|
|
Breakfast at Galilee
A sermon by Dr. James Flamming
Pastor, First Baptist Church, Richmond, Virginia
Sunday, October 9, 2005
We humans are much better at beginnings than we are
endings. We would rather hold in our arms a baby than visit a nursing home. We
like daybreak better than midnight. Think of all of the books we begin to read
but don’t finish. The truth is we love to say hello; it’s harder to say
goodbye. We like beginnings better than endings. And when you turn to John’s
Gospel you really see this because his gospel begins crisp, precise, deep,
profound. “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the
Word was God. Nothing came into being except through Him.” When you get to the
ending of John’s Gospel, it’s as if you have two endings.
Turn in your Bible please to John 21.
If you look now at John 20, it is a post resurrection
chapter. It’s after Jesus has been raised from the dead. The early part of it,
the disciples are cowering in fear, and then Jesus appears to Magdalene, and
then later on in the chapter to the disciples. He breathes peace upon them and
gives them a task and the purpose for living. Look at the last verse. “These
are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and
that by believing you may have life through his name.” End of the gospel,
right? Well, your eye catches something; it says chapter 21 and the first word
is “afterward.” It’s as if chapter 21 not an after thought. It’s a little bit
like when we write a letter and we finished it and we’ve addressed the
envelope. We’re folding the letter, and we are about to put it in, put a
stamp. Oh, and we remember something, so we take the letter and we put a P.S.
right? Have you ever done that?
John 20 and 21, if you were to read them side by side is
like John had a “Oh, I forgot to mention that,” and that’s John 21. And so
almost all of the scholars say John has two endings. Maybe … and I would guess
maybe that’s how 21 got in here. John remembered that incredible day on the Sea
of Galilee in a boat when he had breakfast at Galilee. But, the way the Lord
has used it is that through the years we begin realize John 21 tells us an
incredibly important message. Hear it. At the ending that God is in, there is
always a new beginning.
Let me tell you the story. If you will let your eye kind
of travel with me through the early verses of 21, the resurrection has happened.
Jesus has appeared twice to his disciples but the appearances have been so
brief and they feel such loss. His physical presence isn’t there. Did they
imagine they saw Him? Did they dream it? So they go home maybe to think it
over, seven of them, made the trek from Jerusalem back to Galilee, not a short
journey, and when they got there Simon Peter said. “Let’s go fishing” and the
seven did. Not because it was their hobby, it was their living. They had earned
their keep; it was their business fishing. Had been for all of those years
until Jesus walked by and said, “Your nets can wait, follow me” and they did,
followed him until. As they got in the boat that day, or really it would have
been late afternoon, and the ones who took the oars got them away from the bank
and into the deep when they could put up the sail. I imagine their thoughts
just were everywhere of the last three years, of the last incredible days, the
crucifixion and then the appearances of the Lord. Suppose you put yourself in
their places. They get out in the middle of the lake of the sea, the Sea of
Galilee. Now these guys who have been away from it for three years, they don’t
pull out rods and reels. They fish with heavy nets, nets with seaweed on them
and fish scales, and they pick those nets up together. When we fish in America
with nets, almost always it’s an individual thing. Over there, it’s a
togetherness thing. And do you know what? They hadn’t lost the coordination of
it at all. They picked up those old heavy nets. They knew because they had
been away so long that the next morning their muscles would be a little grouchy,
but they had the muscle memory that allowed them to do it. But through the
night, they fished and it turned out to be a disaster. Time after time, they
threw the nets out, and they caught absolutely nothing. One of them doubtless
said “You know maybe everything has changed since we left, but I don’t remember
us ever being out here we didn’t catch anything.” And in the midst of their
emptiness, empty of net and empty of heart, they began to hear a voice.
Did you hear that? At that point, they are spiritually
stuck. As Michael Yaconelli would say, “They are stuck in their stuckness.”
They are stuck because they can’t go back. They can’t go back to Jerusalem.
Jesus isn’t there anymore, and yet they can’t pick up their fishing. Nothing is
biting. Stuck, if you are in stuckness, may I suggest that you are going to
need some stepping stones to get across the stuck river. And the first one is
to hear the voice. I can see Peter punching John saying, “Did you hear
anything? Did you hear that?” And from the shore, from a person they can’t see,
they hear the voice, the first stepping stone, listen to the voice that is
within you. It is the voice of God so often in your stuckness, in your need for
a new beginning, in your puzzle-ness about the next step, in your weariness with
what the past has had. Listen to the voice because the voice that you hear is
apt to be the spirit of God shuffling around in your soul. And they listened to
that voice, and John finally understood what was happening. The voice said put
your net on the other side of the boat—the right side of the boat and they did.
They had nothing to lose and all of a sudden the fish were everywhere and the
whole area around the boat alive with fish.
One of the writers of our day wrote, “A woman described her
dark night to me. It is as if God lifted the lid of a music box in a dark room
inside of me and then vanished. It’s a beautiful tune, a new sound and hearing
it I can’t forget, but I am like a child, leaving my nursery, stumbling through
a dark house in search of the music maker.” That’s where the disciples were…in
search of the music maker. The Lord Christ who had made music in their lives,
and He wasn’t there anymore. And then they heard the voice. They heard, “Do
something different. Put your net on the other side.” And John says as he
figures it all out, it’s the Lord. Let me tell you something it is possible
that this morning in your heart and in your mind, needing a new start or stuck
or wondering the next step or wondering what you are going to do, the Lord is
moving and the voice that is stirring around inside it very well could be the
Lord, and John says it’s the Lord.
And Simon Peter, always the first to act, jumps out of the
boat and swims to the shore, and by the way, leaves all the work for everybody
else. That breakfast in Galilee turned out to be not the celebration of an
ending, but the announcement of a beginning. You see instead of being a dark
ending to everything, it began with the beginners beginning a new journey. Let
me tell you something about the spiritual life. So often you come to a place
where you are called to be a beginner again and to be begin again. Well, if you
are going to be a beginner again, what’s another stepping stone across the river
of being stuck. Do something different; put the net down on the other side. We
say “think out of the box” or “live out of the box.” In that day in time it was
the same thing as saying put your net on the other side of the boat.” Let me
ask you something. If you are trying to put your life back together or if you
are trying to do something a little courageous for the Lord, what is the one
thing He’d like for you to do differently, to change? Well, you say, “I’m fine.
Yeah, I’m in great shape.” Okay, what is the one thing that will make you even
more effective? What is the one change? What is the one difference?
The third of the stepping stones is this. Love somebody in
need. You see after they have had breakfast and Jesus has fixed fish and
bread. Fish and bread, reminds me of when we took the boys, they were
teenagers, to the Holy Land. We made a big trip like you hope you can always do
with your family, and one of the stops was the Holy Land. I don’t remember
where we stayed, but I do remember what they served us for breakfast—fish and
bread and veggies. And I remember one morning, our oldest saying, “What I
wouldn’t give for some scrambled eggs and bacon.”
Jesus was fixing what they were used to—fish and bread, and
when it was all over, He got Peter aside. And He said, “Peter, do you love
me?” There is a little inner play here on words. Some people make a great deal
of difference between the two words. One of them is agapol and the other one
filio. Don’t have to worry about them, except they are different words, and
some people exalt one above the other. That’s risky business cause back in the
20th chapter, second verse, the lesser of the words in some people’s
view is the very word that is described. The disciple Jesus loved. It isn’t
agapol; it’s filio. So they are used interchangeably. And Simon Peter says,
“Lord you know I love you. Now we’d expect Jesus to say, “Then why in world did
you betray be on the night I needed you the most.” Or He might have said, “If
you love me, on your knees and worship me.” Jesus didn’t say anything about
himself; didn’t say anything about his crucifixion. You know what He said,
“Take care of my people.” He turned the whole focus on somebody in need. He
uses four words, and every one has to do with shepherding. It’s pouring out
your love in behalf of somebody else. It gets you out of yourself. Let me ask
you, who is it in the circumference of your life, on the horizon of your duties
every day that needs your love? And Jesus says, “Go find somebody that you can
love and in loving them, you will make all of the difference.”
The fourth of these stepping stones is maybe the most
important. I have mentioned it already. Every ending when God is in it has a
new beginning. You say I don’t know whether that’s true or not. Well, hang in
there with me.
On Tuesday of this week, having said goodbye to John
Simmons on Monday, we arrived here at the church to hear that our dear and
beloved Jimmy Walthall had been killed in an accident. We were crushed and we
were shattered. Jimmy was family, and after his retirement many years ago, he
spent almost more time here than any place else. He was here every day of the
week sometimes, unless it was election time and then of course, he was big shot
in the election process. He took care of the overlooked stuff, the kind of
little bitty things. His was a life of the triumph of the tiny, and on that
Tuesday morning when we gathered together in a room, we just had to be
together. That’s what grief does to you, and it’s wonderful; and when with your
Christian brothers and sisters, all of a sudden the Lord is there. And we are
gathering together and we’re weeping and we’re sharing Jimmy stories. Everybody
has a Jimmy story. Jimmy was a unique and special individual. For example, he
never learned to drive. Anybody here who hasn’t given Jimmy a ride somewhere?
He never married. He never forgot one item of Virginia history and he loved to
talk about it and so there was no such thing a short conversation with Brother
Jimmy. He never threw anything away, but he always knew where to find stuff.
On that Tuesday morning, I sat there in awe, in my tears,
as we shared, as we prayed, as we wept and then prayed some more and then shared
some more; and I sat in awe how everyone in that room had been touched by a
quiet person who loved them. Custodians, food service, secretaries, bookkeeper,
the pastors—we were all alike. He had made a difference you see in our lives,
and ever since that day, I have had trouble keeping my composure. Tears come;
be driving down the road and realize. Five generations of Walthalls have come
to a close or has it? For one thing, some of you are going to step up and do
what he did. That is the way it works. But let me tell you about Jimmy, it’s
an ending for us; it’s a beginning for him. Oh and how he loved adventure; he
never grew old. He was a kid at heart to the last, and don’t you know he is
having a good time in heaven, and he and Dr. Adams are getting caught up. You
can be sure of that.
And there’s a song Becky gave me from Don Wyrtzen, and it
goes like this: Just thinking of stepping on shore and finding it heaven, of
touching a hand and finding it God’s, of breathing new air and finding it
celestial, waking up in glory and finding it home.
For us, it’s an ending. For every believer who goes home
to be with the Lord, it’s a beginning. Just think about waking up in glory and
finding it home. Breakfast in Galilee. It begins with the inner heart you have
saying, “It’s the Lord.” It continues with making a difference, and it takes
another stride out into the deep when you find somebody to love who is in great
need, and then to believe from the bottom of your heart that every ending in
God’s grace is a new beginning.
Pray with me, will you? With your head bowed and your eyes
closed, I ask you some quick questions. Do you know the Lord personally? Can
you say it’s the Lord? Are you willing to be courageous and do something
different? Change something in your life? Is it possible that even now the
Lord is whispering in your heart that there is somebody you know who needs your
love and who is in great need of it right now? And can it be that just now you
can reaffirm your belief that every exit is an entrance and that in God’s grace
every ending is a new beginning?
|
