Mass Readings for the 3rd Sunday of Easter:
Acts 5.28-32, 40b-41 Psalm 30.1, 3-5, 10-12 Revelation 5.11-14 John 21.1-19
The gospel today is a profound moment of reconciliation between Jesus and Peter; it is touching – truly, if we appreciate the scene, how can it not touch us in a way that is far beyond sentimentality? It speaks to our hearts of the profundity of God’s desire for us to be reconciled, in forgiveness through his mercy, and to be restored to him as his children, and to know that we are worthy to be his sons and daughters.
Peter, we know, abandoned Jesus in a moment of crisis, denied knowing him when the world had turned against his lord. Utter cowardice, a shameful display of self-concern and surrender to fear. But we’d better be careful of judging him. Who among us has not been tempted to deny Christ? Who among us has not denied Christ? Who among us has, but for the grace of God, been spared that confrontation where an accuser threatens with that question, “are you not one of his followers?”
Back on that tragic first Good Friday, those who spoke with that distinctive Galilean accent were called out and questioned if they hadn’t the sense to get off the streets. Today, many in our society are what we might call “cultural Christians,” that is people formed in their morality to some degree by the gospel values of vanished Christendom. It is precisely when they are seen to rely upon this heritage that they are called out, and attacked with all manner of undeserved slurs: misogynist, racist, colonialist, and so on. And as we’ve seen of late, too many retreat behind hurried apologies, surrender their rights to conscience and free speech, fail to defend truth, abandon authentic love which is the desire for real good for others, not just giving into the latest fashionable demands. We betray Christ who is love and truth when we give into those who offer empty slogans about justice as they advocate revenge and stoke the infernal flames of hatred. That is a surrender to those who enforce a horrible secular orthodoxy, without pity or forgiveness – cross someone on social media and you are “doxed” as they say: your name and personal information put on the internet to license any and all kinds of retribution for your perceived sins.
What we all have to know about Christ, who stands in contrast to the powers of this world, is that even if we have betrayed him, we can always be fully and entirely reconciled to him, and experience complete forgiveness and restoration to communion with him and through him to others.
Perversely, a lot of people, Catholics, Christians, they stay out in the cold of the world living under the cruel regulation of a culture that not only punishes them for failing to toe the line, but constantly inflicts harm upon them in living according to its values.
It’s not until they can sustain no more of it, then they consider coming to Jesus Christ who on some level they understand to be their saviour. However, so many stop short of seeking that reconciliation because they simply cannot bring themselves to do what needs to be done, their pride stopping them, barring them from his inestimable grace. And too, there is shame, the sense of unworthiness. Yes, you don’t deserve it; that is, you can’t earn God’s love – but you’ve got learn to accept it because in it is true life.
I can give witness to this in my ministry. People come and sit in my office, talk to me over the phone, stop and chat with me on the street, in a parking lot, outside a shop, making inquiry as to the possibility of an earnest and fulfilling relationship with God (now, they might not put it quite that way). In the course of the conversation however long or brief, there is this subtext: that as much as they desire that relationship with God, to enjoy the peace of God that surpasses all understanding, as tired as they are of the world, they cannot bear the thought of being personally challenged, as Peter is, over the sincerity of their repentance, the authenticity of their commitment.
Peter is asked three times if he loves our Lord. And one can sense the growing awkwardness as Jesus presses the chief apostle on the point.
But then consider what Peter has been up to since the heady days of that first Easter when a resurrected Jesus miraculously appears to the Apostles, what it is that they have been doing with the Spirit conferred upon them?
What do we find Peter doing in today’s story? He’s out fishing; but not for people as his Lord charged him to do. No, Peter busies himself with the things of his old life; acts as if he can return to it even when he knows the Lord has risen; as if that knowledge were enough for him. Like those who know the Easter story and think it lovely, and actually in no way question the truth of it, they nonetheless will not let it change their lives.
We often talk about how transformational that resurrection event must have been for those who were its witnesses. We know that by the power of this experience they went out into the world, many dying the death of martyrs to offer that message of hope to an unbelieving world. Clearly, before that great adventure could begin for Peter, and for others, something had to happen. Just knowing the truth of it was not enough. Something that could not be affected by the giving of the spirit, or the glorious sight of Jesus resurrected from the dead, must be done.
Jesus presses Peter on his commitment. Three times to affirm his faithfulness, reversing his threefold denial of Good Friday.
We speak of penance in our Catholic tradition. Can we not see the connection? And frankly, how amazing it is!
To be sure, Peter doesn’t get assigned three Our Fathers and a Hail Mary; he’s not told to put a little something in the poor box on his way out of the church; these are the things we might be asked to do as part of the penance and pastoral therapy for the usual sins we commit – you know, gossiping about others, using foul language, lacking in charity in some way.
But for his famous denial, for abandoning a man he acknowledged as the Messiah, the Son of God in his hour of need, what does Peter suffer as a penalty?
There really is no penalty imposed by our Lord. Peter is already suffering the sharp pangs of conscience. But the work that Jesus demands here is the overcoming of embarrassment, the overcoming of personal pride, the reliance upon grace to sit in the presence of our Lord as Peter does and take what Jesus dishes out: a demand that he dig deep within himself to convince our Lord that he will love him, and he will care for the sheep.
But really, this isn’t about convincing Jesus, it’s about Jesus getting Peter to convince himself, to get over himself and to get on with the work of fishing for people, of making disciples, of baptizing in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, and teaching all that Jesus had taught him.
I certainly hope that for those newly baptized (and those about to be baptized), those who in this Easter season will have their first confessions, their first communions, their confirmations, for those who’ve found themselves back in a church, sitting in a pew for whatever reason, understand this about Christ’s gospel.
God does not bar your way to fullness of life; Christ is not looking to crucify you for your sins, but he does need you to make an earnest commitment to this sometime difficult life in Christ. It’s that commitment to him that will bring the grace that makes life in him possible; what will restore you to worthiness of the name of Christ, and give you courage to claim for yourself the name of “Christian.”
Amen.