John 21.15-17,
First Christian Church of Portland, Texas,
Sunday, January 11, 2015
Collect
Heavenly Father, Your Son reveals to us that only You can
forgive sin, but that not even You can ignore it. Grant us today, an assembly
of sinners, the courage to return with Jesus to the place of our sin that we
might arrive with Jesus at the place of our redemption made possible by the
death and resurrection of Your Son, Our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, in whose
name we pray. Amen.
Left Panel: The World
Have you ever felt a desperate need for
redemption?
On January 21, 1915, the Cal State Golden
Bears faced the Yellow Jackets of Georgia Tech in the fifteenth annual Rose
Bowl game. Midway through the second quarter Tech's great running back Stumpy
Thomason fumbled on the Cal State thirty-yard line. A Cal State lineman, a
two-way starter named Roy Riegels, scooped up the loose ball. He caromed off of
two potential tacklers, somehow lost his bearings, and began sprinting down
field. . .the wrong way! His own quarterback, Benny Lom, finally managed to
overtake Riegles at his own three-yard line where Riegels pivoted to face a
wave of Tech tacklers who brought him down at the one. The Bears chose to punt
the ball to safety rather than risk a play so deep in their own territory but
Cal blocked it for a two-point safety, giving them the lead. Cal State went on
to lose the game by a score of 8-7, the difference of that safety. The
sportswriters jumped on the story and dubbed him "Wrong-Way Riegels."
By some estimates, various newspapers through the years have run a total of
4,500 articles and devoted a quarter of a million column inches to Riegels'
famous mistake.
Central Panel: Christ in
the Text
Have you ever felt a desperate need for
redemption?
I think that is what Simon Peter feels in
the story we have read this morning. In fact, John has brought his Gospel to a
full and satisfying conclusion at the close of chapter twenty and scholars
debate whether chapter twenty-one might in fact have been written by an
equally-inspired disciple after John's death. John tells us at the end of
chapter twenty that while he could not tell us everything, he has told us all
we need to know to come to a full, saving faith in Jesus, and what more could
anyone ask? Why would anyone dare to add an appendix?
Because the story is never complete until
the fallen hero finds redemption.
And Peter is indeed a fallen hero. The last
two times we saw any personal interaction between Peter and Jesus was in
chapters thirteen and eighteen. In chapter thirteen, Peter vows to follow Jesus
to the death but Jesus instead predicts that Peter will deny his Lord three
times before sunup (13.36-38). In chapter eighteen, Peter pulls that exact
hat-trick, denying being a follower of Christ as he warms himself around the
enemy's charcoal campfire (Jo 18.15-27). Notice those three elements: a
charcoal fire, a triple-denial, and a refusal to be known as a follower of
Jesus.
Look how Jesus orchestrates the redemption
of his wrong-way disciple.
Verse four says that Jesus appeared
"as the day was breaking," that is, just around the time a cock might
crow. And when the waterlogged Peter sloshes ashore, he finds, according to
verse nine, "a charcoal fire." The scene deliberately recreates for
Peter the dynamics of his earlier denial, but it also invites him to be
re-created as a disciple.
Jesus asks Peter three times, "Do you
love me?" That, of course, is the exact trifecta of times Peter told the
crowd in the courtyard of the high priest that he had no idea who Jesus was. A
triple-affirmation doubtless reminds Peter of his previous failure, but it also
invites the disgraced disciple to unsay his triple-denials.
At the end of the encounter Jesus predicts
Peter's death as a martyr and then orders him, "Follow me" (v.18-19).
Peter will naturally think of the time he vowed - and failed - to face death as
a follower of his Lord. A call to martyrdom might seem to taunt Peter with his
previous cowardice, but it also promises him future faithfulness.
Does it seem cruel that Christ would lead Peter back
through all the downward steps and stages he trod into such a shameful denial?
Yet Jesus never promises to ignore sin. He promises the much better gift of
forgiving sin, and it is in the remembrance of sin that we also experience the
presence of redemption.
Right Panel: The Church
Have you ever felt a desperate need for
redemption?
We're only a couple of weeks into the New
Year, which means that statistically thirty percent of us have already trashed
our New Year's resolutions, resolutions that only eight percent of us are
actually likely to accomplish. But what about our Baptismal Resolutions?
Like Peter, we have all made them. In many
denominations, the minister asks the candidate for baptism, "Do you
renounce Satan and all his works?" New Year's resolutions to start new
habits are one thing; New Birth resolutions to start life afresh are something
else.
And, like Peter, we all break them. And,
like Peter, we all need redemption. Where will we find it?
First of all: Don't deny; confess. In a
society like ours, I must stress that redemption is not the same thing as
denial. The great Christian writer G. K. Chesterton scoffs at "those new
religions that forgive your sins by saying you never had any." It might
seem cruel that Jesus engineered such a detailed reconstruction of Peter's
original fall, but he simply brought into the open what secretly gnawed at
Peter's heart. To paraphrase C. S. Lewis it may be that the lost are those who dare
not follow Jesus to such a public place of acknowledgement of sin.
Secondly: Don't withdraw; engage. We note
that each time Peter says, "I love Jesus," Jesus says, "Feed my
sheep." I understand the natural, and even admirable urge that says,
"I have messed up so badly that I am ashamed to be back among God's
people." I can understand it, but it rests on the mistaken assumption that
you, or I, or any of us, deserves to be there in the first place. Find a place
of service in the sheepfold of the Chief Shepherd - a term, by the way, that
Peter invents and only Peter uses (1 Peter 5.4) - and love the Lord you have
let down.
Finally: Serve the sheep, but watch the
Shepherd. Peter sees John (the Beloved Disciple is almost certainly John
himself) tagging along and wants to know what his assignment will be.
Jesus answers, in essence, "Verily, verily I say unto thee - none of
thy doggone business." We sometimes seek to escape the burden of our own
bungling by finding someone nearby who seems worse. The Germans even have a
word for this: schadenfreude. It literally means "harm-joy," that sinful instinct we all
have to be happy when someone else messes up. At times like that, it is a good
idea to spend a little time reviewing our own redemption.
Conclusion: World,
Church, Christ
Have you ever felt a desperate need for
redemption?
What many people do not know about the
story of Wrong Way Roy Riegels is that he came back out and played an
outstanding football game in the second half, including blocking a Tech punt.
Not only that, but the next season he captained the Golden Bears, earned
All-America honors, and led his team to a 7-1-1 record. I can't help but wonder
how that happened. Well, it is a story of redemption.
As the team entered its locker room at
halftime, Riegels slunk to the most isolated corner of the locker room, threw
his helmet on the floor and sat with his head in his hands. When the team rose
and shuffled their cleats across the concrete to head back onto the field, he
did not move. When the room had emptied, head coach Nibs Price walked back to
where Riegels sat and told him to get up.
"Coach, I can't do
it," the distraught young man responded. "I've ruined you, I've
ruined myself, I've ruined the University of California. I couldn't face that
crowd to save my life."
Coach Price quietly commanded, "Roy,
get up and go back out there — the game is only half over."
Peter thought the cock crow was the sound
of the final whistle. In fact, it only signaled the end of the first half. You,
like Peter, may feel that it is too late, that your failure is final and your
fiasco fatal. But the risen Christ stands before you this morning and declares,
"By the bloody sweat of Gesthsemane's garden, by the crown of thorns and
the mocking sign hung above my head, by the five wounds in my body an the water
and blood that flowed from my pierced side, by the broken bread and spilled
wine of my communion table, by the cross of Good Friday and the empty tomb of
Easter Sunday: Get up and go back out there - the game is only half over!"
For Peter, the game was only half over, and he would go
on to play an outstanding second half. Your redemption is certain in your
Savior. How will you play in your second half?
Benediction
Whatever your hands bring you,
Whatever your eyes show you,
Wherever your feet take you,
Whatever your ears tell you,
Whatever thoughts your heart forms,
Whatever words your lips shape
As you go forth from this place,
May you see the Father in this God-blind world,
And be the Son to this God-starved world,
And breathe the Spirit on this God-choked world.
In the name of the Father
And of the Son
And of the Holy Ghost
One God now and forever,
Amen.
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