Listening in
From time to time I meet people who I kind of recognise but without any great certainty of who they are ! Sometimes a conversation takes place, where I have to ask some embarrassingly vague questions in the hope that something will dawn on me. I’m glad to know that I’m not alone in this though – this week I was reading about the conductor, Sir Thomas Beecham who was attending a prestigious reception. He was in conversation with someone he recognised but whose name he could not recall. He began the conversation desperate to find out the mystery person’s identity.
‘So are you well?’ He asked,
‘Yes thank you’
‘And the family ?’
‘Yes they are fine’
‘And your husband, is he well ?’
‘Yes very well thank you.’
‘And is he um… still in the same line of business ?’
‘Yes’ replied the lady, ‘He is still King.’
As Saul went along the
Like Sir Thomas Beecham I think Saul vaguely recognised the person who was speaking – but he wasn’t totally sure – surely the stories that he’d heard about Jesus weren’t true, surely there couldn’t be some great plan for his life.
This was Saul, a man committed to the murder of Christians and the elimination of the faith they stood for, but now he was confronted head on by his greatest enemy, and he had no option but to admit that he was beaten, his old life was over, and it was time for changes in his life. His life, even his name, would never be the same again.
This is the transforming power that God can exercise in the lives of people. The transformation that calls people to radically evaluate what they do or think or say, in the light of the presence of Jesus in their lives…
Today’s readings are about voices from God, and listening and responding to the voice. Like Saul, John heard voices from heaven which he wrote down in the Book of Revelation – he had such a vision of heaven that he could see and hear God being praised by thousands and thousands, ‘To the one seated on the throne and to the Lamb, be blessing and honour and glory and might for ever.’
Today voices from heaven revealed in the way that John revealed them would probably be written off as some sign of madness, and maybe there are some who claim God speaks to them who are a bit mad, but God still speaks…
God speaks in all kinds of ways to us – it may be in words that we can clearly understand in our minds, or it may be through the words of others, or it may just be in the events that are happening all around us all of the time. In today’s gospel reading (John 21:1-19), the risen Lord, the Messiah, the Saviour of the world, the person who has bought with his own blood the salvation of anyone who calls on him, is making breakfast for his disciples.
It’s an incredible account because of its simplicity. Jesus should surely have been marching on the
But maybe those would be our actions – Jesus had no such thoughts. He bore no malice, no hatred, no resentment… There was no need for any revenge or hostility. In his victory over death he had merely accomplished what he had come to do, and now it was time for breakfast.
So why didn’t he do what we’d have done, and why didn’t he make it easier for the disciples to go about preaching about a man risen from the dead by revealing himself to even more people. The answer to that question is contained throughout the Bible – an account of our relationship with God throughout history. A relationship that is built on God’s love and our response to that love.
Throughout the Bible God has never forced people to love him because love cannot be forced. But throughout the Bible time and time again God is giving people second and third and fourth chances to come back to him and enjoy a relationship. God gives us the freewill to make up our own minds about where we put God in our lives. Painful as that answer may be sometimes for God, he would have it no other way.
Jesus made those disciples breakfast because he still had something to teach them. Three times he questioned an increasingly frustrated Peter, ‘Do you love me ?’ Three times Peter said that he did – just as three times he had rejected Jesus prior to the crucifixion. But whilst Jesus repeated the question he also gave him something different each time as well. First Jesus told Peter to ‘Feed my lambs’, then he said to ‘Tend my sheep’, and the third time he told him to ‘Feed my sheep’.
Jesus, at this breakfast, was feeding and tending his sheep. He was providing them with food. He was sitting right there amongst them, and he was calling the disciples to mission. Jesus didn’t go out showing off after the resurrection – that was never going to be his way. He just stayed with people, and urged them to go and tell and show others the difference he could make in their lives.
Comments