3rd Sunday of Easter 2022
Acts 5: 27-32, 40f; Apocalypse 5:11-14; John 21:1-19
I wish they hadn’t changed the translation of today’s Opening Prayer. It used to read, “You have made us your sons and daughters, and restored the joy of our youth”. In other words, you have made us young again, given us sparkling eyes, enthusiasm and joie de vivre.
It is in that spirit of youthful enthusiasm and joie de vivre that we read today’s Gospel. Let us begin with a seemingly unimportant statement “It was light by now”. In John’s Gospel, light and darkness are crucial concepts. When Judas leaves the supper room to betray Jesus, John comments “Night had fallen”. It was the hour of darkness--a term which John attributes to Jesus Himself--a time when evil was in the ascendancy. When the risen Christ appears on the shore, by contrast, “It was light by now”, because the darkness has passed: evil has been defeated. Do we recognise that light in our own lives?
When the disciples have caught the miraculous draught of fish, the Beloved Disciple says to Peter “It is the Lord”, and Peter takes the lead in heading towards the risen Christ. This repeats the pattern of the empty tomb. There, if you recall, John deferred to Peter, the leader, allowing him to enter the tomb first, but it was the contemplative John who “saw and believed”. The Church needs Peter, but it also needs John to pass on his insights to Peter who, we hope, is also contemplative, in order that the latter may respond. Similarly, we need both a contemplative and an active dimension in our own lives.
As the disciples come ashore, they see a charcoal fire, which recalls another charcoal fire in the High Priest’s courtyard, where Peter three times denied his Lord. This new fire, like the fire blessed at the Easter Vigil, is to be the setting for a threefold declaration of love by Peter, which is to wipe out his triple failure. The late Bishop Brewer was of the opinion that the use of a different word (phileo) for “love” by Peter from that used by Jesus (agapao) implied a holding back on his part, but most scripture scholars reject that interpretation. (Sorry, Bishop Brewer, but at least you will know now whether you were right or not.) Similarly, scholars don’t read a great deal into Our Lord’s differentiation between “lambs” and “sheep”.
After receiving Peter’s triple affirmation, the Risen Lord gives him a solemn warning: “When you grow old, someone else will put a belt round you, and take you where you would rather not go”. Does that chime with your own experience at all? Once you and I have passed our peak, we experience a decline in our powers both physical and mental—what did you say your name was?—and we have all seen once vigorous people become increasingly dependent on others. If and when that happens, we need to recall that prayer which I mentioned earlier, and to remain young in attitude and outlook.
Of course there is more than that at the heart of those words. How often in life have you found yourself in a situation not of your choosing, in circumstances where you would prefer not to be (perhaps, even, “not to be” in the sense of “not to exist”)? You have been led there like Peter, and like him you must find God in that situation; to the utmost of your ability you must trust God to turn it to good, and to lead you through it to a fuller life in Him.
John adds a footnote to the effect that Jesus’ words indicated the manner of Peter’s death. Apparently, to stretch out your hands and to be secured with a belt was a common expression indicating crucifixion, and you are probably familiar with the ancient tradition that Peter chose to be crucified upside down. Whether or not that was the case, it is significant that Our Lord ends with the instruction “Follow me”. Whatever the situation of our own life, and indeed of our own death, what matters is to follow the Lord.
How are you and I to follow the Lord? We are to do it by remaining young, by keeping our enthusiasm and our positivity, by refusing to succumb to weariness and cynicism. We are to remember that God has made us His sons and daughters, and restored the joy of our youth.
