Transformational encounters
Readings: Luke 5. 1-11 and 1 Corinthians 15. 1-11
We have in our readings today two encounters with Jesus. We have Jesus calling the first of his disciples, including Simon, called Peter, and we have Paul writing about the Gospel, mentioning in passing his own encounter with Jesus.
In some ways these two men couldn’t be more different. Peter is a fisherman, he’s not been chosen by a Rabbi to be a student, so he’s not as well versed in the Scriptures as some. Whereas Paul is a Pharisee and well taught, however we shouldn’t interpret this as being about class, Paul also works with his hands, he’s a tentmaker by trade.
But despite their differences, and we’ll touch on some more as we go, their encounter with Jesus, his call to follow, radically changes them, beyond recognition.
You may well know the story of the calling of the first disciples well, it’s one we teach children in Sunday school, and it comes up quite a bit in our Sunday readings. And the focus is often on the miraculous catch of fish, they’ve been up all night, caught nothing, Jesus tells them to put down the nets and they catch more than they can possibly get into the boat. But I want to focus on what immediately follows.
They get back to shore, and Peter is afraid, he recognises something in Jesus, something other, something holy. And he tells Jesus to get away from him, that he shouldn’t be associating with a man like him as he’s a sinner. He recognises in Jesus, someone who shouldn’t have anything to do with him, he doesn’t fully get it yet, he doesn’t realise this is God stood before him, that will come later, but he sees enough, and he knows he shouldn’t be in this man’s presence.
Paul meanwhile, when he encounters Jesus, something very different happens. Because he thinks of himself as utterly righteous, in his letter to the Philippians he says that, in terms of accomplishments, he was amazing. Faultless according to the law. He’s on the warpath when he encounters Jesus, filled with zeal for God he’s been rounding up Christians as the heretics he believes them to be, having them thrown in prison or even executed. But that zeal is misplaced, that sense of perfection misplaced. Because as he’s writing to the Corinthians here he points out that he is utterly unworthy to be called an apostle, for he was persecuting the church, and yet Jesus appeared to him too, miraculously whilst he was enroute to lock up more Christians.
Peter is immediately aware of his sin and unworthiness. For Paul, he was so assured of his perfection, his righteousness, it is only in looking back that he realises how lost he was, even deeper in sin, even more unworthy than Peter.
It’s Jesus presence that reveals their sin, like Jesus is a bright light showing up all the shadowy corners of their lives they’d rather not look too closely at. And you know, we can get really discouraged in our Christian walk when we realise our sin, when we see in ourselves things that shouldn’t be there; actions, attitudes, thoughts, habits. And we look at them and go, how unworthy am I, this sin or that sin, how will I ever deal with it. And we become discouraged because everyone else looks like they’re doing great and we know we’re not. Of course it’s a false perspective because we only know how we’re not doing well because we know everything about ourselves, we don’t have the same insight on others who are likely feeling the same.
When we are most aware of our sin, how much we miss the mark, how far we have come up short in living as God commands, we often assume it means we’re far from God, we’ve wandered off. But actually in those moments Jesus is drawing near to us. It’s because those dark corners are being lit up by his light that we recognise the sin and mess there. As John Stott put it in Basic Christianity ‘The Christian knows that the nearer he approaches God, the more he becomes aware of his own sin’. Or to put it the other way around, when you are most aware of your sin it’s not because you’re far from God, it’s because you’re closest. If you were far from God, if you were walking away, rejecting him, you wouldn’t care. The fact that you do, the fact that you feel it so acutely, is a sign that God is at work in you, that he is near.
Because here’s the wonderful thing about Jesus, our sin doesn’t drive him away, it draws him near. Look at what happens. Peter is telling Jesus to go, get away from him, he’s a sinner, he’s unworthy, go find someone else. And what does Jesus do? Come and follow me. He tells him that his life is about to change, no longer fishing for food, but fishing for people, to bring people just like him to Jesus.
Our sin and our mess and our shame, it doesn’t drive Jesus away, send him running in the opposite direction, it draws him near, brings him running to heal and restore.
Peter’s life is utterly changed. Unworthy as he is, Jesus makes him worthy, will die for his sins and for ours to make him and us worthy.
What of Paul then. Well Paul doesn’t stop with his felt unworthiness to be an apostle. In many ways he’s right, he is not worthy, he is the last person who should be part of that core group of disciples. But, as he says ‘by the grace of God I am what I am’. All Paul had to do, like Peter, was to listen and obey Christ’s call, come and follow me. And in that moment, as he started to turn, God began that work of transformation. By the time he is writing this God has utterly transformed him and given him a mission, a role, which is far beyond what he deserved. All that misplaced zeal for God which he spent attacking the church, he now directs it to the growth of the church, to sharing the Gospel, to seeing more and more people come to know Christ for themselves.
He doesn’t turn inwards in self-pity, woe is me I’ve made a mess of things, no, Christ has utterly transformed him such that he, rather than hiding it, is able to boldly declare his greatest shame. And, turned outward in wonder and praise to the one who has saved and redeemed him, can declare that through God’s grace, through his God’s undeserved outpouring of goodness on him, he is what he is. Radically transformed.
This is why he’s writing to the Corinthians, as a church they are far from perfect, riddled with division and sin, and yet he wants them to experience the radically transforming grace of God given to us in Jesus. Wants them to come to know more deeply for themselves the wonder of Christ come to save us. Paul was as far from God as you could get, and yet Christ came to him, appeared to him, even in his sin, which he was blind to, Christ appears, to turn him around, and set him on his feet. Our sin doesn’t cause Christ to run from us, but to us.
This is the Gospel which, as Paul says to the Corinthians, and to us, has been proclaimed to us. Someone has told us this message of Jesus come to die for our sins, of Jesus risen from the dead and reigning eternally that we might live forever with him. Paul might not have proclaimed it to us, but someone did.
But proclamation isn’t enough. Hearing is not enough. Awareness of sin is not enough. Only when we respond to Christ’s call, ‘come and follow me’, will he truly begin that work in us. As Paul writes we need to receive it, take it into ourselves, accept it, hold tightly to it. Receive even Christ himself into our lives, to change us and transform us.
And this isn’t a one off thing. Responding in the first place is what has saved us, that’s our salvation. But daily responding, daily letting the awareness of our sin drive us into the arms of Jesus, daily hearing his call and rejoicing to go where he leads, that is our sanctification, the remaking of us as we should be.
My brothers and sisters, whilst our sin cries out for our condemnation, Christ comes running, and by the grace of God, through his power at work in you, you now are what you are, ransomed, healed, restored and forgiven, and by the grace of God daily growing in Christ’s likeness. So as Christ has begun this work in us, let us continue on this road, until at last we see him face to face.
Amen.