3^rd Sunday of Easter, C      April 22, 2007

To start, how about a little factoid.  Why 153 as the number of fish Peter caught?  Keep in mind that numbers in the bible are almost always symbolic rather than literal.   Ancient Greek biologists had identified 153 as the total number of fish species.  So, Peter’s catch represents his mission to gather people of every race, language, and way of life, literally all of humanity, into the life of Christ.

Now, to the rest of today’s Gospel.  The disciples encounter the risen Lord Jesus over a breakfast of bread and fish.  We know that bread in the Gospels is always meant to remind us of the Eucharist.  So, clearly, a deeper meaning of the story is that the disciples recognized the risen Christ in the Eucharist.  What about fish?  Fish in the Gospels also represents more than meets the eye.  In Greek, the language in which the Gospels were written, the word for fish is icqus.  From this we get the English word, ichthyology, the study of fish.  Here it is.  [Explain poster.]  Thus, fish is an early Christian acronym for Christ the Lord.  So, again, the disciples eating fish symbolizes experiencing the resurrected Lord Jesus.

Curious, isn’t it?  The disciples recognize the risen Christ primarily by using their bodies, by eating, and less so, by using their heads, by thinking.  Herein is a valuable lesson to all the super-educated, those who are forever frustrated trying to experience God in their heads, by reasoning their way to faith.  It simply can’t be done!

That’s why we have sacraments!  Our deepest encounter with Christ is through our bodies, through our five senses, not through our heads.  Every Sunday through eating the bread of life and drinking the cup of salvation, we commune with God.  So, when you receive communion, for a change get out of your head, out of you thoughts and mental prayers, and try to sense what is happening in your body: the living God being digested and becoming part of you, the life force of God coursing through your own veins.  How close God is!  In a very real sense, we become God as God becomes us, inhabiting every molecule of our flesh.

Then there’s baptism.  Again, through the senses, cool, refreshing water, living water, once conveyed to us the life of God, initiated us into a relationship with God in and through the Church.  [This is what will also happen to these infants in a few minutes.]  Water, the symbol of life - for without water there is no life, only barren desert and death – water brings the promise of life after death.  You know, you can make washing your hands, taking a shower a prayer.  Imagine, as you do, what water, the water of baptism, has done for you.  It cleansed you from the power of evil and death to hold you forever.  Imagine how this water, instead, gave you a guarantee that God will never leave you, that God will draw you through death into life in its fullness, life unending.               

I hope you realize what we have in the sacraments.  We have a way to experience God in our whole person.  Many protestant communities are beginning to realize this, that they would benefit from more varied and more frequent sacramental encounters, that they have for too long restricted themselves to narrow, less complete experiences of God in their heads.

It’s still Easter time.  And, so, may the risen, living Lord Jesus through the sacraments fill and renew every fiber of your being!