That Was Yesterday

The Rev. Whitworth Ferguson III
The First Presbyterian Church
Washingtonville, New York
April 10, 2005

That Was Yesterday
Acts 2:36-47
John 21:15-19


Peter’s stomach ached.
His face was flushed, hot to the touch.
Every little noise caused him to jump.
He had watched the soldiers nail Jesus to the cross.
He had heard the ringing of the hammer as it came down on the nails.
He had watched them lift Jesus as they set the cross
in the rocky dirt on that hill called Golgotha,
“the place of the Skull”.
He’d stood off at what he thought was a safe distance,
yet he was close enough to see,
to see the sign that Pilate ordered, “The King of the Jews”;
close enough to hear:
to hear his master breathing,
each breath slower, more shallow,
more labored.
And then came that last breath
that last awful, final breath;
his master’s eyes closed and his head dropped,
his body went limp,
and Peter knew he was gone…..gone forever.

Even as he watched that awful scene
he couldn’t silence the voices in his mind.
He kept hearing them over and over:
His own voice, strong, blustery:
“I will never desert you…..will never desert you.”
And his master’s response, so flat, so matter-of-fact:
“Truly I tell you, before the cock crows,
you will deny me three times.”
(Matthew 26:31ff)

Darkness covered the world on that Friday afternoon
and Peter knew that he would live in darkness all the rest of his days.
The only voices he would ever hear in his mind again
would be his own and his master’s,
“I will never deny you;
You will deny me.
I will never deny you;
You will deny me.”

The others had made the same promise,
made the same oath,
but Jesus had singled out Peter for his prediction.
And only he had denied his master, his teacher.
Only he had showed so much cowardice.

He hid behind locked doors with the others all day Saturday,
but he didn’t say a word to any one.
He couldn’t bear to look any of them in the eye,
he felt so ashamed.
Then came that Sunday morning when Mary Magdalene
told him that the tomb was empty.
He ran to the tomb as fast as his legs could go,
but he was built for strength, not speed,
and he struggled to keep up with John.
He was filled with a sense of hope.
Hadn’t his master said something about rising again?
If only he could remember what he had said.

But then when he got to the tomb
he found nothing, just emptiness,
more darkness, more misery,
more shame.
Now he couldn’t even assure his master of a proper burial.

He would never be able to forgive himself…Never.
The only thing he could do now was return to the north,
and resume his work as a fisherman on the Sea of Galilee
He would try his best to live the rest of his life in the shadows,
he would try his best to forget,
not forget Jesus,
but forget his own shame.

He skulked back to the room where the disciples
were hiding behind locked doors.
He would try to get some sleep that night and then leave
for Galilee early in the morning, hopefully before anyone else was awake.
He didn’t want to face anyone, not even his brother Andrew.
But then that evening, as they were about to share supper
there he was, their master, their Lord Jesus.
It was not a ghost, it was Jesus himself.
He showed them his hands and his side
so that they could see the scars.
And they all knew it was him.

Peter clung to the wall in the back of the room.
The last thing he wanted to do was face his master.
The last thing he wanted to hear was his master’s voice
saying, “I certainly was right about you, wasn’t I?”

Jesus didn’t single out any one person,
nor did his eyes focus on anyone in particular.
He spoke to them all:
“Peace be with you….
Peace be with you.
As the Father has sent me, so I send you……
Receive the Holy Spirit.
If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them;
if you retain the sins of any, they are retained.”
(John 20:19ff)
And with that, Jesus was gone.

In that stuffy, dark room Peter knew something was different.
He felt refreshed, as though he had just jumped
into the cool waters of the Sea after a day of hard labor
under the blazing sun hauling nets loaded with fish into his boat.
He felt energized, but he felt more than that:
he felt washed clean, forgiven,
as though Jesus had singled him out,
looked him right in the eye and said to him,
“Why are you carrying such a heavy burden?
Why do you still feel so much shame?
That was yesterday and this is today.
Of course I forgive you.
I will always forgive you.”

A few weeks later he and the others were back at the Sea of Galilee.
He and the others felt it was too dangerous to remain in Jerusalem,
and they didn’t know what else to do, or where else to go.
And then one morning there he was, standing on the beach,
his master, Jesus, the Messiah.
This time Peter was eager to face him,
eager to look him in the eyes,
and tell him how sorry he was
sorry he had denied him, abandoned him, forsaken him.
But Jesus didn’t give Peter the chance to talk about the past.
He just looked on Peter with those eyes that were always
so filled with love and said,
“Feed my lambs,
tend my sheep,
feed my sheep.
If you love me, follow me…”

For the second time in his life Peter dropped his nets,
dropped his nets and walked away from his vocation as a fisherman,
This time, though, Peter knew that he had a new vocation,
a vocation as a fisher of men and women,
a shepherd for all God’s children
Peter finally understood what Jesus had meant
when Jesus had first called him and his brother.
As he dropped his nets, he also dropped his worries, his anxieties,
his fears, his concerns for the world.
He felt stronger than ever, filled with love, filled with peace.

He knew exactly what he needed to do,
exactly what Jesus wanted him to do.
He went back to Jerusalem, into the lion’s den,
Nothing could stop him.
He told anyone who listen,
everyone who would listen,
“repent and be baptized so that your sins may be forgiven
and then you will receive the power of the Holy Spirit.”

And people responded: they repented and they were baptized
and they received the power of the Holy Spirit
and they were changed, forever.
The old ways had passed;
a new life had begun, for Peter,
for all the apostles,
and for all those who followed.

Our Lord’s Resurrection changed everything.
Everything.
Before the resurrection, the disciples, all those who followed Jesus
stumbled and bumbled their way along.
Peter’s greatest success seemed to have been
in trying Jesus’ patience.
But everything changed following the Resurrection.
Donald Smith, a Presbyterian minister, has written,
“After the disciples received the power of the Holy Spirit,
they were able to do what they could not do before.
They crucifixion left them defeated and depressed.
They were hopeless and helpless.
After the resurrection they were dynamic.
They were empowered to turn the world upside down.” (Smith, 9)

Peter did not become stronger, faster, or smarter.
He did not become better looking, more popular, or wealthier.
No, what Peter became for the first time in his life was himself:
he became what God intended him to be.
He became all that God intended him to be,
all that God created him to be.

He no longer lived for the eyes of the people of this world,
for public approval,
He lived instead for God, for Christ;
he lived for his faith,
he lived for righteousness, mercy, love.
The old ways had passed,
and a new life,
a new life in Christ had begun, finally begun, for Peter.

You and I have the same opportunity through the Resurrection of our Lord.
What we were yesterday,
what we did yesterday,
what we said yesterday
what we should have said, should have done:
none of that matters today.
Each day is a new day in Jesus Christ.
The old ways have passed.
Through the resurrection, a new life has begun.

Every one of us is like Peter:
we’ve all got something churning inside us,
something we try to bury in the deepest recesses of our minds
something that we did, that we said,
that causes us to feel shame,
causes us to be unhappy with ourselves.
But in our struggle to bury our shame, our unhappiness,
we overlook the fact that we can not hide anything from God.
Not a thing.
God knows.
And through Jesus’ resurrection God tells each of us
that whatever we did, that was yesterday and this is today.
And that we are forgiven, forgiven and washed clean.
In the same way Jesus forgave Peter,
forgave him for denying him, abandoning him,
leaving him to hang on the cross,
God through Jesus Christ forgives us our every sin.
That’s not to say that our sins don’t matter.
No, they do matter!
But we are forgiven so we can move on, learn,
grow in faith, washed clean and empowered by the Holy Spirit.

Our dilemma is that while God may forgive us,
we are so reluctant to forgive ourselves.
Peter would never have forgiven himself.
But Jesus came to assure Peter of his forgiveness
so that he could move from yesterday to today
and on to tomorrow as Jesus’ faithful disciple.
God wants us to forgive ourselves as he forgives us so we can move on
and be what God wants us to be
and do those things that God wants us to do,
needs us to do,
and God wants us, needs us, you and me,
to nothing less than transform the world.

Think about what Peter did:
he went to Jerusalem, the most dangerous place possible
for a follower of Jesus Christ,
and he spoke out publicly, strongly, frequently.
He went to Jerusalem to fish,
to tend, to feed Christ’s sheep.
The other disciples did the same thing:
took the gospel out into the world
Paul traveled through the Mediterranean
Apocryphal stories tell us that Thomas,
the poor disciple branded as the Doubter,
traveled into India and the very edge of China,
preaching the gospel of Christ.

We haven’t been forgiven, haven’t been given the Holy Spirit
so we can live soft, comfortable lives.
We’ve been empowered by the Holy Spirit to turn the world upside down.
To take Christ’s gospel out into the world
To take peace, mercy, justice, compassion,
forgiveness and love out into the world.
Our lesson from Acts shows us how we are to work together,
pray together, share what we have.

You and I are forgiven, washed clean
of even those secret sins that lurk in the deepest recesses
of our psyches.
We have been washed clean so that we can fish,
so that we can tend,
so that we can feed
all God’s children
Through the resurrection you and I have been given new life,
life to be all that God has created each of us to be
all that Jesus calls us to be.
all that the Holy Spirit empowers us to be:
children of God,
disciples of Christ,
fishers of men and women,
shepherds each of us.
Through the resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ,
the old ways have past, and a new life has begun.
Glory to God in the highest!
Amen