Sometimes places can have associations of failure and pain. The story of Simon Peter in today’s Gospel shows how the risen Jesus can transform these places into ones of hope and renewal.
Readings for Easter Friday can be found here.
In 2011 Queen Elizabeth II paid a state visit to Ireland, the first by a British monarch in 100 years. At a dinner in Dublin Castle she impressed many by opening her speech in the Irish language. For centuries Dublin Castle had been the hated symbol of British rule in Ireland. Now, here was the very symbol of the British state transforming that place from one of bitterness and pain to one of hope and reconciliation. The Castle’s legacy was not erased or forgotten, but changed.
In today’s Gospel, the risen Jesus gathers his disciples around a charcoal fire on the beach and cooks them breakfast. Among this group was Simon Peter, who had just jumped from the fishing boat into the water. The setting on the lakeside takes us back to the night of Jesus’ trial. Simon Peter stood near a different charcoal fire, warming himself outside the High Priest’s house. It was there that he denied knowing Jesus, the greatest betrayal. Jesus takes what had been a place of shame and failure for Peter, and now uses it to feed him and the other disciples. Again, it is a case of a memory transformed not erased. In the next section of John’s Gospel Jesus goes further, and says to Peter three times “feed my sheep”, thus commissioning him for leadership in the church. This sense of a place being transformed from failure to hope is at the heart of Easter. As Peter says in his testimony before the elders and scribes “Jesus is the stone that was rejected by you, the builders, which has become the cornerstone”. The Cross, that symbol of and disaster, is now the sign of God’s victory over sin and evil.
Perhaps we have places which remind us of past failures, times we have sinned, or betrayed our Lord. Jesus does not condemn us to be trapped in those places with the legacy of our mistakes. He who transformed Calvary, and transformed the charcoal fire for Peter, can take our sins and failings, and transform us as he feeds us in the Eucharist. Then, like with Peter, he enables us to boldly proclaim his message and serve him.
Mass today is in St Saviour’s at 10am.
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