Easter 3 Year C

Acts 9.1-20; Psalm 30.1-6, 12-13; Revelation 5.11-14; John 21.1-19

What is church? Or to put it more sharply, who are we, gathered together here? There are many different answers to that question that we could explore, but in this season of Easter-tide, a fruitful starting place is to understand ourselves as those who gather around the Crucified and Risen Christ; or better, who are gathered by the Risen Christ to be renewed, re-named, re-made and sent out in his name.

In this season of Easter we always read our way through the book of Acts on Sunday mornings. That emphasizes that although our Easter celebration is about the Risen Christ, it is also about the community that finds itself in the encounter with that Risen Christ. The resurrection is the encounter with the one who was killed, buried and dead, and is now alive. It is seen in the community that is being re-made. And we, gathering here and being shaped in that encounter, continue to bear witness to the Risen Christ’s power and love.

But what does that actually look and feel like – how does that encounter happen, and what does that mean for us?

I want to begin with that series of questions as a prelude to, and an encouragement to engage with, the two stories of encounter with the Risen Christ that we heard in our readings this morning: Paul on the road to Damascus, and in the city itself afterwards; and Peter on the beach of the Sea of Galilee. Two descriptions of an encounter with Christ; both rich in detail – more than I can do justice to within a sermon; very different, and yet showing certain things in common. It is that difference and that commonality that I want to explore. The differences encourage us to see that our encounter will take its own shape – that there is no one way to meet Christ; and the commonalities help us see what lies at the heart of all such encounters. For if the church is those who are gathered by the Crucified and Risen Christ, then the reading of scripture is where it begins. Scripture witnesses to the encounters that shaped the early church, and while the story of the Risen Christ and the church he renews doesn’t end there, nevertheless these encounters, if we are understand what it means for us, are the place to start.

Paul’s conversion – his encounter with the persecuted Christ, is often taken to be paradigmatic. Here, it’s sometimes thought, is the template for what a conversion looks like – instant, overwhelming, something that turns us around; so that we are born again, to use language from elsewhere in John’s Gospel. But the story is actually much more complicated than that. Saul is a man convinced of his own rightness, that he is doing the right thing in ensuring that a heretical sect of the faith that he holds dear is stamped out. He finds the thought that a crucified man – a man who has suffered a deeply shameful form of death – could be the long-awaited Saviour of the world repugnant and ridiculous. And suddenly, on his way to Damascus to ensure that the right thing is done, the voice of the one he persecutes echoes around him. This is the moment often focused upon, as he is thrown off his horse and blinded. But the story doesn’t end there: he has to be led by the hand into Damascus. And he is in that state of darkness, unable to eat or drink, for 3 days – surely an echo of the three days of Good Friday to Easter. This initial encounter plunges him into death. What enables his conversion, brings him into the possibility of new life, is the courage of Ananias, a disciple of Christ, who is asked in a dream to go to a street named Straight, and make what has been crooked straight; to reach out and touch and heal the man of Tarsus. Ananias is understandably wary; but he does go, overcomes his fear and loathing, and reaches out, and touches Saul; and it is at that moment that ‘the scales drop from Saul’s eyes’. Saul’s conversion might have begun on the Damascus Road as a man full of a sense of his own rightness is thrown down, but it is here, in this moment of tender meeting, that Saul finds a way through his new-found vulnerability. He is enabled into a new calling - one in which the Crucified and Risen Christ, encountered both in the voice of the persecuted and in the community represented by Ananias, will be central.

Peter’s story is very different. Unlike Saul, he has spent a long time in the company of Jesus, walked the dusty roads with him, accompanied him to Jerusalem. He’s not someone you would characterize as thinking themselves always in the right. He is certainly eager, enthusiastic – but often wrong. Saying the wrong thing, doing the wrong thing. He surely knew himself loved by Jesus, but the events of Holy Week have opened up in him a fresh awareness of failure. When Christ most needed him, he deserted him. Despite vehemently protesting he would do no such thing, when it came to it, he betrayed Jesus; not just once but repeatedly. Fear and pragmatism got the better of him. He is not someone who needs to be confronted by what he is capable of; he knows it only too well. He inhabits his sense of failure.

Last week the Vice Provost suggested that the Risen Christ enables us to be a little more honest about our scars; about the hurts we do to others, the hurts we inflict on ourselves, the fears that arise from the hurts that others have inflicted on us. Our readings this morning help us see how the Risen Christ meets us in that honesty, in our scars. Saul needs to be brought low, to inhabit the 3 day darkness before emerging into the light. Ananias needs to overcome his fear of what this man might do to him, to reach out and be the Risen Christ for Saul. And Peter; Peter is tenderly met in his place of hurt, the scar of feeling himself a failure. Three times, Jesus asks him, ‘Do you love me?’ Peter’s reply becomes ever more affronted and defensive, until he realizes, under that loving gaze, that Jesus is not evoking the memory to accuse, but to heal; not in judgement, but to free Peter of the burden. The crucified and risen one, comes not with a pointing finger but with the forgiveness that restores Peter, that brings new life. Peter is asked once again, to - ‘follow me’, by feeding the lambs, tending the sheep; being that compassionate presence that Peter is encountering for himself in the Risen Jesus.

Who are we? We are those who are being shaped and renewed in our life together by the Crucified and Risen Christ. Some of us will be like Saul, brought by forces beyond our control to a place of humility and need. Some of us will be like Peter, with a lifetime of trying but a deep sense of our own inadequacy. And some of us will be like Ananias, finding ourselves called to do a brave and surprising thing, and befriend someone we thought was beyond the pale. And all of us will be a mixture of all three, and others besides. All of us are here, carrying our scars, to meet the Crucified and Risen Christ. To be shaped by the One who gives himself once more in bread and wine; meeting us in our vulnerability, our need, our fear. Not with words of condemnation or reproach. But with words of healing and renewal: This is my body, broken for you. Amen.