Creekside Church Sermon of March 27, 2005 "Breakfast With Jesus" John 20:1-18	Rev. David Bibbee
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I remember some Easter traditions. We did the egg-coloring thing, writing our names on eggs with the wax crayon that came in the coloring kit. There were no "hollow" chocolate rabbits. They were solid chocolate. I recall foraging for eggs on Easter morning, and if the weather was descent, hunting them in the yard.

I have a sour memory of a community Easter egg hunt. On one side of a football field was a hundred yards of colored, candy-filled plastic eggs. On the other side were about 10,000 kids, not counting parents. At the signal, there was a mad dash to grab a finite number of eggs. I was a tot, then, flanked by future track and football players. (Some had to be on steroids.) I got trampled m the stampede. By the time I picked myself up and reached the sideline, there weren't many eggs left. Parents grabbed eggs for their kids. Ten kids wrestled for one egg. By the time it was over, half the kids had mouths full of chocolate, and the other half was crying. The two eggs I salvaged had jellybeans and "Peeps" in them, and I didn't like either.

I have no memory of Easter worship. I can't remember a single Easter sermon, or for that matter, any sermons. But I remember the breakfast the men of the church served after the sunrise service. I still smell the aroma of pancakes and sausage wafting from the basement. Bill Young did the pancakes and blueberry syrup with whole berries in it. I can still see blue syrup mingling with yellow egg yolk on my plate and discovering how good the mixture tasted.

Despite the early hour, it felt good to be there. It was good to be with all the people who had a part in shaping my life. I remember thinking that the reason for doing this was because we believed Jesus rose from the dead. I'm not sure I know more about the resurrection now than I did forty-plus years ago. I do know that Easter tradition fused a connection in my mind between breakfast and the resurrection.

Early, on the first day of the week, while it was still dark, Mary Magdalene made her way to the tomb. She skipped breakfast. She had no stomach for food given what she saw of Friday. John doesn't say why Mary went to the tomb. Maybe it was because she didn't have a chance to say goodbye. Better to say it at his grave than not at all. Maybe her need was one we have felt-- the need to pay last respects, though we're not sure how last respects are paid. When Mary arrived, she found an empty tomb and ran back fast as she could to tell the disciples. Peter and another disciple raced back, found it empty, and returned to hiding.

Mary couldn't bring herself to leave. Working up the nerve to peer inside the tomb she saw two angels who asked, "Why are you crying?" She didn't ask if they had taken his body. In a hurry to leave Mary ran into the gardener. "Did you take him away? If you did, show me where and I'll take him." What was the gardener supposed to do, strap Jesus' corpse on her back? Where did she think she would take him? She wasn't thinking clearly. She didn't know who she was talking to... until he spoke her name. "Mary." "Teacher!" she cried.

"Don't hold me." This is what Jesus told her. It was an odd thing to say, until you stop and think what "holding on" implies. Holding meant an expectation that things would be the way they were before. Holding meant hanging on tight and not letting go again. Jesus appeared to Mary and the others, but he wasn't going to stay. Jesus was going home to God. He was going to take his followers with him. He was going to bring the whole world along. God pulled Jesus from death's inescapable grip, and from then on, everything changed.

Instead of only focusing upon the events of Easter morning, for the remainder of our time I want you to consider what happened two weeks later. Following the resurrection, Jesus appeared twice to his disciples. They were incredible encounters, but wonderful as they were, the disciples had practical matters to tend to. Now that Jesus was gone, who was going to look after them? How were they going to earn their keep, put food on the table, and pay bills? How would they build a portfolio for retirement?

There was only one choice- go back to what they were doing before they met Jesus. Peter knew what he had to do. "I'm going fishing." It sounded good to the six others who said, "Wait a minute! We're coming with you." They weren't going out with fly rods for a relaxed evening on the water, contemplating nature, and pondering the meaning of life. It was "life-depends-upon-it" fishing- backbreaking fishing-being out all night straining against heavy, course nets fishing, hoping for a respectable catch kind of fishing.

After three years, they were rusty. They were out all night and got skunked. No one said much. They just sat there, watching the sky turn colors with the rising sun, wondering how they ended up back in the old boat after living with Jesus and discovering that the word, "impossible" no longer applied. Then they heard a voice. It was someone on the beach asking a question skunked fishermen hate. "Did you catch anything?" "We would have if the wind wasn't out of the east." "But did you catch anything?" "NO." "Put the net down on the other side of the boat." "What difference does ten feet make?" they hollered back. "Just do it," he said. You know the rest. The same thing happened at the beginning of their life with Jeees.....

"IT'S JESUS!" Peter shouted as he dove overboard and swam for shore. It took the others longer with the fish they had to pull. There Jesus was -grinning and standing by the fire with sizzling fish on it. Let me tell you, it's hard to beat fresh fish over a fire. The host sat them on the beach, and served the first Easter sunrise breakfast.

Have you noticed that most of the post-resurrection stories of Jesus are associated with food in one way or another? When Jesus gathered the disciples in the upper room, it was their last supper, but it was breakfast, this time. Things were different, now. God was doing a new thing. The disciples had breakfast with Jesus- the first meal of a new day. The first day of a new life in a whole new world.

Breakfast is supposed to be the most important meal of the day, but its usually very ordinary. Most of the time we eat the same things- a bowl of corn flakes with a sliced banana, low fat milk, a glass of orange juice, and a cup of coffee. If it's a cold morning, maybe a bowl of oatmeal. Some people eat the same things for years. Rituals and routines are important because they get us up and going.

Peter and the disciples had to get going again, so they were back mending nets and scraping barnacles from their boat. They returned to the routine of life- the hard work, dealing with disappointment, and long, fishless nights. "Here's your corn flakes. Hurry up or you'll be late for work."

Some of you might leave here disappointed because you hoped I would give proofs of the resurrection, or describe the mechanics of the resurrection, or give a list of five things you must do to guarantee that then your time comes, you will be raised, too. But the gospels aren't interested in these concerns. While the disciples sat around the glowing coals eating the fish breakfast Jesus prepared, he did not have them take notes about what he wanted them to accomplish in the next three years. But he did make a promise.

Jesus promised that he would be with them and us, always. We don't have to go to extraordinary lengths to meet him. Luke tells us that two disciples ate with a stranger they met on the Emmaus Road. When the "stranger" broke the bread, they recognized him. He was known in the breaking of the bread, and a plate of egg yolks and blueberry syrup eaten in a church basement, early on Easter Sunday with the people who loved and served him.

You can take heart knowing that Jesus keeps his promises. His promise to you is that you will most likely be found by him where you live, in what you do, and with whom you do it, than in the little time you spend in church.

Everyone knows about disappointment, and worst of all, failure, the loss of hope. We know what it means to come to the end of something without knowing when or if we will be able to get up and start over. This is the Easter Sunday condition of the people of Red Lake, Minnesota where another teenager went to school, not to learn, but to kill as many people as he could.

We know what it is like to wait in the dark with our nets down deep, hoping that maybe this time our luck will change and we'll catch something. If Easter has something to say to us today, maybe it's a single word... listen. You are locked into doing one thing, when a voice from the shore or from within tells you to do something else instead. There was nothing in the net before, but now you feel something in it that's alive.

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