Jesus, Quietly and Loudly

Rev. Paddy Cavanaugh, Easter 3, Year C , 5/4/25

Readings: Acts 9:1-6, (7-20), Revelation 5:11-14, John 21:1-19

In the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, amen.

Happy Easter! It is indeed still the season of Eastertide, which we will continue to celebrate until the Feast of Pentecost. We celebrate Easter for so long not just because we need some extra cheer after the forty days of Lent, although this is certainly true, but we celebrate it because scripturally speaking, Jesus is still with us! Jesus is always with us of course, but we also tend to forget that the resurrection is not the conclusion of Jesus’s time on earth, after rising victorious from the empty tomb, Jesus stuck around awhile, forty days, to be precise, before ascending into heaven. This has always been a curious notion to me, that Jesus would linger for that long after his principal work was finished. Why was that?

We get some clues by taking a look at what he spent his time doing while he was here. For one, he continued to teach his disciples about the Kingdom of God while giving them specific instructions as to how they are to carry out his work, saying feed my lambs, tend my sheep, and follow me. In essence, he stayed to commission them to act as he did for the benefit of the rest of the world, particularly those who never knew him during his earthly sojourn. When I lived in Germany I remember being particularly struck when I learned that the noun for Christian is ‘ein Christ,’ literally a Christ. Not a follower of Christ, but a Christ. I love this idea that each of us, by virtue of our baptism into Christ’s death and resurrection, therefore become a little Christ in the world, and this was the message that Jesus was imparting to his disciples. He would no longer be here physically, and thus would depend on his disciples to act as Christ in the world so that others may know him.

But in order to do that, Jesus had to make certain that his disciples really understood that he had risen, and so the other reason for why he lingered was so that they, and us thousands of years later, could be sure of this. And scripture today recounts two very different and miraculous ways in which Jesus chose to appear to the apostles which I think are illustrative of how we also come to know the resurrected Christ in our own spiritual journeys. These encounters represent two poles on a spectrum of how we encounter Jesus.

Jesus’s first appearance is described in Paul’s bombastic road to Damascus experience. Paul, then known as Saul, a pharisee and persecutor of the fledgling Christian community was traveling to deliver letters to the synagogues, instructing that any followers of Jesus be bound and brought to Jerusalem, likely to meet a similar fate as Jesus himself. And as he did so, Jesus appeared to him out of nowhere, asked him why he was persecuting the Church, struck him blind, and then restored his sight after commissioning him to be an apostle in His name. Now as terrifying as this event might be, it’s also a type of encounter with Jesus that many of us would be grateful for. For how could there be any room for doubt if Jesus appeared to us like that? And of course, Jesus certainly does to some.

During my time in seminary, I remember feeling envious of my classmates who described similar experiences of having been slapped in the face by a divine encounter. By having physically seen or heard something which they understood as God, calling out to them with utmost clarity. Because that simply has never been my experience of encountering God.

And for this reason, I absolutely love the second account of Jesus’s appearance, which we hear in John. The disciples find themselves out fishing on a boat when they spot a vaguely familiar man watching them from the shore. He calls out to them “children, you have no fish, have you?” And the disciples, not knowing who this strange man could be, reply “no,” they have not. Then, Jesus pulls a familiar trick, he tells them to cast their net off the other side of the boat, and as they do so, the net is miraculously filled, and so are their hearts and minds with the knowledge that their Lord has returned to them.

The reason why I love this story so much is because of the contraposition of Jesus’s familiarity and unfamiliarity. Unlike Paul’s harrowing encounter with Jesus, in which Jesus’s identity is unquestionably clear, it takes the disciples a while to catch on that Jesus is really there. We can imagine them squinting and straining to see this man, perhaps hoping it is him, but in the back of their minds telling themselves that they really shouldn’t get their hopes up. [After Jesus’s crucifixion perhaps they were wondering if Jesus ever really was with them, or if this whole encounter was just a fever dream that they woke up from and went back to their familiar posts, fishing.]

Isn’t that so often the case for us? We hope and squint and pray that God would reveal himself to us. We hear stories of God miraculously appearing to others, but there’s a lingering doubt that perhaps this resurrection business is just a lovely story.

But if we take time to reflect back on times of need in our own lives, I think we could easily identify moments when we were like the disciples in the boat. When Jesus showed up for us, was present with us, even helped us during our struggle, even if his presence went unrecognized in the moment.

In a few moments we are going to witness the birth of a new ‘little Christ’ coming into the world through the sacrament of baptism. And what baptism reminds us of is two things. First [Beckham], God is promising to always show up for you. To help you and to love you as one of God’s own children forever. And second, all of us gathered here are promising to help you seek Jesus and to recognize his love for you no matter how clearly or how quietly he appears. And you, Beckham, will forever be a beloved partaker of the resurrected life in him. Amen.