Sermon Tone Analysis

I speak to you in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit – Amen

 

 

Some weeks, when I am trying to prepare my sermon, I am faced with scripture that leaves me with the feeling of wondering where at all I could go

            This is not one of those weeks…

This week, the third week of the Easter season, we are not faced with subtly to sift through to try and find a message

            This week our scripture is big and bold

This week we are given three of the most referenced pieces of scripture in the whole post Easter New Testament

Each one, in their own way, reveals a layer of what it means to be people of the Easter Gospel message

 

Now I say Easter Gospel message for a very specific reason – and that is, the good news message of the resurrection

We are not looking to discovering some moral teaching during the life of Christ – life prior to the cross

Everything, today, has the shadow of the cross and the light of the resurrection through out it

                                    Therefore all of today’s scripture are filled with hopeful images and stories.

In today’s psalm, David exalts God who has lifted him “out of the depths,” healed him, and brought him “up from the grave.”

God turns David’s “wailing into dancing.”

In the reading from Revelation, millions of angels sing in a “loud voice.”

Imagine being there and hearing the thundering beauty of such a chorus, all singing praise to God’s lamb, Jesus.

And then imagine the rest of creation, “every creature in heaven and on earth and under the earth and on the sea” joining the chorus!

Acts tells the story of Saul’s conversion – from one issuing “murderous threats” against the early Christians to one proclaiming the gospel throughout the known world.

Finally, the Gospel of John paints a beautiful picture.

It’s dawn.

Jesus stands on the shore of the Sea of Tiberius.

Seven of the disciples had been fishing the previous night.

He tells them to drop their nets one more time on the other side of the boat, and for the first time that night their nets fill to overflowing.

What’s even more hopeful than the great catch, of course, is that the murdered Jesus… was alive, had been raised from the dead, and was there on the shore, roasting fish for them over an open fire.

It’s appropriate that our readings today contain such images and stories of hope.

After all, we have just celebrated Easter – we are, along with Christ, raised from the dead; that we can be released from our own prisons and be made whole.[1]

Beyond the vital message of hope - that is Easter

There is another common and important thread… it is the message that we now share because of Easter - it is the point of the cross and the resurrection - and it is the call on all our lives

It is the message that we are to Follow Jesus – that we are to be converted to His way

 

It is hard to speak of conversion in Christianity, without thinking of our Saul or Paul and the Damascus road

            For many that is the very model to a transformed life in Christ

                        Saul’s blinding light and the voice of Jesus stopping him in his tracks

Stopping the persecutor of the Christians – blinding him and converting him to become the most influential of all Christians

 

And so for many modern Christians – particularly those with a evangelical or fundamental background -  there is a tendency to believe that we all NEED to have a moment when we first became a Christian

            We all need to have a Damascus road experience

 

Maybe you have been asked – “when did you become a Christian?”

And the person is looking for you to answer with a date and time /‘when you gave your life to Christ’/

And if you answer with anything less then what they are looking for, you are made to feel, or even told, that you are not a real Christian – unless you prayed a special prayer and felt that moment of dramatic conversion, like the apostle Paul

 

This past week I heard of someone that experienced this exact situation of being asked /“when she became a Christian?”/

Now this person was raised in a family of faith and never had that dramatic moment and therefore there developed some very uncomfortable discussion and the other person would not let up

            When I heard this – it got me going – fired me up

Here was a situation where the people of the God – the church – were in conflict because one felt that there was only one way to come to Christ

And to make matters worst they were sitting in judgement over everyone else that didn’t experience conversion in the way they had

            To this I’ll tell you what I said to this faithful Christian

                        The ‘Damascus road or nothing attitude’ -  is wrong

And it can be very hurtful  - and in fact more uncommon then it is common

We don’t all have that major life changing moment - /‘when we were saved’ - /Or /‘when we became a Christian’/

 

In fact most of us don’t!

I mentioned that I remember reading a study which talked about conversion and compared main-line Protestants with more fundamental evangelical Christians

Where in main-line protestant Churches only 12% of the people would say that they had a Damascus road experience

And in more fundamental Christian churches, where this is more important – only 35% of the people would claim such a dramatic conversion moment

In both cases the majority of us have gradual awareness or awakening of our faith

 

Now it is true that Paul’s conversion story is an important story in which many of us might have experienced a similar situation

It is *a* model of conversion, where Paul was heading in the completely wrong direction – as the persecutor of the church and is converted and transformed to a completely different outlook on Christ

            But there are many conversion stories

 

We have moments in both the Old and the New Testament where God transformed someone deeply

Saul heard a voice and saw a blinding light and he was transformed

                        Jacob wrestles with the angel and is forever changed

Abram is put into a deep sleep and God makes a dramatic covenant with Him and all his descendants while he is sleeping

And Simon Peter is met by Jesus while trying to fish on the wrong side of the boat

 

All are transformed even to their very name

            Saul becomes Paul

            Jacob becomes Israel

            Abram becomes Abraham

            And Simon, son of John, is made whole and is called Peter

 

For Paul it was dramatic – for Jacob, there was *one* dramatic moment *and* many incidents in his life to becoming Israel

Abraham was about 75 when God made the Covenant with him and then 99 when God appeared again to him and changed his name to Abraham

And Peter’s story is yet again different – more gradual - and we see Peter, the impulsive disciple – journeying in one way then flip flopping back and forth making mistakes repeatedly

I would like to focus on Peter for the balance of sermon

 

It all began in a boat down by the lake... the reluctant dream of an impulsive fisherman who actually believed he might be involved with someone who was going to change the world.

That dream had come hard -- indeed at first he rejected the thought.

Someone like him associated with a holy man like the Carpenter from Nazareth?

Not on your life!

This Jesus who had the audacity to commandeer his boat and then tell a fisherman how to fish? "...we have worked all night long but have caught nothing -- (what's another empty net in a night filled with empty nets?) -- "Yet if you say so, I will let down the nets."

Then it happened!

"...they caught so many fish that their nets were beginning to break," Luke reports.

From that moment on, Simon Peter's life was defined by a dream.

There are all kinds of everyday dreamers like you and me who dream that somehow, someway, our lives might make a difference in this world.

Our childhood images were filled with, "Cinderella," "The Little Train that Could," or any of a hundred other tales that fired our hearts with the notion that we could -- if we hoped, prayed and worked hard enough -- make a real difference in our world!

But there [can be] a kind of a "downside" to dreams.

They are not always fulfilled and indeed, they sometimes crash and burn.

What an incredibly painful thing it is when dreams die.

Somewhere in most of our lives there is at least one dream that fell apart.

Some broken dreams may have to do with major issues that change the direction of our lives -- others are simply a temporary inconvenience, but most of us have been there.

The dream that had become the heartbeat of Peter's life was huge.

While most of us "have" dreams -- this dream "had" Peter.

[One way to fully appreciate the struggle of Peter's journey] is to examine some of the more powerful statements he made to Jesus during the course of their relationship.

By taking a closer look, we can trace, the rise and fall of Peter's [journey] in four amazing statements he made to Jesus and one he made at the end to a crowd of bystanders.

"Go away from me, Lord, for I am a sinful man!"

At the very beginning when Jesus had directed Peter to a "catch" so unbelievable, Peter was confronted with awesome divinity in the person of a carpenter from Nazareth and fell to his knees.

"Lord, if it is you, command me to come to you on the water."

Spoken when a boat, full of terrified disciples, saw Jesus walking toward them on the water.

Where we witness Peter's life changing desire to step out in faith.

"You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God."

Can you imagine Peter ever forgetting the day he identified the Messiah who then changed his name [from Simon to Peter] meaning "The Rock"?

 

"Even though I must die with you, I will not deny you."

Blurted out when things were coming unglued (at least in the disciple's view), Jesus has just said that all of them would desert him.

Peter's vehement response was a heartfelt affirmation of loyalty.

[Then]

 

"I do not know the man!"

These words must have stuck [like unrelenting heartburn] to Peter's soul for the rest of his life.