3rd Sunday of Easter C - Homily 3

Homily 3 - 2013

There is so much in today’s Gospel.  Forget about last Sunday’s Gospel, and all you remember from the other Gospels.  Approach today’s passage simply as a stand-alone meditation on the Risen Jesus.

You know what it’s like when you are driving along the road and suddenly realise that the car that has been following you for the last ten minutes is in fact a police car.  You do an immediate check of the speedometer, examine your conscience and perhaps instinctively ease off on the accelerator. 

In today’s story, the Beloved Disciple recognises Jesus - not so much as just Jesus but as the Lord.  How could they come to terms with the fact that the one they had followed, become friends with, rubbed shoulders with, become annoyed with over the past few years, and then had abandoned to face his humiliating and brutalizing murder alone was in fact the Lord – God? What on earth went through their minds? All the time – when they didn’t realise it – he was the Lord. I wonder if their first reaction was to feel their guilt.

Whatever they expected, Jesus had his own agenda.  He had breakfast cooking, and told them to come and share.  Is that the Jesus, the Lord, the God whom you instinctively imagine? Think of the pictures or the statues you are familiar with.  How do they gel with: Come and have breakfast? 

And Peter? To be of any future use to Jesus, to find the freedom to be his own man, Peter had to come to terms with his past.  Peter had denied any contact with, even any knowledge of the arrested Jesus.  He had abandoned him and cleared out – overwhelmed and frightened.  He needed to come to terms with that, or it would haunt him and paralyse him for life. 

Jesus’ initiative, his triple interrogation, gave Peter the chance.  It enabled him to state where he was at – to face his utter failure, the shame and remorse, and probably self-hatred, that plagued him.  Jesus not only forgave him, but trusted him, and entrusted him with a precious responsibility: Feed my sheep.  That triple interrogation gave Peter the chance to recognise and to declare something more than sorrow.  It helped him to recognise that, despite his weakness and his utter failure, along with his weakness and utter failure, he also loved Jesus – loved him at the same time that he was denying him.  And Jesus wanted him to know that.

 If we are to be of any use to Jesus, if we are to find the freedom to be our own persons, we need to see and to come to terms with our failures and our mess.  At the same time, and no less importantly, we need to recognise that we do love Jesus.  That is the way it is with human persons – still on the journey, not there yet, not yet totally redeemed by the transforming love God has for us. 

The story continued: When you were young … When you grow old … you walked where you liked … somebody else will take you where you would rather not go…  That has a few applications, too.  The Gospel saw it referring to how Peter would die – martyred, in fact, by crucifixion. 

It also sums up the general experience of most people as they grow older.  We lose control.  The someone who leads us can be simply the natural process of growing older.  But it can also be something we deliberately embrace.  All true personal growth is a matter of dying to self and to the obsessive need to be always in control.  It is a matter of learning to accept difference, to love the imperfect – the imperfect me and imperfect others. 

And all that leads to that incredibly beautiful invitation: Follow me.  He wants me; he loves me; he knows me and he trusts me.