The Third Sunday of Easter

The Ven. Richard I. Cluett

How do we recognize the Risen Christ today?

In the gospel reading we have the disciples, who have gone back to their everyday lives, bringing their boat back to the beach after a long, unsuccessful night of fishing. Jesus is standing on the shore calling out to them, but they do not know that it is Jesus. They had trouble recognizing the Risen Christ even when he was right in front of them.

Now here are you and I two millennia later, and I think we are faced with the same dilemma, the same question; how do we recognize the risen Christ while we are in the midst of our own everyday lives? How do we know it is Jesus who calls? How do we know it is Jesus who stands right in front of us?

How do we even come to know Jesus at all in our own day and time? It was so difficult for those who were with him way back then in his day and time.

We heard in the reading from Acts that Saul, who was a very devout man of God, a leader in the faith, thought that Jesus was a revolutionary, disturber of the peace, fomenting insurrection that would bring down everybody with it. He was so convinced the he knew precisely who Jesus was, what Jesus was, what Jesus was doing, that he dedicated his life to ridding the world of his followers.

So how did Saul come to know the real Jesus? This is how: “suddenly a light from heaven flashed around him. He fell to the ground and heard a voice saying to him, "Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?" He asked, "Who are you, Lord?" The reply came, "I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting.”

He came to know Jesus, because Jesus smacked him down! Gave him a hit upside the head to get his attention. He gave him a timeout, so that he nothing to do but ponder and learn and get to know Jesus and eventually to follow Jesus in his way.

The writer Flannery O’Connor once said of Paul, “I reckon the Lord knew that the only way to make a Christian out of that one was to knock him off his horse.” Not that the scripture says that Paul was on a horse. But we get the idea.

The story of Saul’s conversion to faith and the apostleship of Paul – by the way, his real name was Saulus Paulus. Saul as his fellow Jews called him was known by his more formal name, Paul, out in the wider Greco-Roman world – his story has almost become the standard by which all conversions have come to be judged. “I had a Damascus Road experience.”

Some people have, indeed, come to know Jesus through such a powerful, cataclysmic, life-altering experience. But I confess to you this morning that I am not numbered among them. I have not had a Damascus Road type encounter with the risen Christ.

There are moments when I envy those who have had such an encounter. Things become so clear, so absolute, so sure. No doubt about it. “Yup, that was the moment when I came to know Jesus.” Sometimes I think that would have been nice. Other times I am not sure that I want a smack down by Jesus.

But nevertheless I have not met Jesus that way. How about you? Think for a moment, remember when you come know Jesus as the risen Christ, as the Lord of life, as the Son of God, as the way to live out your life? Remember…

By the way, if you are here today, this morning, in church, in a worship service, you know Jesus. You may not know all about Jesus. You may not know Jesus as well as you want to, but you know Jesus. How do you think that happened? How is that you have come to know Jesus well enough to seek him?

As for me, the knowing of Jesus is just something that has grown in my heart, little by little, moment by moment, day by day, challenge by challenge. Even for someone such as I –  a priest, a professional believer – Jesus has at times been elusive, absent, a low priority, confusing, frightening, demanding, inconvenient, forgotten.

But what I have come to know over all these days and years is that Jesus is always, always, always seeking me out and seeking you out. I have learned that Jesus is the main character in any conversion story. It is Jesus who changes lives. It is Jesus who changes my life and your life. All we have to do is to want him to be in our lives. All we have to do is to let him be in our lives. And then we will know him and we will meet him in all the moments of our lives, in the people in our lives – be they family, friend or stranger, near neighbor or man, woman, or child across the world.

All we have to do to know Jesus is to want to; to want him in our lives; to want him in our hearts. That is the grace. That is the Amazing Grace.

Amazing grace, how sweet the sound,

That saved a wretch like me.

I once was lost but now am found,

Was blind but now I see.

Jesus. We do the seeking, Jesus does the finding. And before we have thought to seek him, we have been found by him. Amazing grace.

Do you want to see Jesus? You can and you will. If you seek him you will find him, because he is seeking you. You may meet him in church. You may meet him in your work or play. You may meet him in prayer. You may meet him in the bread and wine of Holy Communion. You may meet him in a stranger. You may meet him in a loved one. You may meet him in a need that is presented to you. But rest assured he has found us already.

If we find him and later lose him, if we lose our way, we simply seek him again. And we will find him and know him. We will know again that he is our peace. That he is where we will know God’s love and mercy and forgiveness. That he is where we will find what it is we are to do.

We hear his words to Peter, Simon son of John. And because we know Jesus they are for us too.

“Do you love me? Follow me.”

In the name of Jesus, the Risen Christ. Amen.