“FIRST IMPRESSIONS”

3^rd SUNDAY OF EASTER -C-
May 4, 2025

Acts 5: 27-32, 40-41; Psalm 30;
Revelation 5: 11-14; John 21: 1-19

by Jude Siciliano, OP

Dear Preachers:

I need your help. While I’m no longer preaching full-time—time has caught up with me—I remain committed to maintaining the Preacher Exchange website as a free resource. As you know, it’s bilingual and serves preachers, worshipers, and catechists around the world—many of whom cannot afford or have access to such material elsewhere.

Would you consider donating just one dollar a month? (More, if you’re able, of course.) Your support will help keep this valuable resource available to those who need it most.

Thank you,
Rev. Jude Siciliano, OP
Preacher

He revealed himself in this way.” In this way” – what awe-inspiring, spectacular way was that? After all, Jesus was raised from the dead. Surely such a world-shattering event called for trumpets blaring and lights flashing! That’s what I might expect for an occasion like this – when the risen Jesus once again appears to his disciples.

But God doesn’t conform to our expectations. Jesus reveals himself in a very different way – at the disciples’ workplace. Simon Peter is returning to his old job as a fisherman. He’s joined by Thomas (remember the Doubter?), Nathanael, the sons of Zebedee, and two other disciples, for a fishing trip.

Now, I doubt John meant this as a metaphor, but in our everyday language, when someone seems to be searching, or hinting at something, we ask, “What are you fishing for?” So we might wonder – are these disciples “fishing” for something more? Are they searching for Someone? Well, they don’t find him. He finds them.

We too go about our daily routines – at home, at work, at school. And when we reflect on our lives, the struggles in our families, the suffering in our communities, and the horrors of war across the world, we might also go “fishing,” asking urgently: Where is the risen Lord in all of this?

What I find consoling in today’s gospel is this: even though the disciples still carried questions – even after seeing Jesus in the upper room – it is not they who find him. It is Jesus who finds them. And he doesn’t find them in prayer at the temple. He finds them at work. Where are we looking for the risen Christ? Where do we expect to find him? He surprises us by coming to us in ordinary places – just like the ones we find ourselves in today.

Or, as the poet Gerard Manley Hopkins put it, “The world is charged with the grandeur of God.” (Full poem below.)

Today’s gospel and the vision of poets like Hopkins, remind us that the risen Lord walks our streets, faces our dangers, shares our pain, and enters into our deaths. And that is not the end of the story. Christ brings new life where once there was only death.

There are large-scale signs of evil in the world:
– Civilians targeted in conflicts in Ukraine, Gaza, and Sudan
– Human trafficking
– Systemic racism
– Ecological destruction
– Political corruption
– Religious extremism

There are smaller, everyday signs of evil too:
– Indifference to suffering
– Greed and consumerism
– Prejudice and intolerance
– Bullying and abuse
– Gossip and deception

Belief in the Resurrection and in Christ’s presence in our world calls us not only to name these signs of death, but to be signs of Resurrection. As the Franciscan prayer puts it:
Where there is hatred, may we sow love;
where there is injury, pardon;
where there is doubt, faith;
where there is despair, hope;
where there is darkness, light;
where there is sadness, joy.

Recent wildfires and earthquakes in California, floods in North Carolina, and last year’s hurricane in Florida, brought out scores of generous souls – neighbors and strangers alike – offering help to displaced victims. But we don’t have to wait for disaster to strike before we act with love and generosity. Too often, once a crisis passes, there’s a tendency to slip back into old habits of neglecting, ignoring, or judging the poor and needy. That’s a very human reaction.

That may be what happened in today’s gospel. After the tragedy of Jesus’ death, Peter and his companions return home and pick up their former lives, as if trying to move on. But it wasn’t so simple. Jesus shows up again. And once more, he calls them: “Follow me.”

It’s tempting to “stay home,” to withdraw from the struggles Christians are called to face. Yes, we may respond when great tragedies strike – locally or nationally – pouring out our love, energy, and resources. But like the disciples, we too are tempted to return to “normal life” once the crisis fades.

Yet Jesus still comes to us. And as he did for his disciples, he does for us: he prepares a meal before sending us out. Today’s Eucharist is that “breakfast” – the meal he sets before us. He gives himself to us and asks, as he asked Peter:

“Do you love me?” We answer, “Yes, Lord, you know I love you.”

In his death and resurrection, Jesus has shown us the depth of his love. Assured that this love will never leave us, he again invites us: “Follow me.” And with that invitation comes the charge: “Feed my lambs...tend my sheep.”

Are we tempted to go home, to hide from the world and only emerge when it’s safe? Not if we are his disciples. If we retreat, he will come looking for us again, asking, “Do you love me?” And if we do, we will care for his people – his lambs, his sheep.

Click here for a link to this Sunday’s readings:
https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/050425.cfm