3 Easter

May 4, 2025

We are well into the Easter season. Today is the 3^rd Sunday of Easter, and the continues right through the Feast of Pentecost on June 8. While the celebration of Easter Day may seem to be fading in our memories; there are no brass instruments accompanying our worship, no lingering, faint smell of incense in the nave, in our lectionary readings we are still hearing stories of the appearance of the Risen Christ to the disciples. 

And this one, from the 21^st, the last chapter of John, is one of the most interesting and most intriguing of all. There are so many fascinating details; so many elements of the story that take us back to earlier stories in the gospel, and there are so many questions that arise in our minds as we listen to it.

First of all, where it comes in the narrative. At the end of chapter 20, the so-called story of “Doubting Thomas”—we hear these verses: 

Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of his disciples, which are not written in this book. But these are written so that you may come to believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that through believing you may have life in his name.

That sounds to me like a great way to end a gospel—there’s a lot more I could say, the gospel writer is saying, but I’ve given you enough to get the full picture.

It seems like chapter 21 is tacked on; there’s no evidence of that, but it’s intriguing. Then there’s the location—the Sea of Galilee, here called the Sea of Tiberias. It’s not a location of any great significance in John’s gospel, although it was in the others. Indeed, there’s a very similar story of a miraculous catch of fish in the Gospel of Luke, and it is the prelude to Jesus calling Peter and the other disciples to be his disciples. Interestingly, Luke mentions Peter and the Sons of Zebedee in his story. The same three are present here in John, but they are accompanied by two others who are mentioned only in John—Nathaniel, from chapter 1, and Thomas who played such an important role in last week’s gospel reading. Also, curiously, this is the first mention in the gospel of John that Peter and the others were fishermen.

The beloved disciple is mentioned again, as at the last supper, at the foot of the cross, and the empty tomb; and once again, it appears that he’s quicker to pick up on what’s happening than Peter is. 

There’s Peter, who oddly puts on clothes before jumping in the lake to swim to shore. I mean, who does that?

Then there’s the miraculous catch of fish: precisely 153. It had never occurred to me before until I read a commentary on this this week. The disciples, knowing the Risen Christ is on shore waiting for them, stop to count the number of fish they’ve got. Oh, and the 153—you have no idea how much ink has been spilled speculating on the significance of that number. It was Augustine of Hippo who pointed out that 153 is the sum total if you add all the numbers up from 1-17.

Have to mention as well, the detail that the net was not torn—that’s been used as a symbol of the unity of the church from a very early point.

There’s the brazier—mentioned here and in the story of Peter’s denial of Jesus after his arrest. Need I point out that Jesus asks Peter three times if he loves him, paralleling Peter’s three-time denial of him earlier. And the loaves and fish—Jesus offers the disciples the same menu as he offered the crowd at the feeding of the 5000.

One more thing. Jesus’ questions of Peter. The shift between sheep and lambs; and in the Greek different vocabulary for love. The first two times, Jesus uses a form of “agape”, while Peter responds with a form of phile; the third time, Jesus and Peter both use “phile.” It used to be commonly thought that “Agape” was a deeper kind of love—the love of community, while “phile” is more “brotherly” or “fraternal” love. But it’s pretty clear from both the Gospel of John and other contemporary texts that the two words were used interchangeably.

So, are your heads spinning yet?

But perhaps the most significant parallel has to do with the location—the Sea of Tiberias or Sea of Galilee. It’s mentioned here, and in chapter 6; where it is the site of Jesus’ feeding of the five thousand. And it’s a similar meal on both occasions: bread and fish. The Feeding of the Five Thousand is the jumping off point for Jesus’ great discourse on the bread, an extended reflection on the meaning of the bread of the Eucharist, Jesus as the Bread of Life. Jesus says there: 

Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood have eternal life, and I will raise them up on the last day; ⁵⁵for my flesh is true food and my blood is true drink. ⁵⁶Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood abide in me, and I in them. 

When we think of Christ’s resurrection or the presence of the risen Christ, we tend to think of those gospel stories: of Mary Magdalene’s encounter with the Risen Christ in the garden or the appearance of the Risen Christ to the disciples in the upper room. We tend to think of those spectacular events.

Or for another spectacular appearance of the Risen Christ, consider Paul’s experience on the Road to Damascus; struck down, struck blind; transformed from a persecutor of the Gospel to an apostle of the Gospel. We may not consider Paul’s experience quite like those gospel stories. But Paul did. When he describes it in I Corinthians 15, at the end of his list of the appearances of the Risen Christ, Paul writes, “And last of all, as to one untimely born, he appeared to me. For I am the least of the apostles, unfit to be called an apostle, … but by the grace of God I am what I am.”

Gathered around that charcoal fire, eating bread and fish; the disciples were in the presence of the Risen Christ. They might have wanted to linger over that meal, to enjoy being in his presence and being with each other, to rest after a long night’s work. 

But Jesus had other plans. He took Simon Peter aside and asked him three times, “Do you love me?” And three times, he said in response to Peter’s affirmation, “Feed my sheep.” Relationship with Christ, experience of the Risen Christ is not just about, or primarily about, our own spiritual experience, our own personal faith. It is about what we are called to do for others. To feed them, to offer them daily bread and the bread of life. 

But even more. It had never occurred to me before this week as I was preparing this sermon, and I don’t know how many times I have read this chapter; discussed in classes both as student and teacher. It had never occurred to me that in the Gospel of John, Jesus’ last words are to Peter, after he tells him to “Feed my sheep.” He says then, “Follow me.” He will say it again to him a few verses later, “Follow me.”

Think about it. Where was he going? In the synoptic gospels, of course, the story ends not with resurrection or resurrection appearances, but with Jesus’ final departure from his disciples, his ascension, to the right hand of God, as our creeds say. In the gospel of John, that’s not quite the case. Jesus says to Peter, “Follow me.” Follow me, away from here into the future, into the unkown.

Jesus says to us, Feed my sheep. He also says, “Follow me.” He is calling us to follow him, into the future, into the uncertainty of the world in which we live and into the world that is being made. He is telling us to follow him as disciples, making disciples. He is calling us to gather around charcoal fires and tables,, to encounter him in the breaking of the bread and in the community gathered. He is calling us to follow him, into the unknown, into the world. Let us heed his call and follow him.