled with family in their homes waiting for the virus to pass and tell them God meets them in that place, today, in our real kind of a world.
We must go to a world that is suffering economic peril and political confusion and tell them that God has provided a new way.
We must go to those who live in the now with the overwhelming despair of grief and tell them God has created a new day.
Christ is risen! Go with joy and confidence to live as one who does not seek him among the dead but is willing to live our everyday lives knowing that God moves among us at such common times and places as breakfast.
I can’t explain Easter—but you and I can experience Easter because the Risen Christ makes himself known amid our ordinary days and in the real world we live in with the fear of what our neighbor might unwittingly bring to our front door. He is risen and is among us today! Spread the good news, even days like these are prime examples of places where the risen Christ appears. He appears in hospital rooms, in nursing homes that become breeding grounds for disease, he comes to homes who wonder when their money is going to run out. Christ shows up in prisons around the world.
Christ reveals himself to us in countless ordinary places and offers us his peace in the storm.
I invite you this morning to be like the disciple John in our text who is able to see what is real—Christ preparing breakfast beside the sea in Galilee.
My friends, He is risen! He is risen indeed. Halleluiah.