John 21:1-19
Today is the 3rd Sunday of Easter. It is a lovely spring day. And it is the 18th of April. In the home where I grew up, this day never passed without my dad reciting a poem he had memorized as a boy in school. Perhaps you had to learn it, too, although I have to say I did not. Although the beginning stays with me, I’ve heard it so many times. It starts like this:
“LISTEN, my children, and you shall hear
Of the midnight ride of Paul Revere,
On the eighteenth of April, in Seventy-Five;
Of the midnight ride of Paul Revere,
On the eighteenth of April, in Seventy-Five;
Hardly a man is now alive Who remembers that famous day and year.”
It was true every year on this day for as long as he lived. While we were still at home, he’d try to stump us, asking us if we remembered the day, and then he’d peal into verse. Once we’d moved away, he’d make it a point to pick up the phone to call and ask, “Do you know what day this is?” More often than not, I wouldn’t remember, but now it can’t roll around without my recalling it.
So I looked ahead to this Sunday and or course the day rang out for me. And actually, it’s a pretty good image for us to carry this morning as we approach the story in John’s Gospel before us now. While he may be remembered for nothing else, Paul Revere is remembered for the mission he carried out. The one that had him galloping through the streets and the byways and the country roads with the shout that the British were coming! The way the story has been passed on, he had no doubt that this must be done and he was the one to bear the news so the people would be prepared. So that the militia might be at the ready. That’s not a bad image for us to carry as we hear about another life-saving mission today. The one that Jesus gives to Peter. And just like that famous poem reminds us, the first witnesses are long gone. And perhaps it is also the same that the gifts live on through those who came after. Through you and through me.
But here’s what else I’ve learned about the 18th of April so long ago. Paul Revere was not the only one to ride with that message of warning that night. There were other riders bearing the same urgent news. It’s just that the people listened to him. He’d spent a life time making connections through his silver business and his political work. People knew him. They trusted him. They believed him. And so they took action. And the world as you and I know it has never been the same.
Missionaries like Paul Revere and like Peter in our Gospel lesson today? They are believed partly because of the authenticity of the journey they’ve been on. I mean, could there be any better bearer of the good news of Christ’s love and forgiveness than Peter? Peter who promised to follow Jesus to the death and then within mere hours stood in the courtyard outside where Jesus was being tried and tortured; Peter who denied not just once but three times ever having made the man’s acquaintance. Peter who ran to the tomb that first Easter and saw the stone rolled back and the linen cloths piled up, no longer needed. Peter who stood before Jesus in our Gospel today and endured Jesus’ pointed and vitally important questioning. “Simon, Son of John, do you love me?” Simon, Son of John, do you love me?” “Simon, Son of John, do you love me?” Three times Jesus asked. Once for each time that Peter stood and in shame and fear denied any relationship at all with Jesus, much less one of love and devotion. But here’s what also jumped out for me in this passage. Jesus does not call him Peter here --- that name he later gave him, replacing the name he’d been called by up to that point. Jesus calls him by the name he was born with: implicitly giving him the chance to go back to his life before he ever met Jesus. Letting him off the hook, if that’s what he so chooses. Only Peter does not. And in his boldly claiming his love for Jesus again, he realizes that he has been forgiven. And he’s given a mission to tend the very sheep of God. And don’t you think he’s all the better at it, all the truer in it, all the more deeply trusted by those he’s called to tend because he knows his own failings, down to his bones he knows them. He owns those failings and the rock he stands on from here on out is only that of the pure love and grace of God.
And so it is with you and me. We have been to the empty tomb. We have seen the folded graveclothes. We have stood in the loving presence of Jesus and known his unbounding forgiveness for our greatest sins. That’s what makes us also believable then then when sharing this amazing news. That’s what makes us missionaries: We have been to the cross. We have known the power of the resurrection. We have experienced the life-chaning forgiveness of god’s love. It’s part of us. It’s in us. And it’s our story to tell, too.
Amen.
