*IS* This "Passion Sunday"?

 

Sermon. 26 March 2023.

Lent 5 (Passiontide Begins)

Gospel: John 11:1-45

 

Today is the Sunday when Passiontide begins.

You might think that means it is Passion Sunday.

It is not. It is confusing.

 

Even to hear that today is the Sunday when Passiontide begins is confusing.

 

If you have no connection with the Church calendar at all, and have come here out of curiosity (or something else), you might think that Passiontide is about passion as we currently speak of passion.

We currently speak of passion in, I think, two ways:

1.                 It’s part of the game we feel we have to play in job applications: “I am absolutely passionate about the next generation of KitKat” and so on.

2.                 It’s all about romance and courtship and coupling and that kind of love.

So you might think that Passiontide is an extended Valentine’s Day.

It is not. It is confusing.

 

If in Passiontide you stumble into a certain kind of church, you will be struck by how images and statues are removed, or, more often, covered with cloths and drapes. If you think about the posture of the typical statue in church, and how it would look covered, your first thought may be of the archetypical ghost (I am picturing Scooby-Doo here). You may then think that Passiontide is the Church’s own Halloween. 

It is not. It is confusing.

 

If you know a bit about Church, you may well know that “Passion” in the Church does not mean intense longing, but rather is an English version of the Latin passio (passio, passionis, feminine – for the linguists among us). And that means “suffering”. At another level it means being in the passive role. It means being the one who has things done to you. It means being at the mercy of others. And so in the Church’s story “Passion” means the suffering of Jesus, when he was at the mercy of others.

 

All this being the case, you may well think that the Sunday when Passiontide begins is when we begin to hear of the suffering of Jesus leading up to the cross.

It does not. As we have just heard (at great length), it does not. It is confusing.

 

But! But we are now in the place where we can begin to make sense of Passiontide. Today is not Passion Sunday because today we do not hear of the suffering of Jesus. But today is the beginning of Passiontide because, were we to attend services in the week, we would now be hearing of the suffering of Jesus leading up to the cross. And – spoiler alert – next Sunday we will hear of Jesus’s death on the cross. So the Sunday when Passiontide begins is the hinge within Lent.  Lent begins with the account of the temptations of Jesus in the wilderness. Then we reflect for three weeks on how Jesus can lift us from our own wildernesses, our confusions and worse. Now we begin to attend to the story of the suffering of Jesus.

 

So why, here, at the beginning of Passiontide (you ask – I can tell), why do we hear – of all things – of the raising of Lazarus? Is not this Jesus at his most active, at his least passive? Is this not Easter, and not the Passion?

 

My answer is Yes. Yes, today is an anticipation of Easter. And that is not because those who drew up our cycle of readings were stupid, or lazy. It is because they knew that, for Christians, Easter bleeds into everything. For Christians, there is a sense in which every day is Easter Day. If I haven’t mentioned him before, I mention him now, my hero, St Seraphim (Seraphim of Sarov, Russian, eighteenth and nineteenth centuries). He was (and is) famous for greeting every person he met with: “My joy! Christ is risen!”. (Radost moya! Christos voskrese! – for the linguists among us.) “Christ is risen!” he said, every day of the year, yes, including Good Friday.

It makes sense.

For Christians, there is no day when Christ is not risen.

My joys! Christ is risen!

 

So, in the Church in West and East actually, before Easter, we hear of the raising of Lazarus.[1] Of Lazarus raised from the dead. And, not incidentally, not accidentally, of the rolling away of the stone for poor dead Lazarus.

 

The rolling away of the stone for poor dead Lazarus.

 

We are likely to think of this as a thing of simple joy. Something beautiful and comforting and reassuring – just that. But let us pay attention to the details of the story. I suggest we are told very clearly that we are not simply comforted.

 

Think of Lazarus. For all there is a simple moment:

“Lazarus, come out!” and Lazarus comes out…

for all that, note that Lazarus comes out, still bound. He needs help. He needs others. Others have to do the work, the delicate work of unbinding him, removing what binds him. It is an effort. And… I put it this way, sisters and brothers… we are not told that this was painless.

 

Think also of Martha. Of Martha’s objection to the whole thing. Why does she object? Some pious reason? No. She says: “by this time there is a bad odour, for he has been there four days”. That is a rather delicate and moderating translation. Let me give you the Authorised Version: “he stinketh”! Already he stinks! (Ede ozei – for the linguists.) Already he stinks.

 

See how he loved him!

Even when bound, and in need of help to do anything.

Even when dead.

Even when stinking with the stench of rotting,

Jesus comes to him.

Jesus addresses him.

Jesus calls him by name.

Jesus gives him life.

 

See how he loved him.

See how he loves you.

Truly, this is “Passion Sunday”.

Amen.  

 

---

[1] In the West, this strictly applies only in Year A. In the East, the Saturday before Palm Sunday is always Lazarus Saturday.

What Kind of Resurrection?

 Sermon. 3^rd Sunday Before Advent, Year C. 06/11/2022

 

Gospel: Luke 20:27-38

 

It’s a pleasure to be here this morning of course. You might well assume that (we know each other), but I mean I am pleased to be catching up with you. I was sorry I could not be in the Benefice for All Saints, nor for All Souls, and neither will I manage Armistice Day nor Remembrance Sunday. The day job prevents it. But it is good to be with you now, in this season. Whether we think of it as Kingdom Season, or the introduction to Advent, or Remembrance-tide, some themes are in the air we breathe, over these weeks. The themes (I will stick to the plural) of ultimate things, of last things, of resurrection, of eternity, are in our prayers and in our readings today.

 

And so to today’s Gospel. Jesus takes on the Sadducees. The Sadducees were a real force in the Judaism of Jesus’ day, for all they did not survive as a group. They did not believe in the resurrection. This was not because of any conviction drawn from physics or philosophy. It was because their Scriptures consisted of Torah alone, the Books of Moses alone, which we know as Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy. As I say, Jesus takes them on: he sticks to their terms. He reminds them that in the heart of Torah, in Exodus, from the burning bush, God speaks to Moses, and says: “I am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob” and adds that Gd is Gd not of the dead but of the living. The argument is a strong one: Gd, who gives life, tells us Gd has not forgotten Abraham, or Isaac, or Jacob. And so, as the life-giver Gd is, Gd (we might say) “remembers them into life”; “remembers them alive”.

 

Jesus here sows a seed. He encourages those against belief in the resurrection to open their minds to its possibility. And this invitation, we might think, is extended to us. If Gd the live-giver does not forget us at death, then resurrection is thinkable. But! But other questions are possible. One that is rarely asked, but really should be is: is the idea of resurrection attractive?

 

I think the most honest answer we might give is: What resurrection? What kind of resurrection? it depends on the nature of the resurrection.

 

Let’s be clear. Death is unattractive. That is the starting point. Even death at a ripe old age, after a life well lived, leaves a hole, makes for an end, a breach, a breaking. Fellowship with that person becomes impossible - even the simplest form of fellowship, sharing a cup of tea, and the gentle hum of conversation. It cannot be. And so we have to speak of death – even a good death – as a form of alienation.

 

Nevertheless, I ask: is a second life, more or less like this one, that goes on without end, attractive? I mean: I enjoy your company very much, and you are kind to me. But if I were to tell you that we are destined to go on meeting like this over countless billions of years, would your heart really soar? I am teasing, of course. The idea of “eternal” life is not one that goes on and on, but one that is outside of time altogether. But I put it this way as one way of thinking about whether resurrection life need be attractive.[1]

 

So again I ask: What resurrection? What kind of resurrection is attractive?

 

Let us be clear. If the idea of a second life which just goes on and on is not necessarily attractive, and if “eternal life” is something different, then it is fair to ask questions like: How can we (you and I) be made fit for eternity, be made to bear eternity (not find the notion of eternity boring us to death)? To such questions Christian faith has no answer. No direct answer. When it comes to resurrection life, Christianity actually has very little to say about how it works, what happens, and to whom, and by what means. Rather, what we do is bring it back to Gd. Gd who is life-giver and is faithful. We do not know how, but our faith is that Gd will remember us to life. Because that is who Gd is.

 

And! And there is more. We can answer the question of what resurrection, what kind of resurrection, another way. We can say that the resurrection - the general resurrection, our resurrection - will be… of the kind begun by Jesus Christ.

 

Let me tell you a story from my own life. I have on several occasions visited the Church of the Holy Tomb. It goes by the fancier name: the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. But that just means the Church of the Holy Tomb. It is in Jerusalem, and the grave in question is by tradition the resting place of Jesus after he died on the cross. (And it is also historically plausible as the place. Not proven of course but plausible.) So it is the Church of the Empty Tomb. So it is the Church of the Resurrection (which is its other, I think, more proper name). And I have been in this vast and venerable cathedral-like Church, and, within it, climbed down the narrow and uneven steps into its small dark tomb.

 

It is cramped, as you would expect of a tomb. It has a smooth slab, as you would expect of an empty tomb that countless people have venerated. And it has what I can only describe as a cloth icon, icon of the resurrection.

 

The image is of Jesus, rising from the dead, from his own tomb. But he is not alone. He has a task to perform. He is reaching over. His arms are extended and his hands are open. And what he is doing is pulling up Adam and Eve from their own graves. Others also are rising from the dead with Eve and Adam, all the saints and heroes who died before Christ. This – this! - is the classic Orthodox image of the resurrection. It is or at least relates to what is called in the West “the Harrowing of Hell”. Jesus is emptying out hell.

 

And, what has struck me every time I have seen that image of the resurrection has been the expression on Jesus’ face, engrossed in his  task. For me (I am not art-critic; I am saying only “for me”), it was a look of perfect attentiveness, perfect attention, perfect concentration, perfect care. For me, Jesus was determined to make the whole thing as painless as possible. Now, if someone is dragging you up from a tomb you have lain in for many centuries, it is going to be painful. Or at least uncomfortable. But Jesus wants to ease the process, as best he can, ease you into newness of life. Like a skilled nurse. Like an devoted parent. Like the beloved Lover he is.

 

What resurrection? What kind of resurrection? This kind.

 

You know, it seems that Jesus convinced few if any Sadducees about the teaching of the resurrection within Torah. I further suggest that Christian efforts to expound on the logic of resurrection or eternal life to our cultured despisers have had limited impact. No matter!

What we can do is keep coming back to our faith, our trust in Gd, Gd who is life-giver, and who is faithful. Gd who does not forget us, does not forget us even at death, but remembers us into life.

 

And, more, we may keep coming back to our faith in Christ, the first-fruits of the resurrection, who pulls us up from our tombs. Who pulls us up from our tombs, even already within this life (even on this dull autumn day). Christ, who pulls us out of all that is dead and deadening and deathly and death-dealing in our own lives, and who does so with all care, attentiveness, and love.

 

The more we dwell on that, the more we may experience that.

The more we experience that, the more we may dwell on that.

In doing so, we give meaning to resurrection.

In season and out of season.

Amen.

---

[1] A more sophisticated question testing the same theme is: if we imagine living a heavenly life, would there not yet be a yearning for some resolution to that life - some “end”, in the sense of some completion?

 

Sermon. Lazarus - "he stinketh!"

Sermon. St Michael and All Angels, Little Ilford, 2 April 2017.

Lent 5 (Year A)

John 11.1-45

Today's gospel is very obvious good news. A problem is solved. A tragedy overcome.

• Lazarus has dead.
• Jesus comes along.
• Gd through Jesus raises his from the dead.
• In Jesus, death leads to new life.

There can be no better story. This is the Easter story, anticipated. What's not to like?

That is a fair-enough summary of the gospel today. Sermons throughout the land will be bringing just this story of hope and newness. It's a good outline of the message of the gospel-as-a-whole – not just today's reading, but the Easter gospel - the gospel of Jesus Christ. And, if that is what you need to hear today, good, then hear it please:

In Jesus, death leads to new life.

But... you notice I am not saying 'Amen', and sitting down. My apologies to those who would like nothing more than for me to shut up and sit down (you know who you are and you know that I know who you are). I have not quite finished, because I want to – need to – add that there are other elements of the story of Lazarus for those who have eyes to see. It is not a simple, or a simply happy story.

Let us try to face up to what is uncomfortable in today's story. I'd like to suggest that Jesus behaves in three ways which may challenge us.

First, on being told that Lazarus – Lazarus whom Jesus loves – is ill, how does Jesus respond?... Let's be blunt: Jesus responds by doing nothing. He stays where he is. For two more days.

We, who know the whole story, have an idea why he did this. He did this so that everyone is absolutely sure that Lazurus is really, utterly dead. So when the miracle happens, no one can say it is just a healing of someone at death's door. But note that at the time Jesus responds by doing nothing, no one around him can know why this is.

So (can we see?) there is here, for us, too, among the good news, some hard news. Jesus is free to respond similarly to our own needs (real though they are), by (from time to time at least) doing nothing. For this own hidden purposes.

There's more. On one level, Martha and Jesus have a perfectly understandable discussion about the resurrection of all who have died. Martha, as a good Jew influenced by good Pharisees (that's another sermon right there), says she believes in the resurrection. Jesus says that resurrection is much, much closer than she realises. But at another level, Jesus' message is and remains utterly mysterious. 'I am the resurrection and the life'. Beautiful poetry, no doubt, and much loved in Christian circles. But if I ask you what it means...?

We may come up with the idea that it refers to this or that aspect of later Christian teaching on Jesus. But I for one am unable to tell you what it means. I cannot see what these words add to the discussion about the resurrection, or add to the story.

So (can we see?) there is here, for us too, among the good news, some hard news. Jesus's message to us can similarly be inscrutable, more like a riddle than an explanation.

Third, Jesus loves Lazarus, Lazarus is his friend. Lazarus is about to undergo the hardest and most shocking moment in his life. So, Jesus, Lazarus' friend, will be by his side, talking him through it, encouraging him with friendly words along the way. Right?

Oh, how wrong. Here is the conversation the two of them have: Jesus said: 'Lazarus, come out!'

That's it. No conversation, no gentle encouragement. Just the command. So (can we see?) there is here, for us too, among the good news, some hard news. Jesus is similarly free to relate to us by giving blunt commands. 'Do this!'

So, Jesus is free

• to respond to us by doing nothing,
• to speak things we cannot understand,
• to give simple, unadorned commands.

I do know that this is unlikely to be new information for you. We are used to hearing these things, for we understand that Gd in Christ is in charge and not us, and Christ does not come to us just to reassure us. We know it. But it can be good for us to look it straight in the eye, from time to time, as the harder side of the good news.

But... in truth, these aspects of the story are really the lesser challenges. There are two greater painful elements we must face.

Let us go back to Martha. When Jesus suggests that the stone is rolled away from the tomb, how does Martha – who believes in the resurrection, and who believes in Jesus and his capacity to be the instrument for all manner of miracle – how does she react? With simple faith? With bated breath?

No, with simple disgust: 'Already there is a stench'.

Or (I've come to realise over the years) this is one time people like to Authorized Version: 'by this time he stinketh!' Yes, Lazarus stinketh. He stank. Notice, Jesus does not deny this. A corpse in a sealed tomb, free of fresh oxygen, would by day four, have long begun to decay, to rot. There would have been a stench, we can be sure.

Here is a greater warning for us. Brothers and sisters, the gospel for today, if we can bear it, makes it clear that when Jesus comes to us, to bring new life out of death – by no means only literal death but out of all that is deathly and deadening in us - there is likely to be a stench. All that we have neglected, all that we have locked away (we think safely), will be brought to the Lord. And it will not be pretty. We must be prepared to have others see just how rotten we can be. We stinketh. Gd in Christ can bear that. It does not stop Gd acting to bring that newness of life (Gd does not have a delicate constitution). But can we ourselves bear the stench?

It gets worse. 'The dead man came out, his hands and feet bound with strips of cloth, and his face wrapped in a cloth.' Let us try to picture this. Lazarus lives (great!), but is blinded (his face is covered), and is disabled (hands and feet bound). How would you bind up a corpse? You might just perhaps bind each hand and each foot separately. But why? To what end? Surely, you would bind the easy way, turning the corpse into one, tightly bound shape. In other words, it's like a coffin, only much snugger, with even less room.

So Lazarus comes out, stinking and wriggling, ungainly, comical even. It's his greatest appearance (he's the icon of a great miracle), and he appears at his worst.

I won't labour the point. Here too is a warning for us. In short, if we want Gd in Christ to make a difference in our lives, where we can find we often choose what is deadening and deathly, we had better not care what people think. We had better not have egos, or precious reputations to protect and improve. Gd sees us as we are, loves us as we are. The pressing question is whether we are up to seeing ourselves, smelling ourselves (as it were), as we really are.

• Lazarus,
• congregation of St Michael and All Angels,
• Little Ilford
• humanity

come out!

There is good news for us here. There is hard, challenging news for us here. There is Easter here. But there is more to Easter, and to Lazarus, than a happy ending. Gd raises us from the dead, but raises us as we really are. So be it. Amen. 

Sermon. St Thomas Revisited

Sermon. 3 July 2016. St Michael and All Angels. Little Ilford.

St Thomas

John 20.24-29

Now, here's the thing: when I reflect on St Thomas, I don't actually think of doubt, of 'doubting Thomas'. So I cannot offer you that standard Anglican sermon. You know, the one that insists that the enemy of faith is not doubt, but certainty. That faith and doubt are closely intertwined, and that doubt can bring us closer to Gd. These things are all true (and I know it). But they are not what comes to mind-and-heart for me, when I think of Thomas.

What comes to my heart and mind when I reflect on St Thomas is a question: why wasn't he there? I mean:

• why was he not with the other apostles,
• who were gathered together in secret on the first day of the week,
• who then saw the risen Lord Jesus,
• who breathed the Holy Spirit on them?

Thomas was absent from this life-changing encounter.

We are not told why.

I wonder... why?

I have a notion. A theory. Nothing more than that. But I think Thomas might have been a depressive person, someone who suffered at least at times from depression. Depression - a disability which goes beyond sadness, and even beyond normal human grief. It may be (may, I stress) that Thomas was too desperate to join the others for that crucial meeting:

• they were grieving and bewildered and so sought each other out, for mutual consolation and human warmth;
• he, Thomas, was grieving, bewildered and also depressed. So he did what depressed people often do – he isolated himself.

Why do I say this? Well, there may be hints in the only other times when we encounter Thomas. The first is when news of Lazarus's death reaches Jesus. He calls the disciples to go back with him to Lazarus's home. Thomas alone finds this risky plan acceptable. But note what he says: 'Let us also go, to die with him' (cf. John 11.16). A strange plan to make, surely? But just the sort of thing a depressed person, who may tend to see things at their bleakest, may say. He is saying perhaps: 'times are hard; they are out to get us; we may as well accept death.'

Later, Jesus tells the disciples he is going away to prepare a place for them. He adds that they know the way. Thomas replies: 'We do not know where you are going. How can we know the way?' This is what provokes Jesus into saying 'I am the way, the truth and the life'. But that's another sermon! The point for now is that we are not told the tone Thomas used. Might it not have been in anxiety, even desperation. As if he were saying: 'We are lost. How can you, Jesus, not see that we are lost?'

These are the only other times we meet Thomas in the whole of the four gospels (though there are plenty of later traditions). But there is another thing we do know about him. He had another name. Do you know it...? He was called Didymus. This is just the Greek for 'twin'. Whereas his real name, Thomas comes from the Hebrew Te'om, which means... well, actually that means twin too! So Thomas's very identity is as 'twin'. He is Twin the Twin. Yet we are told not a shred of a thing about his actual twin.

• Has his twin died?
• Is his twin opposed to Thomas or Jesus and his movement - but so powerfully that the opposition still defines Thomas?
• Is there some trauma hidden in Thomas's very name?

We are not told, but it is surely possible.

I'll leave you to decide if these bits of 'circumstantial evidence' add up to a plausible account of how Thomas suffered from depression. I say again it's only a theory (though Church tradition has been known to construct interpretations of the lives of saints out of weaker bits of circumstantial evidence). I will say that, certainly, something was going on to stop Thomas seeking reassurance from being with the other apostles, soon after Jesus's death.

In any event, it's important that we pay attention to what we are used to calling Thomas's 'doubt'.

This isn't philosophical doubt:

Thomas does not say, 'It is impossible for a dead body to come back to life. Convince me!'

And it is not theological doubt.

Thomas does not say, 'The age of the resurrection cannot yet have arrived'.

For that matter, nor does he say, 'Souls and spirits belong in heaven and not on earth.'

No. What he says is very focused.

Here's my translation:

'unless I see in his hands the place of the nails,

and thrust my finger into the place of the nails,

and thrust my hand into his side,

I refuse to trust it.'

You see? Here is no general doubt about the possibility of miracles, or of comforting apparitions, or even of resurrection as such.

Rather, Thomas needs to know that the Jesus the others have seen is the same person as the Jesus Thomas had known in his moral life.

That the risen Jesus truly is the Jesus who suffered.

That the risen Jesus too still has real wounds.

Why?

Because Thomas is close to the reality of human suffering, and so he knows that only a resurrection body which still bears the wounds is one which can really make sense of and make glorious our human suffering.

But for Thomas even to be saying this means he has managed to drag himself into the outside world, into company. And note what then happens. Jesus is indeed there with them all, now gathered as one.

• He does not call Thomas's earlier absence a sin.
• He does not rebuke him for being too overwhelmed (if that's what it was) to join in with the others.
• And he does not condemn him for wanting to know the wounds.

On the contrary, 
he meets Thomas where he is. 
This is a source of our hope. 
He meets Thomas where he is.
Jesus says (my translation):

'Bring your finger here and see my hands,

and bring your hand and thrust into my side'.

Picture the scene, if you can!

Can you see how shocking it must have been?

'Bring your hand and thrust into my side.'

It is not something one says.

Almost: 'Touch my wounds. Grab, fondle, get to know my wounds.'
We don't say this. 

It is an invitation to an intimacy which breaks all convention.

No other disciple is invited to have this intimacy.

Indeed, I don't think there is anything quite like it in the whole of the Bible.

And indeed, even further: if you google 'touch my wounds' – guess what - you get referred back to this story.

So is it really surprising that

when Thomas overcomes his isolation

he is graced by our Lord with a unique encounter of intimacy and welcome

and that frees him to make a unique declaration of faith in Jesus:

he (he alone) calls him 'my Lord and my God'.

'Bring your finger here and see my hands, and bring your hand and thrust into my side.' We cannot quite have that intimacy with Jesus (as he himself notes). And perhaps it would never occur to us to want it. Which is fine, of course. But, if only we refuse to isolate ourselves (in whatever ways we may be tempted to isolate – there are plenty of ways of isolating yourself in company), then we can have the same certainty of intimacy with Jesus. As he says to Thomas: 'Do not doubt, but believe'.

Amen.  

Sermon. The Meaning of Life is: Come and Have Breakfast!

Sermon. St Michael and All Angels, Little Ilford. 10.4.16

Third Sunday of Easter (Year C)

Gospel: John 21.1-19

This sermon is indeed too long. I did not have the mix of time and concentration to edit. People offering feedback were immensely kind. Believe it or not, I held their attention (it was claimed). 
Perhaps the nutritious bribery (see end of sermon) helped. 

Another friend suggested I might replace the text with a haiku. If you're of that school, I offer:


Fishers without fish?
Abundance is here to stay;
join Me for breakfast.

Or

Fishless fishers, we!
He will help us. He will call:
Companionship lives!

In terms not of the normal secular calendar, but of the Church's calendar, history is repeating itself. Two years ago, I was not with you over Easter; I was fulfilling prior commitments to my then church. I appeared (as it were) on the Second Sunday of Easter. And – what do you know? - Fr Brian took his well-earned break over the Third Sunday of Easter, and I was in charge, and so preached for the first time. A preaching anniversary, then.

I am not sure you (those of you who were around) will remember that sermon!... Once again, I am teasing. I mean I am sure you will not remember that sermon. And why should you?

Whoever we are – someone quite new to church or archbishop emeritus – whoever we are, we are unlikely to remember the structure or detailed content of sermons. We are a literate culture, and we tend not to write notes during sermons (though don't let me stop you). So we treat them as 'of the moment'. We can hope that something might stick - some phrase, or image, or word of challenge or comfort, or maybe just a tone of voice which strikes us as loving or authentic. And that is enough.

You won't remember my sermon two years ago. But just maybe, once I mention it, you may recall one aspect of that sermon. This: I asked you a question. And I made it clear it was not a rhetorical question but a real question, looking for an answer. Remember? The question I asked was: What is your favourite Easter story, meaning your favourite gospel story of the encounters people had with the risen Lord Jesus?

I remember this very clearly, because (frankly) you gave me the answer I was expecting. You, inasmuch as you said anything (you're better now), tended to point to the story of the disciples on the road to Emmaus. [Some did remember this!] This is often a favourite. It was also the reading that day (which of course may well have influenced you).

I remember that I then said that the story, the narrative flow, the structure of the Emmaus story is an excellent model for what we do in church:

• we too gather, maybe despondent, confused, distracted or exhausted, but we gather in faith that the risen Christ joins us (or we him);
• we too attend to the Scriptures, trusting that they make fullest sense in the light of the risen Christ, and in expectant hope that in one way or another our hearts burn within us when he mystically unfolds them for us;
• we too look in faith to the risen Christ as the one who mystically breaks the bread, so that we recognise him there, and receive him into our very selves;
• we too look to be sent back into the world with some new strength or encouragement or insight, to be able to say words which ultimately mean 'we have seen the Lord; we recognised him in the hearing of the Scriptures and in the breaking of the bread, and so all of life is new'.

That's why our service has the Gathering, the Liturgy of the Word (the Bible), the Liturgy of the Sacrament (the bread and wine), and the Dismissal (the Sending Out).

So every time we gather, Sunday by Sunday, but also whenever we gather around the table, we ourselves are on the road to Emmaus. Alleluia! Indeed (also from that first sermon, by the way):

[signed] Alleluia!

Or [differently signed] Alleluia!

Am I being lazy, or nostalgic, revisiting an old sermon? I don't think so. I think it bears repeating. (Remember that we don't remember sermons.) But it's also a way in to my personal confession. My own favourite resurrection story is... today's. I mean the first half (the half that is often forgotten, as there is such a focus on Peter and his threefold declaration of love). The third appearance in John. The risen Lord Jesus and the miraculous catch of fish. Why?

It's a story with some resonances with the way to Emmaus. The disciples are still despondent, somewhat lost. It occurs to Peter to return to his old life as a fisherman, and the others go along with it. Is this a 'displacement activity'? Is it a mark of a sense of utter failure – fishing for human beings has failed... back to square one? Is it that thing which people know very well in grief: the need to just do something, perhaps especially to do something in the midst of nature? We are not told. It may have been all of this and more.

Then Jesus appears.

And immediately we have the classic problem with all the resurrection accounts. Jesus is both recognised and not recognised. His first word to the fishermen is 'Children', or even 'Little children', or, alternatively, 'Lads'. It's an intimate term. So it doesn't work to imagine the disciples thinking they were being addressed by a complete stranger. The Beloved Disciple does indeed say: 'It is the Lord'. But this turns Peter into a spin. Chaotically, he dresses, then jumps into the sea, and wades through the shallow water. But notice this especially: when all are gathered, we have the line: 'none of the disciples dared to ask him, “Who are you?” because they knew it was the Lord.' Let me tell you: that makes as little sense in Greek as in does in English. None.

So there is something abidingly mysterious about the story. When we add to the recognisability-and-unrecognisability of Jesus the miraculous nature of the catch of fish (or at least Christ's surprising underwater knowledge) and the intriguing - nay, baffling - detail that we are told there were precisely 153 fish, here is something a long way away from a normal story. Since we are talking about the resurrection, this should not surprise us.

But! That is only half the story. The other half is that in other ways this is indeed a simple, a natural, a homely story.

• A friend visits a lakeside at dawn;
• he finds his friends fishing, and shouts some advice to them;
• they are very successful;
• they join him at the lakeside for a celebratory breakfast;
• it is simple but nourishing – bread and fish.
  You see? Simple, homely.

And this is how the resurrection accounts are. They have something mysterious about them (remember how Mary Magdalene didn't recognise Jesus until he said her name; remember the disciples were in a shut and locked room, then Jesus is suddenly with them). And, at the same time, they have something simple and very much human-scale about them. A friend comes to be with a friend.

I've said this before, but, again, it bears repeating. Notice what Jesus does not do. He does not show himself to Pilate, or Herod, or Caiaphas, or any crowd, to prove them wrong. He shows himself only to his friends. Then, he does not chastise them for deserting him. He doesn't even lead them - nudge them, encourage them - towards a prayer of repentance, before they can be reconciled. He simply – perhaps too simply for our tastes – says: 'Little children... you have no fish have you?... I'll help... then come and have breakfast.'

Do we believe this? Can we trust it? You see: this really is revelation. It is a truth about Gd only Gd can tell us.

We might, through our own natural reasoning, just about work out for ourselves that Gd is broadly on our side; the Creator is going to be favourably disposed to Gd's own creation (for Gd is consistent). But we'd never from reason and deduction alone come to think that this means

• that Gd longs, more than anything, to be our friend;
• that Gd longs for companionship with us, which means (literally) sharing together in the eating of bread;
• that Gd longs for that companiable friendship so much that Gd will offer that before we are ready, before we have come to repentance and facing up to things.
  Repentance is important, but note that it follows on. First we, like the first disciples, have to hear those words of invitation:

'Little children, come and have breakfast. Let's eat and spend time together', 
says the Lord.

If you believe and trust in this for yourself: [Signed] Alleluia!

If you half believe and trust, or wonder whether there just might be something in it, Alleluia too! 
You are in the best place to explore. To ask yourself how you might make that invitation your own.

And, if you want, as you might, some concrete, embodied symbol of that companionship-call from Christ, I have here [shows] some token, biscuit fish-and-chips, and some breadsticks. 

We can enjoy these over drinks after the service and nourish ourselves on the invitation.

[Signed] Amen.