Sermon given by Rev. Frank Clarkson, April 27, 2025.
You know that Easter is not just a day, but a season, right? In the church calendar, Easter season lasts for fifty days, all the way to the Pentecost. After the flowers have faded and the eggs and candy are gone (right?), this season of Easter remains.
In the same way that at this time of year we need the season of spring—we need it, don’t we?—I’m here to tell you that we need more than one day of Easter. Who among us isn’t ready for spring? After the winter, after the decreasing daylight of fall; after the pains and losses and heartache that come with being human; we need the sound of peepers, and birdsong, the feel of warmer air coming through the open window and the sun on our faces.
Every year about this time, driving up the highway, I turn up the stereo and sing along to Bruce Springsteen’s invitation that feels just right for this time of year:
With a chance to make it good somehow
Hey, what else can we do now?
Except roll down the window
And let the wind blow back your hair… (Thunder Road)
Today I want to invite you to consider Easter’s invitation, similar to spring’s, to find life where it seemed there was only death. I invite you to think theologically and spiritually with me, and see what we can find in the stories we have of Jesus after Easter, the part of the story that comes after what’s called the resurrection. I don’t want to spend our time asking if this supernatural event is even possible, but rather, inviting you to enter into the mystery of this symbolic story. Can we take a look around and see if there’s anything valuable hidden in there?
There are no stories of the risen Christ in the Gospel of Mark, which is the earliest of the four gospels; Mark ends with the empty tomb. But Jesus after death does appear in later gospels; Jesus showing up among his friends and followers. In these stories he seems like a regular guy, a fellow traveler, until someone notices, “Oh—it’s you.” Isn’t that interesting? The famous minister and activist William Sloane Coffin explains it this way; he said, “It’s clear that Christ’s appearances were not those of a resurrected corpse, but more akin to intense visionary experiences.”
My favorite of these stories comes from the end of John’s gospel. The disciples have gone back to their work as fishermen, and one night they’re out in a boat on the Sea of Galilee, hauling their nets. At first light a figure appears on the shore, and he asks them the question fishermen most often get asked: “You catching anything?”
When they say, “No,” he tells them:
“Throw your net on the right side of the boat and you will find some.” When they did, they were unable to haul the net in because of the large number of fish (John 16:6).
There’s a lesson embedded in this little part of the larger story: “throw your nets out on the other side.” Haven’t we all had times in life when it seems that things have dried up and lost their vitality? When no matter how hard you try, nothing seems to be working right?
Aren’t Jesus’ words to his friends about fishing applicable to all kinds of things in life? He's saying, “Try something different.” Not to quit or run away, but try a new approach. What you’re seeking may be very near you, perhaps you only need to change your outlook or your approach. Perhaps you only need someone to tell you, “There are fish in there to be caught; keep on trying, but change things up a little. Maybe you’re trying too hard."
I’m not suggesting it’s easy to change, especially when things aren’t going well. I’ve been known to keep banging my head against a wall, getting more and more frustrated. Which isn’t the best strategy. It can be hard to change, but what’s the alternative? To stop trying, to give up, to resign yourself to how things are? No—that’s not who we are!
Isn’t this what it means to be a person of faith? To hold on to hope, especially when things seem hopeless. To be open to both the sorrow and the beauty of life; the frustration as well as the joy; to not turn away from the pain and suffering of the world; rather, to bear witness to it, and see what you can do to fix it, and bless it. As they say, to be “Easter people in a Good Friday world.”
After Jesus tells his friends, “Try fishing on the right side,” and it works, one of the guys in the boat recognizes him. “It’s the Lord,” he says. After they’ve hauled in all those fish, he calls out to them, “Come and have breakfast.” By the time they get to shore, he’s got a fire going, and they sit around and eat together, sharing bread and fish. Remind you of another story?
I love the earthiness of this story: those guys out in a boat at night, then at daybreak seeing their friend on the shore, then Jesus starting a fire and cooking them breakfast. I love that the disciples were fishermen and other working folk. In our stained glass Jesus here, he’s certainly a cleaned-up version of the original, isn’t he? How else have we been taught to take the real life earthiness out of the stories we heard in church? How much has the church and our society sanitized the liberating and subversive message of the gospels, which are meant to be good news, especially to those at the margins?
I believe that Jesus was at heart a universalist. That he had experienced God‘s love as so deep and so vast that he understood that none of us are beyond it, that nobody should be left behind. He said “Come unto me all you that labor and are heavy laden and I will give you rest. He didn’t say some of you, he didn’t say those of you who think or believe the right way. He said all of you.
In this month when we’re reflecting on “equity,” aren’t these stories about an itinerant preacher and healer, with a soft spot for the outcast and downtrodden and those in need; aren’t they a needed antidote to the meanness of these days? Aren’t they a welcome rebuttal to the black or white, either-or thinking you find in so many parts of the church and the culture? One of my teachers who wrote a book called Saving Jesus from Those Who Are Right (Carter Heyward), says that “those who are right can be any of us when we are too sure that we have all the answers. The subversive stories of Jesus’ ministry can help us remember that might doesn’t make right, that in the end love does win, and that we all need companions for the journey.
At the end of the story, Jesus looks at Peter, the one who, when the going had gotten tough, had denied knowing him not once, not twice, but three times. And he asks Peter, “Do you love me?” Peter answers, “Yes, you know that I love you.” And Jesus says, “Feed my lambs. Take care of my sheep.”
Which is the point, isn’t it? To love and care for one another. And isn’t it this loving and being loved which will help open us up to the fullness of life, and to receiving its blessings? And this is what Easter season, and this season of spring, invite us in to—opening up, like a flower, receiving the sunshine and the rain, opening up to the wonder and the mystery all around us, that could be right here, hiding in plain sight.
Truly, we live with mysteries too marvelous
to be understood. (Mary Oliver wrote)
How grass can be nourishing in the
mouths of the lambs.
How rivers and stones are forever
in allegiance with gravity
while we ourselves dream of rising.
How two hands touch and the bonds will
never be broken.
How people come, from delight or the
scars of damage,
to the comfort of a poem.
Let me keep my distance, always, from those
who think they have the answers.
Let me keep company always with those who say
“Look!” and laugh in astonishment,
and bow their heads.
Look, dear ones! Isn’t it wonderful—the blessings around us, hiding in plain sight? Let us, in this season of change and possibility, keep our eyes open, and our hearts open, to the promise of new life, to the rebirth of wonder, so that we can receive these gifts, and partake in these mysteries.
Now and forever,
Amen.