Have you ever been to an airport? I’d imagine probably pre-pandemic if you have. Or perhaps stopped at a motorway service station on a long journey. There’s an odd feel to those spaces isn’t there, time doesn’t entirely make sense, it’s full of people who are arriving and leaving. You don’t feel settled, and that’s deliberate, it’s a place that you’re not meant to stay, it’s a place to pause before moving on. It’s what’s known as a Liminal space. A place between places. And that’s where we are right now, both in our reality, we are living in the victory of Christ’s death and resurrection, in the truth of his defeat of sin and death, but also await the consummation of those things, the end of the old and the coming of the new and perfect world. But it’s also true of where we are in the church year, and where the disciples find themselves in our Gospel reading today. We rejoice in Easter hope, and with the disciples rejoice that Jesus is risen, and alive forevermore, but now what? What do we do now? Jesus is alive, but what do we do with that, where do we go from here? The journey has begun, but we aren’t at the destination yet. The disciples aren’t sure what to do yet and so Peter suggests to some of them that they head out fishing. He heads back into the old pattern of life, he isn’t sure where to go from here, so defaults back to how life was before Jesus, and many of those other disciples were fishermen too, and so they join him. When we’re not sure where God is leading us, what we’re meant to be doing, it’s easy to head back to old patterns, to go back to the familiar, and to an extent there’s nothing wrong with that, Jesus doesn’t scold them for this when he arrives, but if we do, we need to be open to God’s leading, ready to drop everything once more and follow his call. So this group of disciples are out on the lake, and they’ve been up all night and caught nothing, is this starting to sound familiar? And shortly after day break a man calls from the shore to ask if they’ve caught anything, and when they say they haven’t, he suggests throwing the nets out the other side. Sounding familiar? And when they do the nets are so full of fish that they boats are at risk of sinking, they can’t get the fish into the boat, the nets are straining. Familiar? We’re right back at the start in Luke 5 when Jesus first called Peter and some of the other disciples. And John spots that, he recognises what’s going on, his mind flashes back to that first encounter and he recognises who is on the beach. And he tells Peter who immediately throws on his clothes, leaps overboard and swims back to shore, back to the beach, whilst the others bring the boat in. And here they all stand, in this liminal space, the space between places, not just metaphorically, but literally too, they’re on the beach, the space between the sea and the land. And in this liminal space they’re taken right back to the start, when they brought in a massive catch of fish and Jesus first commissioned them to join him to fish for people. And now once again on the shore they’ve hauled in another massive catch, 153 fish. I won’t bore you with the numerology, you can ask me afterwards, but 153 is seen as symbolic of the whole world, all the nations of the world. Once again, this time rich in symbolism, the disciples are called to become fishers of men, this time to the ends of the earth. So we’re back at the start, and yet so much has changed, Jesus calls them to their first calling and yet it’s a new calling. And in this liminal space, as the call is renewed, we see restoration happening. That’s what Jesus chooses to do with the time between his resurrection and ascension. He goes about proving to people he is alive, restoring broken relationships and bringing healing and wholeness to the broken. Perhaps Peter regrets jumping over the side of the boat when Jesus starts talking to him after breakfast, ‘Simon, do you love me’. He has let his Lord and Master down greatly these last few days. First he fell asleep in the garden when he was called to keep watch, then he runs away with all the others. Then he changes his mind and follows at a distance, that’s a bit better, but only to find himself confronted by the servants in the courtyard about him one of Jesus’ followers and denying him not once, not twice, but three times. And that after swearing to Jesus that he would follow him to death, that he would never deny him. Peter isn’t in a great place right now, he’s wounded, but not from others but by his own failures, by his own actions. How often is it that our deepest wounds, our deepest hurts aren’t inflicted by others but by ourselves. It’s those wounds where we often struggle to remove the knife, and instead spend our time twisting it, beating ourselves up, holding onto the pain because we deserve it. And here he is stood before the one he has let down so badly, the one he is hurting for, the one who he feels he needs to keep his hand on that knife to prove how bad he is, how badly he has let Jesus down. And what does Jesus do? He asks Peter if he loves him, and Peter says ofcourse I love you, but perhaps his mind flits back to how his actions don’t show that, but he’s sincere, he does love Jesus, despite his failings, and Jesus commissions Peter to the work he has to do. The he asks him again, do you love me, and Peter is perhaps a little taken aback by this repeat of the question. Yes Jesus, he replies, you know I love you. And Jesus commissions him again. And then Jesus asks a third time, and you can practically feel Peter wince at the question. That’s a third time, he denied even knowing this man just a few days ago, not once, not twice, but three times. And he’s clearly hurt by this, not just by the question but by the wound he carries, the pain of it washes over him and he declares, ‘you know everything, even my inner most thoughts, you know I love you’. And of course he’s right, Jesus does know, but perhaps Peter doesn’t, perhaps Peter doubts himself. And Jesus responds not just by commissioning him a third time, but by telling him that the next time Peter is confronted for his love for Jesus, the next time he is tempted to deny or flee, he won’t, he will stand firm, even to the point of death, just as he had vowed at the last supper. He does love Jesus, and that love runs deep, strengthened by the Spirit he won’t back down again. And then, having questioned Peter, having had that most difficult of conversations, he simply says to Peter ‘follow me’, those words he heard all those years ago. Peter is restored, brought back into the fold, Jesus helping him to drop the knife, Jesus healing that wound. I wonder if you’ve ever thought about the fact that Peter didn’t have to come back to Jesus, he could have decided he had let him down too badly, could have decided he couldn’t face him. He could have stayed hidden, or run away. When John recoginsed Jesus on the beach Peter could have leapt over the other side of the boat and swam in the opposite direction. And yet he didn’t, in the face of his failures to follow Jesus, he comes to him. He could have tried to carry on as before, perhaps Jesus doesn’t know what I’ve done. But he didn’t, he comes in deep humility, deep sorrow for his actions and in doing so finds mercy and grace in abundance. Finds the one who heals and restores. Sometimes restoration is painful, it forces us to confront the ways we have let Jesus down, let one another down, the ways in which we have hurt one another and ourselves. It can be a painful and difficult process, for we have denied Jesus not just 3 times, but countless times, in our words, our actions, our attitudes. We have denied out loud or unspoken that we even know this Jesus. And in confronting that we are forced to enter that liminal space between what has happened, and where Jesus longs to lead us. Into that space that in uncomfortable and strange. And yet when we come back to Jesus, enter that space, tail between our legs, in humility, vulnerability and sorrow, we find healing and restoration, we find mercy and grace deep enough to cover it all. We find the one who picks us up, cleans us up, and sets us on our feet, not just put up with, but fully restored and accepted. May Jesus give us grace to see where we have let him down, to know those times when we have denied him in our words and actions, and grace to come running back to him, back to the start, that he may heal our wounds and restore us. That he may bind up our broken hearts and revive us. That he may give us strength to follow where he leads, so that we may follow faithfully. Amen.
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AuthorAn Anglican Curate in my 20's I was raised in an Anglican Church, went to a Youth Club run by an Evangelical Church, attended a Baptist Church while at Uni and was a member of a New Monastic Community after graduating. As such my faith has been influenced by these experiences and traditions into what I hope is a more rounded viewpoint. Archives
September 2022
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