Friday 1 September 2017

"It is the Lord!"

Then the disciple Jesus loved said to Peter, “It is the Lord!” John 21:7

How would you feel if one day you’re doing your job – a job you’ve been doing for many years and which you’re very good at – and some stranger comes along and starts giving you advice about it?

Say you’re a car mechanic with your head in the bonnet struggling to make a tricky adjustment, and somebody wanders into your garage and says, “Mmm, that carburettor looks a bit dodgy, don’t you think?” Or you’re a cardiac surgeon rummaging around inside somebody’s heart and someone drifts into the operating theatre and comments on the way you’re dealing with a particular artery?

You probably wouldn’t feel, as they say, best pleased. You might even tell them to, er, go away.

And who could blame you?

The disciples of Jesus had a strange waiting period of forty days between his resurrection and the coming of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost. Oh, they knew he was alive, all right – in fact from time to time he appeared to them. But nothing very much seemed to be happening. What did he want of them? When could they expect to start their great task of “going and making disciples of all nations” (Matthew 28:19)?

A moment came when a handful of them decided to go back to what they knew, and what they had spent their lives doing: “I’m going out to fish,” said Peter. “We’ll go with you,” said the others (John 21:2-3).

And after fishing all night… they have caught nothing. Not so much as a sprat. I imagine they’re pretty cold, pretty hungry, and seriously fed up.

It’s at this point that they get some unasked for advice from a stranger standing on the shore. His voice comes to them across the water: “Throw your net on the right side of the boat and you’ll find some fish.”

Huh! Who does he think he is? What business does he have telling them how to do their job?

But – perhaps from where he is standing he can see something they can’t. So, even if a bit grumpily, they follow his suggestion; and “when they did, they were unable to haul the net in because of the large number of fish” (John 21:6).

It’s at this point that one of them – “the disciple whom Jesus loved” – suddenly understood. “It is the Lord!” he says. Did he shout those words in sheer excitement? Or whisper them in sheer wonderment? We aren’t told; but it must have been one of those spine-tingling moments that came with the miracle of Jesus risen from the dead.

I suspect that all of us, from time to time, have “It is the Lord” moments.

All right, they won’t be as dramatic, thrilling and heart-stirring as that moment in the boat. But moments nonetheless when we sense a special presence with us of the living God.

It may happen when we are praying, or sharing in worship with others. It may be when we hear news of answered prayer. It may be in the middle of an ordinary day, just going about our business, perhaps trawling through a load of emails or changing a nappy; and there is that sudden stab of peace and joy. Or perhaps we are enjoying some special treat – a walk on a sunny day, or time with loved ones and friends – and the feeling that “all is well” is overwhelming. Persecuted Christians sometimes testify to such an experience even while cooped up in their prison cell.

Yes, it is the Lord!

The poet William Wordsworth described a fleeting moment when he was “surprised by joy” – a phrase C S Lewis famously borrowed to describe his experience of God.

Another poet, Gerard Manley Hopkins, said of God: “I greet him the days I meet him, and bless when I understand”. Well, hopefully we can “meet” God, and therefore also “greet” him, every day. But I think I know what Hopkins means. There are special moments…

I said earlier that we all sometimes have “It is the Lord” moments. But on second thoughts, I’m not so sure. How often do such moments come… and we miss them? Our minds and lives are so crowded with noise and activity, we are so obsessed with the shallow and the trivial, that, though he is there, we just don’t see him; though he is speaking, we just don’t hear him.

We mustn’t go looking for such moments, of course – the whole point is that they come out of the blue, as on that day on the Sea of Galilee.

But let’s at least be open and alert to their possibility. Let’s make sure that, day by day, our spiritual antennae are fully operational…

Lord Jesus, help me to hunger and thirst after righteousness so eagerly that I develop a deep sensitivity to your presence and your voice. Amen.

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