May 4, 2025 I am in Oklahoma City this weekend

Acts 5:27-32, 40-41 + Psalm 30 + Revelation 5: 10-14 + John 21: 1-19

John’s use of darkness and light should be familiar to us by now after hearing the Passion proclaimed on Good Friday. It continues today as the disciples go fishing at night. They catch nothing. We should know by now what’s coming, and John does not disappoint. After the uselessness of darkness, he tells us it is daybreak, and now they go they back to fish again in the light, and the catch is huge. Once you get the point of what happens when we work in the light of Christ, the Gospel hardly needs any preaching. I could sit down now, but the Word has more to say to us.

There is a charcoal fire there on the shore, and it’s not the first time we have heard about a charcoal fire if you recall the Passion Narrative. This time Peter does a bit better than he did at the other charcoal fire allowing the Gospel to reveal both the place of Peter among the apostles, and the patient, forgiving mercy of Jesus toward those whose faith is inconsistent. Peter gets to start over as Jesus calls him by his former name: “Simon, son of John.” He does not call him “Peter.” Then, with Peter’s final affirmation of faith, he gets the same invitation he had much earlier, “Follow me.” This time, Peter knows the truth of what following Jesus will cost him, and so do we.

Many come into this church today after a week of hard work that sometimes produces nothing like those men fishing in the dark. We come into this church today, into the light of the risen Christ who will feed us here as he fed those weary apostles. We come into this church today, and he asks us who are so much like Peter, “Do you love me?” “Do you love me?” As we consider our answer to his question, we need to remember the cost of saying, “I do.”