John 21: 1-17
In today’s passage, the risen Jesus served the breakfast, not a supper this time.
Maybe it is because human beings just love eating together. Think of when we are stuck alone with a frozen dinner, most of us will open a magazine, newspaper, podcast, or Youtube just for company. That is why we all loved and enjoyed having our monthly luncheon on every first Sunday of the month.
May we remember that the lesson from today’s passage tell us about more than a meal fellowship. The passage tells us that the risen Jesus comes to each of us again and again even when we feel stuck in a moment--cannot go forward and cannot go back.
In addition, I believe there is always the chance when we are eating together, that we will discover the risen Jesus in our midst just as those earlier disciples did so long ago.
Also, it is probably a good idea to pay attention to strangers, especially those who seem to know nothing while you really have experiences and knowledge on that.
We, as adults, naturally tend to act like we know something based on our profession, experience, or perception. We all assume that we have nothing to learn from the children.
Yet, the scriptures keep telling us about those who can enter the kingdom of God, inviting us to become like little children in order to enter the kingdom of heaven.
Look when the disciples could fill their empty nets full of fish. When they put down their experiences and professional knowledge of their fisher-career and when they listened to the stranger-figure-Jesus, they experienced the miraculous transformation.
I am not the only one who is tired of living in the season of pandemic.
I am not the only one who feels stuck in life.
I am not the only one who notices and is concerned about the empty spaces at this sanctuary.
But I invite us to stick ourselves into the message of Easter in today’s passage. We, as an Easter believer and an Eater community, trust the risen Jesus who comes repeatedly and appears suddenly for us when we feel stuck in our life.
And this risen Christ may have been with us and around us in an unexpected figure and in an extraordinary way like a stranger.
Let us keep welcoming strangers, keep listening to them and learning from them. Then, we can experience God’s miraculous transformation, filling this sanctuary full of strangers.
Amen.