These last two weeks it seemed as though winter would never end.
Just as we got a taste for spring, and the daffodils and crocus were blooming, we got hit by two winter storms that seemed to last forever.
We were rocked by heavy wind, power outages, and icy rain. Someone mentioned to me last week that Easter this year was actually colder than Christmas.
Seems that our daily lives were experiencing the same tumult.
Right when Holy Week is behind us, and we are rejoicing in the power of the risen Christ,
The tragic events at Virginia Tech remind us once again of how powerless we are over evil,
and the sorrow and despair of Holy Week is revisited as we try to make sense of yet another violent and senseless act in our nation.
We hear the echo of Christ's words on the cross:
"my God, my God, why have you forsaken me?"
we wonder how to reconcile such events with the resurrection power of Christ.
It seems as though Winter and Holy week have hovered in the gloaming of our spring.
I have found that resurrection is sometimes an elusive idea.. How, in fact, does Christ's resurrection from the dead affect our daily life?
How does it make sense in senseless situations?
We are not the first to struggle with such concepts.
Today's story from John, another post-resurrection appearance, begins with such questions.
Seven disciples were at the Lake of Tiberias - what we know better as the Sea of Galilee.
This was the place where so much had begun -
- here Jesus had called many of his disciples including Simon Peter.
Here there had been so many people gathered to hear Jesus, that he had had to row out away from the shore to teach them.
Here he had fed the 5000 with the loaves and fish.
Here, he had walked on the water.
The shores of this lake held good memories for the disciples.
It was home to many of them.
We don't know how many days had passed since the last resurrection appearance of Jesus.
But enough time had passed for seven of the disciples to leave Jerusalem, leave the upper room, and go home.
They went back to what was familiar, what evoked strong memories of their time with the Master.
And Peter, perhaps in a moment of utter discouragement, said, "I'm going fishing."
This was not a shining moment of success for the disciples. This was a very human moment,
moments like you and I have had, when we feel frustrated or discouraged,
- moments when it seems like the best thing to do is throw in the towel.
For the disciples weren't doing that kind of quiet, sit-on-the lake with my fishing pole and relax fishing -
- They were returning to the life they had lived before Jesus called them: commercial fishing on a lake known for its unpredictable weather.
Perhaps being able to do something familiar, something known, was comforting to the disciples, and so they set out.
At least at fishing, they felt like they had some control over their environment, brought on by years of experience and a deep love for the sea.
Yet their experience was far from positive.
In the midst of what they returned to - in the midst of what they thought might be comforting to them,
they discovered their own poverty.
No fish. No success. One long and fruitless night.
Until they heard a voice coming from the shore, giving direction on how to make a disaster into a success.
It is like Jesus to show up in unexpected places.
In fact, one of his words to his disciples had been,
"if two or more are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst.
Wherever we are as the body of Christ,
Jesus shows up.
He doesn't require a prayer meeting, or a bible study, or even a church service.
For the disciples, he showed up on the shore of what used to be home.
There in the midst of their discouragement and failure, was Jesus,
picking up the pieces and breaking the bread for them,
creating increase out of loss,
community out of the disenfranchised.
It is a powerful thing to break bread together, and we as the body of Christ do it in many ways.
35 of us from all over the Diocese of Maryland, as far away as Annapolis and Allegheny county,
broke bread together yesterday as part of our Christian Formation Festival.
We shared not only lunch together, but the living bread of the Word of God.
Last night, many of us were here to break bread together, gathered around tables for our stewardship dinner,
giving thanks for the abundance of gifts given and received at St. James.
All week long, parents in the academy have been figuratively breaking bread together,
sharing labor over the settings and lights for next week's middle school play, "The Wiz."
And all week long, students , faculty and alumni from Virginia Tech, and at other colleges around the nation,
have broken bread together in hundreds of memorial services, counseling sessions, and vigils.
When the body of Christ is together, Jesus shows up.
This morning we as the body of Christ come together for the express purpose of breaking bread together - the bread of the Eucharist,
and as we share together this bread and this cup, we share with the greater body of Christ who celebrate the resurrection all over the world.
In the language of the Eucharistic feast, we find the great story that we remembered during Lent and Holy week, and celebrated on Easter,
that Christ, gathered with his disciples, took the bread, and broke it, and gave it to them saying take, eat this is my body….
As we take part in this Eucharistic Feast today,
I remind you of the words of Eucharistic prayer C - that we come to the table,
not for solace only,
but also to receive strength/and not for pardon only, but that we might be renewed.
That as we come together as the body, and sharing the body and Blood, we come to strengthen ourselves and one another.
This is the power of the resurrection - coming together as one, recognizing the One who is amongst us, this same Jesus who became bread for the world.
This is incarnation: that we, the body of Christ strengthen one another,
That we, with the disciples, might know the risen Lord in the breaking of the bread.
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