Grace and peace to you from the one who is, and who was, and who is to come.

Mark Twain said that history doesn’t repeat itself, but it sure does rhyme.  I think this sentiment has really been taken to heart over the course of the financial troubles we have been living through; if I had a nickel for every time I heard a talking head on TV explain how our times are similar but not exactly the same as the Great Depression - in other words, that the two have a certain rhyming quality with one another - my economic problems would be over.  As with many things, we here in the church were way ahead and have been doing the rhyming thing for quite some time.  Even though our readings change each year, they seem to rhyme with one another – traveling over the same thematic ground. 

Even though the lilies have all been taken from our worship space and you can once again sit in YOUR pew, we are still in the season of Easter, so we are still rhyming with what happened two weeks ago.  The gospel from two weeks ago, from last week and today all seem to rhyme with one another.  Two weeks ago, we listened to and read the story of Jesus coming back to comfort, and surprise, Mary and Peter at the tomb.  Jesus came back to live out the final part of his ministry proclaiming the arrival of God’s kingdom.  The way back to them, back to us, was not easy – he had to be raised from the dead to come back.  And after all that trouble, the disciples didn’t recognize him.  But Jesus made himself known to them, calling them by name and breaking bread with them as he had done so many times before. 

Last week, the gospel rhymed as Jesus returned a second time.  Again, he arrived in the midst of his disciples, and again there was some difficulty in recognizing Jesus.  This difficulty was to the point that Thomas had his famous doubts as to whether Jesus really rose from the dead or if the person his compatriots saw was, in fact, Jesus.  But just as Jesus overcame death to return the first time, the second time he came back he overcame these doubts as well as the shock, sadness, and apprehension that surely accompanied them.  He made himself known to Thomas, baring the marks of the life and death he chose on his hands and his side. 

Today, for the third time in as many weeks, Jesus comes back and makes himself known.  If history rhymes, then today’s gospel is poetry: the disciples are gathered near the shore of the sea early in the morning, they haven’t caught any fish all night.  Then someone shows up and tells them to try casting their nets one more time, and they pull in a downright miraculous haul of fish – a hundred and fifty three, to be exact.  And in this abundance, Jesus made himself known to them. 

Well, not all of them.  It seems Peter didn’t put all these things together.  It was only when the mysterious “disciple whom Jesus loved” pointed it out to him that Peter realized the man on the shore was Jesus, coming back a third time.  Here Peter echoed the enthusiasm he’d had when he was called after that first miraculous catch of fish, dropping everything, leaving his boat and going to Jesus. 

Let me tell you, swimming a hundred yards fully clothed, and in the cold water of an early morning in April is not easy, and goes to show how determined Peter was to get to Jesus.  The eagerness we see in him as he jumps into the cold water and swims to the shore seems to rhyme with the assurance he gave Jesus weeks before that he would follow him anywhere.  Peter made it safely to the shore and joined Jesus there, but the morning then began to rhyme with a sadder part of Peter’s history.

Peter had once again shared a meal with Jesus, and was once again standing in front of a charcoal fire, and was once again being asked about his relationship with Jesus.  But the history of how he answered those three questions the first time was something Peter wished would never repeat itself.  Three times people asked Peter if he was a friend of that Jesus, the one inside the palace with Pilate and the priests.  Three times, Peter denied that he even knew the man he had left everything to follow. 

Jesus had already overcome Peter’s denial of him to stand that beach, and he gives Peter a second chance, a way to overcome the guilt that Peter had lived with. 

Three times Jesus asked Peter, “Do you love me?”  Three times, Peter told him he did.  And as Peter answered him, Jesus was inviting him to come back to the place he had held before that night.  This third time Jesus came back rhymed with the first two as he had to overcome the guilt that came between Peter and him.  And he made himself known to them, forgiving Peter’s mistakes and embracing him as someone worthy of God’s love.

Three times Jesus came back to be with his people, and each time, something stood in his way.  Love strong enough to overcome guilt, disbelief and death is an amazing love.  And as if we needed more proof of how amazing this love is, in today’s second lesson, we get a glimpse into what Jesus leaves behind in order to come back to us.  The throne Jesus leaves to come back to us is surrounded by a heavenly throng, singing his praises with joy.  I don’t know about you, but I would have an awfully hard time giving up this seat.  But Jesus’ love for us is stronger than any love he might have for getting the best seat, and so Jesus comes back for us.

Each of the three times Jesus came back, he made himself known – both in the sense of letting the disciples know it was him, and in the larger sense of revealing something about who he is.  We learn through all our senses about who God is from these three rhyming appearances.  We taste God’s abundant giving in the breaking of the bread.  We smell the aroma of God’s provision in the fish-infused smoke of burning coals.  We feel the marks of God’s unselfish love where he was wounded for our transgressions and crushed for our iniquities.  We hear the intimate way God knows each and every one of us as we are all called by name.  From all this we learn a lesson that goes beyond any one of our five senses – that Jesus will come back for us despite our sins or our guilt or our doubts.

One of the more intriguing characteristics about things that rhyme is that once you’ve figured out the pattern, it gives you a fairly good idea of what is going to come after it.  When Jesus came back the third time, he shared breakfast on the beach with Peter, letting him taste and smell that Jesus still loved him and came back to be by his side.  Our lives rhyme with Peter’s when we pass through the water in that font and share a meal with Jesus.  We taste and smell his body and blood, given for you, given for me.  Our senses of taste and smell in this meal overcome our sense of guilt and our sense of sin. 

We feel the rhyme between our lives and the second time Jesus came back and let Thomas feel his wounds when we feel Jesus’ coming back to us through the community of believers.  Jesus overcomes disbelief by pointing to real, tangible marks of a life lived in love for others.  I feel safe in assuming none of us have touched Jesus’ wounded hands, but we have come to believe through being touched by the hands of those who believe that God loves them and are eager to share that love with others.  After all, as one pastor pointed out, the lives of the faithful are the only gospel some people ever read. 

You may have noticed I’ve been missing one of our senses.  But the truth is sometimes our lives rhyme with the disciples’ lives in that we don’t always recognize God when we see him and we don’t always see where God is at work.  While I was working at the hospital, staffing the day shift on Sunday meant leading a spirituality group on the mental health unit.  One Sunday I breezed onto the floor, carrying all my carefully prepared outlines for worship and notes for a brief message.  My plan was to read some scripture, give a mediation on the gospel for the week and offer some prayers.  Much to my chagrin, I found out that the people who had gathered for the group meeting began to treat it more like a group therapy session than the well-ordered worship I had planned. 

It started to move off script after I offered a space for people to share their thoughts on the gospel reading and the meditation I had shared.  The people I had come to minister to wouldn’t let me get a word in edgewise.  What was even worse was how I started becoming irrelevant to the exchanges the folks there were having with one another.  As I took a break mentally to figure out how to get back on track, I gave my ears a chance.  What I heard opened my eyes.  What I saw then that I didn’t see at first was I wasn’t the one ministering to them – they were ministering to one another.  I began to see that God was at work for them in one another.  Once I recognized what I was seeing, I was able to get out of the way and let God work.  I didn’t see God there at first, but thanks be to him that moment of recognition rhymed with so many before it.

No matter which of our senses we come to know God through, we live by that sixth sense of God’s people – faith.  Our faith makes us know about the forgiveness Peter learned about the third time Jesus came back.  It makes us able to see the marks Thomas saw of life lived in love for others.  Our faith makes us know what Peter and Mary learned about God the first time Jesus came back for us, giving us the trust to believe in the promise that Jesus will overcome death to come back to us.  Through the sixth sense of faith, we know Easter is not just about repeating the story of Jesus being brought back to life long ago, it’s about looking for the places in each of our lives that rhyme with resurrection.

Amen