Easter Sunday

Below is an excerpt from the last chapter of a book of mine published in 2000. In the light of all that today, Easter Sunday, means to faith and failure I thought it may prove to be of some encouragement.

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Imagine the scenes in Jerusalem as one by one the disciples heard the news that Jesus had risen. What went through their minds? What did Peter think? What did John and James think? When Jesus finally appears to them, he goes to Thomas, and presents his wounds, and asks his, hopelessly disappointed disciple to “do whatever he needed to do” to believe. On the cross Jesus had already done all that he could possibly do to show us himself. All he can offer to Thomas is his broken hands, wounded feet and gashed side. “Whatever it takes Thomas, do not leave unbelieving”.

Jesus offers his brokeness as an ointment pleading with Thomas to see His glory through Thomas’ failure.

Can we live the life of “whatever it takes”? Will we bare our wounds so that others can see?

Jesus was resurrected in Jerusalem. I have visited what is believed to be the ”Garden Tomb” just outside the city walls of the “Old City”. There you will find a cave, with a large round stone that has been “rolled away” from it’s small entrance. This “tomb” is in a restored garden from Jesus time. It is a quiet tranquil place, surrounded by a stone wall. It was discovered late in the nineteenth century lying a hundred or so metres away from a rocky cliff that is in the unmistakable shape of a skull! We celebrated communion late one afternoon in this garden and reflected on the identity of God as he walked free from death, our death, “coming again” to this planet. This “return” from the grave is the final evidence of God’s life revealed to us in Jesus. This life that lived among us, cried with us, hurt with us, suffered with us, all to finally suffer at our hands. This life that knew such pain and still chose; “Not my will but yours.,” A will that finds it’s focus and fulfillment in us; in our treachery, faithlessness and failure. This life that, having accepted the “hard road”, then suffered more. This life that cries with us; “I am Godforsaken”, rises ahead of us to prove that we can never be “Forsaken of God”. This life that declares we are “Adopted by God”. We celebrated with a small cup and a tiny fragment of bread. Bread and wine that proves the worst of mankind. Bread and wine that was once mutilated flesh and pools of blood. We confessed this failure as we all quietly and simply confessed the name: “Barabbus”. Jesus died on the cross that we chose for him. It was Barabbus’s cross, it was our cross, we are all Barabbus and we must share his guilt before we celebrate his remission. We then looked at the bread and wine in our hands to realising what this; the “worst of us” says about God. God turns mutilation into celebration. We celebrated this communion as a confession that God had turned the worst of us into the best of himself. We then walked out of the garden to follow the footsteps of Jesus.

The footsteps of Jesus led him back to the shores of the ”Sea of Galilee”, a journey of many, many days. Why did Jesus go back to Galilee? Because His disciples had left Jerusalem, after the resurrection and after Jesus had appeared to them! I wonder why? Could it have been that this resurrection so proved the very things that we confessed in the garden and that these poor disciples felt disqualified and humiliated by all that they had thought, said, and done? Now that it was so very clear who Jesus was they felt disqualified from doing anything more in His name. They left Jerusalem and walked home to Galilee.

They walked through Jericho, past Zacheous’ tree. They walked through the wilderness where John the Baptist had lived and ministered. They crossed the Jordan of His baptism where Andrew and Peter had first met Jesus, and they came again to Capernaum, by the Sea of Galilee. They returned broken, defeated and guilty to their families and friends.

What did they say as everyone asked;

“What happened to Jesus?”

What did Peter say to his wife and mother in law when he came home to his house, his table and his bed?

What was ahead of them? What was left for them to do? The dream had died. They had seen to it themselves. Their memories taunted them. His words rang in their ears, and they remembered Him, all that he did, all that he said and all that he was.

They had failed him. They had failed God.

How could they have been so horribly wrong?

It was over. It had finished.

What lay ahead? Where to now?

Peter finally said; “I am going fishing”.

Could this have really meant, I am going back to fishing. What else can a failed disciple do?

“I will take out the old boat, open the old accounts, go back to my old profession and start again.”

“I have failed.”

Do you know this failure?

I do.

Thousands upon thousands over the centuries do.

Peter is not alone. Thomas, Nathaniel, James, John and two others felt the same, and together they set out in Peter’s boat, to fish for their living.

Failure.

Just as Jesus left eternity to reveal his love for the failed, he now leaves the place of greatest influence, the place where he could have preached from the temple, humiliating every member of the Jewish Ruling Counsel, the chief priests and the High priest, shaming every man woman and child that had dared to yell; Barabbus. Jesus could have established His Kingdom there and then on the throne of David, but he didn’t. He left Jerusalem because he had to find his desperately broken and forlorn friends. He followed them.

The footsteps of Jesus follow the failed and the broken.

He returned to where it all began. Jesus comes again to Capernaum, the home of Peter, James and John and again he comes alone. No great angelic procession. No thunderous acclamation from the heavens. He has come full circle. He arrives, early one morning at the shore of the Sea of Galilee,. He is looking for his friends. Perhaps, in the early light he walked up and down the beach, cupping one hand over his eyes as he searched the horizon through the early morning glare. He looks for a boat amongst many boats. All the fishermen of Galilee would have been out that morning, but only one boat carried such disappointment. Only one boat carried the failure that was the key to seeing His glory. One boat. Six broken men, starting life all over again.

Six headlines. Six stories. The gospel was about to be revealed.

Good news for failures!

What was the conversation that night on the lake as these former disciples relearned their old skills, blistering their hands on the oars, ropes and nets? What did they say as their hopelessness turned into such despair as they now failed at fishing? They caught nothing? Did they feel absolutely “Godforsaken”?

Jesus is walking the beach and he cannot see his friends. What does He do? Does he summon the wind and the waves to “drive” these foolish men out of their “backsliding”? Does he step onto the water to overwhelm them with his deity? Does his voice thunder from the skies? What does God do with their failure?

Jesus starts to collect drift wood. He purchases some fish and some bread. He lights a small fire, and, blowing on the coals, begins to cook. Jesus has come, thinking purely about their welfare, to meet their needs.

He is making breakfast for his hungry friends.

Suddenly he looks up from his cooking and sees the boat. .

I have walked many beaches dotted with failed fishermen and have said the same simple greeting.

“Caught any fish”.

The answer returns, forlornly across the water.

“No”

“Cast your net on the right hand side of the boat and you will find some”.

Jesus challenges then to start again. Start again, but differently. Put the net out the other side. It is a new day. Try again, but this time, try differently.

When we have failed, we know that we cannot go back, for we have already proved for ourselves and for others that we could not make the grade. We could not maintain the disciplines, nor we could we complete the work. When we have failed we have been disqualified by the very methods that we had hoped would affirm us.

Jesus says to all of us: “Come on, throw the net out the other side and “never give up”. Failure is not the end. It is just another beginning. Do not look at what you have done, look at what I am doing.”

The disciples’ nets fill with fish and for an instant, they felt the flush of success. Perhaps they looked at each other and said; “It’s OK, we can do this, life will go on. We’ll make it boys.” Then something clicked in Peter and he remembered. “This was how it all began”, and he looked from the false hope of a net full of fish, the affirmation of his work, to the only one who could make sense of his failure, the only one who could answer the desperate cry of his heart, the only one who could bring back his peace, hope and joy.

Peter looks, and he sees the same familiar shape that stood on the shore three long failed years ago. He remembers the hope and the promise. It seems like a miracle, Jesus has “turned back time” and is offering the same wonderful love, all over again.

It is the Lord.

When your footsteps lead you back down the path of humiliation and disgrace, when you leave behind the great opportunities, when you are disgraced and fallen, you are followed. Jesus leaves the “mission” and follows the “man”.

He searches for you, he looks for you, he waits for you, he loves you, and cares for you.

In his heart is a simple concern; it is for your welfare. The hot coals, the bread and the fish prove it.

Peter jumps into the water and swims to Jesus.

What could Jesus have said:

“Cock-a-doodle-doo, Pete!”

“Remember the last fire we stood around?”.

Jesus simply looks at Simon, Peter, a fisherman from Galilee, an ordinary man, who has a litany of guilt stacked up against him. Jesus looks into the eyes that had turned away, he looks into the heart of one who was guilty of the worst and he says:

Three times. Each time answering Peter's tragic denial. Three times Jesus turns betrayal into acceptance. The end becomes the beginning.

“Peter, do you love me?”

“Peter, look at my eyes, tell me if you see any rejection any disappointment. Do you now understand my love? You never earnt it, you never deserved it, and you never broke it. Can you now accept this and pass it on? Feed my lambs, Peter. Feed my lambs with this love.”

I have stood on this beach. I have looked out over the Sea of Galilee. I have walked up and down it’s shoreline, strewn with pebbles and I have imagined the fire and the fish. However, I do not need to go to Israel to stand on this place, for it’s only significance is in the fact that Jesus came here to find his friends and to give them hope and to encourage them to start again. It may take us a lifetime of fishing to realise that there is a figure waiting on “our shoreline”, waiting for us to recognises “who he really is”. Waiting for us to turn from “earning” to accepting”. We may chose to look away, humiliated by our inadequacy, we may refuse him his identity, preferring to retreat to our own concepts of how God would deal with us, we may bury our hope in activity, but that will never change who He is, what he has done, and what he expects of us.

To all who have failed, Jesus wants us to lift our head, open our eyes and smell the enticing aroma of baked bread and BBQ fish.

Only God could have come up with such a plan. When you recognise this aroma of salvation, every failed life is accompanied by a solitary figure baking fish on a small campfire. He looks up to you, and simply asks;

“Will you join me?”