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Sermon Date:	April 22, 2007
Sermon Text:	John 21:1-14
Church Calendar:	3rd Sunday in Easter
Delivered By:	Rev. Brian Roberts

"Hope on the Beach"

This month in China there is an annual festival called the “Tombsweeping Festival.” Every April, people are to visit the graves of their relatives and ancestors, and leave them offerings that will improve their afterlives.

Until recently, actual objects, such as various gifts, or jewelry, or money, had to be left. But this is no longer required. Now, paper representations are considered just as effective. So, a picture of a gift, or of jewelry, or money is just as good. This year, according to a French Press dispatch, paper illustrations of all kinds of things are popping up on many graves, including things you wouldn’t otherwise be able to leave on a grave. Apparently, pictures of dancing girls are popular.
[Agence France-Presse, 3-21-07]

In the Gospel lesson for today, we have the real, resurrected Jesus standing on the beach. He is not a memory. He is not a spiritual representation. He is not a mental picture. This Gospel story is not a manufactured tale that conveys the theological point that Jesus is always near us. He is the real thing – resurrected flesh and blood.

And Jesus steps onto the sand in our Gospel today for a very important reason. You see, the disciple had begun to experience the very thing you are beginning to experience in the aftermath of your Easter celebrations: Reality.

For the disciples, the surprise and shock, and then the joy of Easter was beginning to wear off. It was still there, but the demands of life, the drudgery, the problems – you know, the everyday stuff – was starting to pile back on.

Here the disciples were, back in Galilee, settling into old routines, and old stresses of life – working all night and getting nowhere. That’s how it is with us, isn’t it? Easter was a great day, full of genuine joy and celebration. But it was two weeks ago.

And now real life is starting to march back into your days. Realities about your marriage, your job, your health, your school, your future, your finances are like wet blankets that are being thrown on an Easter joy that is seeming more and more distant. Worries about your family, your parents, your kids, your grandkids invade, and make the resurrected Jesus seem like a picture on a page – a simple memory.

Well, Jesus steps out of the pages of Scripture today and stands on the beach of your lives, and He confronts you with a question. Does our living, resurrected Lord Jesus truly step into our lives, intervening and acting in our lives in meaningful ways?

I know that we believe that He is actually present in the Bread and Wine. I know that you believe that through the Word in worship He is physically present, also.

But do you believe that He has an ongoing daily interest in you personally? Do you believe that He walks with you through every incident of your day? Do you have a confident expectation that God is acting in the every day circumstances of your life?

By the time morning dawns in our Gospel lesson, the disciples are hopeless about catching any fish. But into this hopeless situation Jesus steps. That is what Jesus does. He steps into hopeless situations and He brings hope.

A lot of people are experiencing a sense of hopelessness over the Virginia Tech shootings. In the face of such demonic evil, we are painfully reminded that Satan, “the prince of this world,” as Jesus calls him, is still thrashing about.

And Satan goes especially mad with fury every year about this time, when all the Easter celebrations proclaim his stunning defeat. Over and over again the newspaper reminds that this world is broken and dying.

And, if your hope is in this world, if your hope is in the decency of mankind, if your hope is in saving this planet, whether it is Earth Day, or humanity learning to love one another, if your hope is that prejudice and poverty will be overcome, if your hope is that one day wars will cease, then hold on to your seat. You are in for a roller coaster ride of ups and downs that will not end well. Over and over again, this world will crush your hope.

Now, you younger folks probably won’t appreciate this until you are older. But to those of you who are, say… 30 and above: Have you ever looked through your old picture books and cringed at a picture of yourself when you were younger?

Buried somewhere in the family albums at my house are pictures of me at my grandparents 50th wedding anniversary celebration. That was in the late ‘70s and I was either a junior or a senior in high school. In those pictures I have hair down to my shoulders. Yep, parted down the middle and longer than I ever had – before or since.

We look at those moments in time, nostalgically when we were younger – and we remember, and then we wonder, “What were we thinking!!??”

Things change, don’t they? Life passes those moments by and eventually we look back and laugh at what we were wearing, what we were doing, or the way we looked.

In the Gospel lesson today, Jesus emphasizes that Easer is not just a moment in time. It is not something that we simply look back upon. It is not something that seemed appropriate once, but is out of style now.

Easter is not just one day. It is every day. It is God’s promise that He has acted and will continue to act in every day of your lives. It is God’s promise in the face of this world of disappointment, sorrow, pain, and failure, that He has delivered the only way out.

Even though everybody walks through the same door of death, we do not all emerge in the same place. Through our faith in Christ, He has assured us that we emerge into the glorious destination that we were created to experience.

You see, what we, as Christians, have in this often crazy, mixed up world – is hope. We have genuine, undiluted hope. We have hope as the foundation of our lives.

We have hope that no matter what happens to us in our lives, no matter what happens in our marriages, no matter what happens to our health, no matter what condition our finances are in, no matter how much this wicked, violent, unjust world rages, Christ is alive and well in our lives. We have hope that He is at work guiding, directing, protecting, and shepherding us through this life, towards our eternal home.

We even have the hope – no, we ESPECIALLY have the hope – that in the face of death itself, we still have life. For Christ has said, “I am the resurrection and the life. Even if you die, yet shall you live.” (John 11:25)

And the reason why we have this kind of hope in spite of all that we experience and witness in this fallen world is simple. Christian hope is based on the resurrection of Jesus Christ.

Christian hope is based on the resurrected Lord Jesus Christ, who cares enough for us that He is willing to make breakfast on the beach, for His tired, emotionally drained followers. Christian hope is based on the belief that this same Lord Jesus Christ continues to meet us on the beaches of our lives, that He continues to be there for us in the times when we are emotionally, physically, and spiritually drained.

Our hope is not based on the circumstances of our lives. It can’t be. Life’s circumstances are far too changing, and randomly fickle. But sadly, a lot of people live that way.

They hope for a better world. They hope for a better future. They hope for peace and love. They hope for the end of war and violence.

Now, these things are great – don’t get me wrong. But if the foundation of your hope is built on these things – if your hope in life rests on the expectation that this humanity and this world can be made better and better, then the failures and ongoing tragic events in this world will constantly cut through your heart like a hot knife through butter.

For people, who hope in this world, things like the violence we saw in Virginia last week, or disasters, or global warming fears, or wars are infinitely more crushing for them. It dissolves the foundation of their hope.

Our hope is based on the resurrection of Jesus. Our hope is the rock-solid certainty that our Lord God is appearing, and intervening, and affecting our lives, no matter how the circumstances of life appear to us.

When this decaying world rises up in its death throes and inflicts its evil, and its wars, and its violence, we still have hope, because our hope is centered in the power of our resurrected Lord. We know this world is dying off, but we also know that Christ has secured for us a new heaven and earth.

When these sin-stained lives of ours succumb to trouble, or illness, or pain, or sorrow, we still have hope. We have the hope of knowing that Christ has forgiven our sins, and is actively bringing His power and purpose into our lives.

It is hard to see this sometimes. It is hard to believe this sometimes.

But remember something, Christ allowed Himself to die in such a way that it appeared He was powerless to stop it. Christ allowed Himself to be carried along by events that appeared to be beyond His control.

Can you imagine how hard this was for the disciples? They had spent three years with Jesus. They had seen His miracles. They had heard His preaching and teaching. They had seen His power. They believed Him to be the Son of God, the Messiah, the Savior of the world. They believed that He could do anything.

And then they watched it all unravel in such a way where it was obvious Jesus was UNABLE to do anything about it.

Have you ever felt that way? Have you ever felt that the trust you have been placing in Jesus is meaningless, because the circumstances show that Christ is powerless?

Have you ever prayed and only received silence? Have you ever wondered why God does nothing?

Of course you have. We all have.

But friends, our hope is in the RESURRECTION of Jesus. And, it wasn’t until Christ came out of the tomb that we knew He was not so powerless after all. It wasn’t until after Christ rose that we knew that He – in fact – did have all things under control.

In your struggles, in your problems, in your pain, in your sorrow, look to the resurrected Jesus Christ.

No matter how powerless God seems to be, no matter how out of control the circumstances of your life seem to be, no matter how empty or hollow God seems to you – the resurrection power of Jesus Christ IS at work in your lives.

Christ is intimately involved and intervening to bring about His gracious purposes for you. THAT is our hope. THAT is why Jesus stands on the beach today. THAT is why He calls out to you. It is to assure us that He is daily at work and bringing His resurrection power into your lives.

So, TRUST it. LIVE it. And REJOICE in it.

Christ is Risen!
He is risen, indeed. Alleluia!

Amen.

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