Loving the Risen Lord

April 25, 2022

Rev Dr. Shirley De Wolf

Today’s readings from the lectionary:

Psalm 122

Esther 7:1-10

Revelations 1:9-20

Verses for reflection:

“I know your deeds, your hard work, your perseverance.  I know that you cannot tolerate wicked people, that you have tested those who claim to be apostles, but are not, and have found them false. You have persevered and have endured hardships for my name, and have not grown weary. Yet I hold this against you: You have forsaken the love you had at first.” (Rev 2: 2-4)

John wrote to the 7 churches in Asia Minor about his encounter with the risen Christ who told him: “I am the Living One; I was dead, and now look, I am alive for ever and ever!” This revelation occurred many years after the resurrection, after the Gospel had started spreading beyond Palestine throughout the Mediterranean region, after the church had been established and was moving to become the formal institution we know today.  The risen Christ gave this message to John for the church at Ephesus: You have done everything right, worked hard, kept and protected the faith and grown the church.  But you have lost the love.  

To understand these words let’s go back to Palestine immediately after the resurrection.  The disciples were waiting with questions and uncertainty.  It is hard to imagine their confused frame of mind because we know what happened next, while they did not.  Word on the street was that Jesus’ project, though well-meant, was a failure.  That made the disciples were failures too.  Judas, close as he had been to Jesus, believed him to be a failure. Peter was having doubts about himself and his own failings. Other disciples must also have been worried.  And yet, by complete contrast, they had seen the risen Christ.  What did it all mean?  They had spent 3 amazing years with Jesus in the flesh, but how were they now to live with the risen Christ?  These were not learned theologians, they were practical men and women whose faith grew from their feet being on the ground, so they were looking for practical answers to their deeply theological questions.

The first thing they did was to leave Jerusalem and return to Galilee, back to the “normal” they once knew, familiar, trusted ground.  We humans don’t do well with instability and uncertainty.  Galilee was their comfort zone.  Simon Peter and the others took up fishing again – families had to be fed.  But after the resurrection there is no going back and the only “normal” is the one that is just about to unfold.  One day the risen Christ visited Peter and the others at the lake. It seemed like old times– Peter leaping impulsively from the boat, fresh fish frying on the fire, a quiet breakfast at the water’s edge.  And then came the question that would change Peter’s life and would release the Christian faith from being a parochial religion confined to a valley in northern Palestine and make it available to all God’s people across the face of the earth. “Simon Peter, do you love me?”

Despite his many stumblings it is clear that Peter had all along loved Jesus, so this was more than just an idle question from Jesus, it was a calling.  If you love me, then care for my sheep.  My sheep, not yours.  And if you are going to care for my sheep, then you must first of all love me.  Peter was going to learn to love Jesus more deeply as he met the many challenges Jesus sent him into.  Not the least of these was the summons in a dream to eat all sorts of forbidden meats, followed by the call to the Roman centurion Cornelius’s home in Caesarea.  Peter had been brought up in the Judaic belief that God had an exclusive relationship with his chosen people and he had faithfully kept all the rules that protected that relationship from impurities, so it went against every moral fiber of his being to accept hospitality from a non-Jew and to extend the open, uninhibited hand of Christ’s fellowship to Cornelius.  Feed my sheep, not yours, Jesus had said.  You do not choose.  Peter could not have cared for Jesus’ sheep if he hadn’t loved Jesus enough to break the rules against his own judgment. 

We too are faced with Jesus same question: Do you love me?  How we respond will determine our effectiveness as witnesses and participants in God’s work of transformation.  Jesus said: “ ‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind’. This is the first and greatest commandment.  And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbour as yourself’.”  All the teachings of the prophets and the laws  - about being faithful, denying self, worshipping, empathy for the poor and giving alms, persevering under oppression, condemning wrong, defending the faith - depend entirely on whether you love the Lord.  Do you love me? Only then can you feed my sheep.

Yesterday a woman told me of a friend in deep depression who had attempted suicide several times. The stricken woman was a Christian, but was reluctant to approach anyone in her church for help because she had witnessed more condemnation than acceptance of people in her circumstances.  I have often heard similar disturbing testimonies about our churches from people standing in the margins. How could this be possible - that we who are the church of Jesus are not approachable? Have we lost our love for the risen Christ who sends us to care for his sheep?  If so, we have lost our purpose. 

Zimbabwe is in many ways a story of failure – despite the fact that our country is full of faithful Christian followers.  Do we faithful followers truly love the risen Lord with a living, growing love?  Do we love him enough to go in search of those lost sheep described by Archbishop Desmond Tutu not as cute woolly lambs but as fractious old rams that cause everyone trouble and deliberately separate themselves from the herd so that they don’t have to live in harmony with others?  If we love the risen Lord above all else, the risen Lord will use us in ways we have never imagined to feed his sheep and our nation will be transformed.

Prayer:

O Risen Lord, you first loved us and it is because you reach out to us despite our failings that we know love. We love this nation, but we know that if we are to deliver the Good News that would transform all of its people and cultures and systems and institutions so that they reflect your goodness, we must first of all love you completely, above all else. We want to be able to say with Peter: “Yes Lord, I love you” and to mean that with all our heart, our soul and our mind.  Please enable us where we fall short.  Amen