May the Fourth Be With You

Please pray with me:

Creator God, May we always See Jesus when we gaze into the world. May we always be aware of your kingdom which is so near we need but look on the other side to see it.

Amen

My word, what a set of readings! It’s at times like these that I am jealous of the Baptists and Assemblies of God folks. There is so much in hear, I COULD spend two hours talking about it, BUT I doubt you all would humor me that much. I had considered asking the ushers to bar the doors from the outside so you would have to stay, but they would have mutinied I think. There is so much important stuff here today, Jesus appearing to the disciples for the third time after the resurrection, Paul’s conversion, the revelation text which we all know from Handel’s Messiah, and the restoring words of Psalm 30. I just can’t talk about all of it, so you will have to set your timers for around this time three years from now and comeback so you can here me cover another piece. Deal?

So last week, our reading ended thusly:

John 20:30–31 NRSVue

Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of his disciples that are not written in this book. But these are written so that you may continue to believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that through believing you may have life in his name.

Aaaaaand Scene. Roll credits. That’s the end of the movie. The screen goes dark and the credits begin to roll and we hear the music of Miklós Rózsa begin to play. (Miklós Rózsa wrote the sound tracks for a bunch of the old bible movies like King of Kings and Ben Hur.) And John, chapter 20 is clearly the ending. So, everyone starts collecting their popcorn buckets and purses and starts to head out of the theater. And then, wait… What’s this? The bible must be part of the Marvel Cinematic Universe because boom, post credit scene, John, chapter 21: The Epilogue. The Gospel writer decided there was one more important bit that needed to be said, and we all have to sit back down or miss this crucial bit of final story. And believe me for this one you want to sit back down and watch. It’s a doozie.

In addition to it being the Third Sunday of Easter, today is another very important day… May the__________________. May the 4th be with you. Yes! So in keeping with that let us recall the end of The Empire Strikes Back. I remember as a kid when I first saw it, the ending was like…. Ummmmm…. Yea? I guess??? Am I supposed to be happy? Or is it just relieved? (I’m not sure I understood the concept of relieved when I saw it at the age of 5.) It was not a rousing ending for sure. There were bunches of loose ends and our main characters were at least alive or sort of? The end of The Empire Strikes Back is not triumphant. It is tender, bruised, and uncertain. Han is gone. Luke is maimed and shaken by a truth he did not want. The heroes are not victorious—they are survivors.

So too, in John 21, the disciples are not triumphant. They are waiting by the sea, tired and unsure. Peter, the bold rock of the early church, simply says, “I am going fishing.” It is a retreat to the familiar, a quiet resignation amid confusion. Even after resurrection appearances, the path forward feels cloudy.

Yet into both stories comes a whisper of grace:

– Leia and Luke gaze into the stars, not with despair, but with a quiet commitment to keep going.

– Jesus comes to the beach and calls to his friends with simple kindness: Come and eat.

Like, Luke Skywalker, who’s lost a hand and learned a terrible truth, the disciples are wounded — emotionally, spiritually — Peter especially after his denial of Jesus. Both sets of characters are grappling with a new reality that reshapes their identity and purpose. Jesus was their teacher. They were the ones that followed. Now what were they supposed to do? Ahh Forget it! Let’s just go fishing and get back to what we know how to do.

All of us can relate, right? After great tragedy or unexpected loss, when things have calmed down and the reality really starts to kick in? What might we do? One option is to get back to work, do something to keep busy. Do what feels familiar just to keep from drowning. Right? You can remember the unsettling stillness of liminality, of transitional uncertainty.

They were expert fishermen. For Peter, it was his day job before this whole Jesus thing got started.

(By the way. We went out on the Sea of Galilee when I was in the Holy Land in 2023 and it was sobering and awe inspiring. You could hear the fish jumping. It’s a real place, with real fish, and real fishermen to this day. Peter totally went fishing there.)

So the fishing experts go out in the evening to catch fish and to add one insult to another injury, they don’t catch NOTHIN’.

Not a single fish.

All night long.

Sometimes the fishing is great other times not. I used to go fishing with my dad’s family when I was a tween and a teen. The whole extended family would meet in Arkansas and spend two weeks fishing. The last year I went fishing, not the last year I took the trip, mind you, but the last one I went out to fish, over the course of TWO WEEKS. I DIDN’T GET A SINGLE NIBBLE! NOT ONE. I remember on the last day getting out of the boat, throwing down my rod and promising I would never do it again. And I never have.

Anyway. I was just an amateur kid. Can you imagine how they must have felt? They just want to fish and do something that feels normal and the universe can’t even supply that! AAGGGHHH.

And, then, Some dude on the beach, who they don’t recognize, calls out to them:

“Hey guys! Yeah. You don’t have any fish, right?” (It had to be so annoying.)

“Yeah! So what? You aren’t even in the water!

“Yeah so. Um. Cast your nets on the other side.”

“Whatever,” they must have said. “Maybe if we do it that guy will leave us alone and see that there aren’t any walls underwater and that that makes no difference.”

“Sure. We’re moving them.”

And so they cast their nets over the other side and the nets begin to swarm with fish. So much so that the nets threaten to give way. It is then that Peter is thunder struck and launches out of the boat into the water to shore because he knows, they all know that the rando on the beach is actually Jesus. The rest of the disciples do their best to haul in the catch and bring it to shore.

What’s the deal with the fish? The over abundance of fish comes not because they deserve it, not because they are faithful or clever. It comes because Jesus is faithful, even when they don’t recognize him. It comes because grace is bigger than failure.

As Peter races toward Jesus through the water, he still caries the shame of his threefold denial, and yet doesn’t find Jesus there waiting to scold him. Rather, Jesus is there with…

… breakfast.

There is no lecture. No I told you so. No replay of Peter’s betrayal. Just firelight, Bread, fish sizzling on the grill, and an invitation,

“Come and eat.”

After breakfast, Jesus does not let Peter’s wound remain unhealed. Three times Peter says “Yes, Lord. You know I love you.” Each time, Jesus responds not with punishment, but with commissioning.

“Feed my lambs.”

“Feed my sheep.”

“Feed my sheep.”

Just like Luke Skywalker looking out into the unknown stars with a new mechanical hand and deep emotional scars, Peter stands on the shore with the wounds of failure still fresh.

He is not the same man he was before.

But he is loved.

He is called.

Both Star Wars and the Gospel of John tell us something profound about life:

Victory often does not look like a flawless triumph.

It looks like wounded people choosing to trust again.

Choosing to hope again.

Choosing to love again.

Jesus calls us to love and trust differently. To cast our nets on the other side even though we don’t understand how that would make a difference.

On Maundy Thursday, I asked you what wounds you were holding onto, what skeletons in your closet, what monsters in the garden, what noises in the night, keep you from embracing what God has in store for you? What do you need to let go of and let God.

Peter is commissioned here for his ministry, where ever it might take him and he is determined to do it despite the risks, despite the fact that Jesus foreshadows what might come in the future.

There may come a time in each of out lives when we may need to step out of our comfort zones and feed the lambs, protect the sheep, cast the nets on the other side of the boat. God is with us and gives us vision to do it, because grace is more powerful than regret. Because God loves us in spite of our foibles. It is in our weakness that God gives us strength for mission.

The least likely, the outcast, the doubting ones, the downtrodden ones, these are the ones to which God turns time after time. We all are down trodden and weak, and doubting, and outcast in one way or another at sometime in our lives and the message is the same for us. God’s love and grace, and faithfulness are always there for us.

Be bold in ministry and safe in that love.

Luke Skywalker, injured and maimed won’t ever be the same after the end of Empire Strikes back.

He is lost.

He is wounded.

But he is not finished.

And neither is Peter

And neither are we.

You are not disqualified by your doubt.

You are not ruined by your failures

Your wounds do not make you unusable.

In your weakness Christ’s grace shows it’s strength.

The DISCIPLES were not triumphant that morning.

THEY were hungry, uncertain, and tired.

And it was there that they met the Risen Christ—again.

As for you. As for Us.

Cast your nets again.

Not where you think they’ll work—but where God leads you.

Amen.