Looking Ahead to April 19, 2026 -- Easter 3

 This week we continue through the appearance stories we find in John's Gospel, this time back in Galilee in John 21:15-24.

The Sermon title is Do You Love Me?

Early Thoughts:  Ok, first things first.  This is not going to be a meditation on the classic duet between Tevye and Golde in Fiddler On the Roof (as much as I love that musical and what that song says about love). Neither will it be about the old Contours hit about dancing (for one thing I am routinely told that I can NOT dance). I will admit that there is a possibility both songs were referred to while we were choosing hymns...

Source

Instead we are listening in on a chat between Peter and Jesus. In the earlier verses of John 21 we learn that the disciples have returned to Galilee, gone back to the familiar. Peter has gone all the way back to his roots as a fisherman. There is a miraculously large catch after a fruitless night's work and they recognize Jesus on the shore where they have a shore lunch (well, breakfast) with him.

After they eat Jesus and Peter are talking. And Jesus asks Peter three times "Do you love me". Some see the threefold question as a way of counter-acting Peter's threefold renunciation of Jesus before the crucifixion. Peter seems a little bit hurt and discombobulated by the repetition. Which makes sense--how many times do I have to answer the same question????

What I find striking is that in the process of the three questions Jesus gives the same commandment three times. Back in chapter 14, during the Farewell Discourse, Jesus said to the disciples "If you love me you will keep my commandments" (John 14:15). Here, as he asks Peter to affirm his love Jesus(the Good Shepherd, see John 10) tells him to take care of the flock. Words are not enough. Loving Jesus needs to result in action.

Loving Jesus also seems to require risk-taking. Peter, the story foretells, will find a time when he is bound and led where he does not choose to go. Loving Jesus means that you may lose control of your life. Loving Jesus means accepting that some will have a different path from yours.

Answering "you know I love you" is a far more complicated thing than it sounds.

I invite us to put ourselves in Peter's shoes as we read this story. How would we respond to that question? How many times might we need to be asked, along with the commandments about what loving Jesus means, before we fully realize what is being asked of us? 
--Gord

Looking Ahead to April 12, 2026 -- Easter 2

 The Scripture Reading for this week is John 20:19-31.

Source

The Sermon title is Showing the Scars.

Early Thoughts: What scars do you have? How do you carry those scars forward into the next phase of life?

As the blogpost where I got the picture to the right put it "even Jesus had scars". Jesus appears to the disciples in an upper room and reveals that the wounds of crucifixion are still visible on his resurrected body. Even in the glory of new life the scars remain.

Why?  Wouldn't the promise of new life bring with it the promise that we put the hurts and wounds, including the reminders we call scars, of the old life behind us?

That is often how we want to see the world. In paradise the wounds and hurts don't apply anymore. And maybe that is partially true. Jesus offer healing of body and soul. When we are healed the wounds don't hurt so much any more. When we are healed the active bleeding has stopped. But I suggest that to be healed doesn't mean that the wound has ceased to leave a mark.

I can look over my hands and recall how most of the scars have come from. They all have a story. Some are stories of misfortune, some are stories of inattention. Over the years they have faded, some almost to the point of invisibility but if I look closely they are still there.

What stories do your scars tell? Are the stories happy, tragic, painful, traumatic or some other feeling (or mix of feelings)? How have those stories, those scars shaped who you are?

I fully believe that our lives, our selves, who we are, has been shaped by everything that we have encountered and experienced in our lives. SO our scars are a part of what makes us who we are. Why would we want to leave them behind?

Ok I know lots of reasons we might want to leave some of those scars behind. Look at what Charlie Brown  has to say about his scars (though I might use the word emotional instead of mental). Those scars have stories too, and often those are really hard stories to remember. But they too have helped to shape who we are. The hope is that they are just scars, just reminders that have been healed and no longer throb.

Easter reminds us that healing and new life are a possibility. Easter reminds us that our woundedness is never permanent. But the fact that Jesus shows up in an upper room (Diana Butler Bass suggests that it is the same upper room in which they gathered the night before Jesus was arrested, and that it is the same upper room in which they will be gathered weeks later when Pentecost comes) still bearing the marks of his woundedness reminds us that healing never takes away the fact that the woundedness was one there.

Scars may seem unsightly. We may spend time, money, and labour trying to hide our scars -- the ones on the surface and the ones we bury deep inside. We may find that scar tissue itself gets in the way of something we want to do at time. But the scars, and the stories they carry, are a part of us. The wounds may be fully healed but every once in a while the scars will remind us of them. May God help us continue to heal but also to learn from the scars as we move into new life, new hope, and the promise of resurrection.

Because I like this one (I found it when looking for the cartoon above) I close with this image from Peanuts:

Hold on (tenderly) to your scars, however healed or unhealed they may be.
--Gord