RESURRECTION POSTCRIPT

John 21:4-11

What a night, what a story. What a mess!

Who tried Jesus? Pilate alone? Herod? Pilate and Herod? Caiaphas? Who was there at the cross? Matthew: soldiers, Chief Priests, scribes and elders, bystanders, the now famous Centurion, many women at a distance, including Mary Magdalene; another Mary and another mother (of the sons of Zebedee). Mark: soldiers, folks passing by, those bystanders again, Chief Priests and scribes, Mary Magdalene, another Mary and Salome and many other women. Luke: a great crowd, soldiers, that Centurion; his acquaintances including women from Galilee—at a distance. John: Soldiers, Mary the mother of Jesus, two other Marys and the discipline whom Jesus loved.

What did Jesus say? Depends on which gospel you read. Luke has three last words that no one else has: Father, forgive them…Truly, I tell you today…Father, into your hands… John has his own three, exclusively: I thirst, Woman, behold…It is finished. Matthew and Mark share My God, My God…

Who was at the tomb? Matthew: Mary Magdalene, and the other Mary and guards. Mark: Mary Magdalene Another Mary and Salome; Luke: They came, the women, later identified as Mary Magdalene, Joanna another Mary and other women; John: Mary Magdalene alone; then she brings Peter and the disciple whom Jesus loved. Or answered another way, Who was at the tomb? One woman, two women, three women, or a group of women!

Who was in the tomb: take your pick—an angel, then Jesus, that’s Matthew; a young man in a white robe, Mark; two men in dazzling clothes, Luke; or two angels in white, then Jesus, that’s John. If you assigned the task of telling the story of the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus to four groups working independently in each of the gospels, they couldn’t agree on what happened, they’d fight and start separate churches! Tellico North and Tellico South. That’s before deciding on grape juice or wine; baptizing infants or not. We should not be surprised though, this follows upon the Christmas stories—Matthew has Jesus born in a house and the intrigue and tragedy of wise men and Herod—not a shepherd or singing angels or a manger anywhere in sight!

We don’t know what happened that night or that Easter morning we call glorious. Mark’s gospel appears at least 30 years after the resurrection, how reliable is that? Who killed John F. Kennedy, Lee Harvey Oswald acting alone? Without a doubt, there was a man named Jesus, and he was crucified by the Romans. Nothing else is certain. Yet, two thousand years later we can say in full confidence: Christ is risen! Christ is risen, indeed! Our very presence here this morning is a witness to that powerful truth.

And it is still a great story, whatever the details and a great faith is transmitted through the story of the gospel. The whole truth is never in the details, that is way fighting over pieces of text is destructive, that is why it is dangerous to wield scripture like a weapon, turning passages into sharp knives, spikes, blunt instruments; wounding, separating and dividing the body of Christ, the family of God.

The scriptures are a witness to the power of that one marvelous life and a beautiful window into the faith the early church. And in this fuller context every word, every detail is a story unto itself. Like this business of the 153 fish…

What about these disciples, what are you going to do with them? They leave home to follow him, they are with more than anyone, know him better than anyone, they go through heaven and hell right here on earth with him, they love him and revere him nothing in life after Jesus will equal the drama of the last days, the last night. And when he is gone from them, brutally taken from them and crucified—where do they go? what do they do? Peter, grab that net would you please, lets throw it out the starboard side, I know there are some fish out there with our names on their fins. They go fishing. They go fishing. And if they caught something they wouldn’t be our disciples would they? He bails them out as usual and they catch, count them 153 fish.

Why not about 150 as when he said the shore was about 100 yards off? Or as a positive pastor might say of worship attendance last Sunday, We had about 200. Scholars through the ages have had a field day with this one. Among the mathematical approaches: 153 is the sum of all the numbers from 1 to 17. Seventeen? 10 commandments and 7 gifts of the spirit. 9 choirs on angels and 8 beatitudes. That’s Augustine. Another (Hoskyns) suggests that 153 dots can be arranged into an equilateral triangle with 17 dots on each side, a numerical symbol of perfection. And seventeen is made up of numbers which symbolized completeness, 10 and 7. Seven disciples are mentioned at the beginning of the 21^st chapter of John.

Or how about the allegorical approach: Cyril of Alexandria breaks 153 down to 100, 50 and 3, with 100 representing the fullness of the Gentiles, 50, the remnant of Israel, and three—you guessed it, the trinity. Another scholar theorizes that 153 is the sum of the numerical value of the Hebrew letters in the expression, the church of love. Sounds suspiciously like Flip Wilson’s The Church of What’s happening now! Of course that phrase never appears in the gospel of John. How about 100 Southern Baptists, 50 Methodists, and 3 community church folks from Tellico Village?

I’m going with the biological\historical approach that, though flawed as well, is in the spirit of the others. This one says 153 represents every known species of fish at that time. We are all there in that load of large fish. Every one of us: Hindu, Muslim, Christian, Jew, atheist, red and yellow, black and white. Brown too. Especially brown, shades of brown, the colors of humanity in the years to come. We are all there, not one left out. Tennessee Volunteer fans and—who’s your worst enemy? The University of Florida? Miami? They’re in that catch too: Laker fans and Charlotte Hornets’ fans as well.

Leroy is in that number. Now, you don’t know Leroy. He is the boy who used to beat me up every day of my miserable fourth grade life, until his parents—Thank you Jesus—moved away and took him with them. Women and men, gay and straight, republican and democrat, liberal and conservative, all of us are in that number. The first world and the third world too, and whatever is in-between, all are in that catch. This is so much out of touch with the scorching varieties of cleansing in our time and which characterized the thought of one of our Puritan forefathers (Nathaniel Ward) who wrote:

My heart has naturally detested four things: The standing of the Apocrypha in the bible; foreigners dwelling in my country, to crowd out our native subjects into the corners of the earth; alchemized coins; toleration of diverse religions, or of one religion in segregant shapes.

And don’t think for a moment that native subjects refers to those who were already here when the Puritans arrived. That spirit has never died in our national life, it rages now as mean spirited and narrow minded as ever—on every continent of our world. Reminds me of the prayer, Lord bless me and my wife, my son and his wife, we four and no more.

When Michelle Kwan took the silver medal in the Olympics a few years ago, one of the newspapers in a fair sized city read: AMERICAN BEATS KWAN. Tara Lipinski. Michelle Kwan. What’s the difference? Every kind of fish, that’s the vision, the message of this resurrection postscript; no one is left out. Marty mentioned my recent trip to Nigerian and Ghana. The child I saw a few weeks ago on the streets of Lagos, in his mother’s arms—with a head the size of a basketball. That child is not left out. The man begging on the streets with an open wound running down his chest. He is not left out. The person reduced to a dead body left on the streets—that one too—is included in the catch of great fish.

There are glimpses of John’s vision in our day as well, the news is not all bad.

My daughter was traveling in Italy last summer. We’d gone to the wedding of my wife’s niece. We all came home, my daughter stayed. Twenty-one years old. Backpack. Wanted to see Italy. Traveled around from place to place. Staying in youth hostels. One day, she couldn’t get a place to stay. There was no room in the inn. Hostel after hostel, traveling and criss-crossing the country by train. By nightfall, hungry, tired, frustrated, she just lost it. Fell apart, crying in the last place she was in.

Well, a young Dutch woman traveling with her 4 year-old son, heard what was going on, and offered Megan to share her bed. Her four-year old son – they’re having dinner and my daughter comes to understand that this little kid – a biracial kid – the mother’s Dutch – white, the father’s from Ghanda, Travels quite a bit and isn’t home much. The child is this wonderful shade of brown.

Megan comes to understand that this little kid thinks that when you’re little, you’re brown and when you grow up, you turn white like his mother and all the other Dutch people he lives around. So his mother says, “Well, look at Megan, she’s all grown up and she’s pretty and she’s brown.” And the little fellow looks at her as if he’s seeing her for the first time and he says, “That’s right!”

And that little story says it all for me. The kindness of strangers, the innocence of youth. The mixed up holy colors of the human family. The surprise of new truth.

Jesus told them to cast those nets over the right side of the boat. And they took in 153 fish. Every kind of fish, no one left out, and the net was not torn. Amen!

Michael Livingston.