Yesterday
was an odd day for me. I felt tired and drained all day. I just couldn’t seem
to generate the energy to really get going. Instead, I dragged through the day
in a bit of a fog. What I was experiencing is not uncommon. It is the emotional
let down after some big event in life.
I had
been planning for and anticipating Holy Week for several months. Palm Sunday
was a fitting beginning to that significant week. Maundy Thursday challenged us
to enter into the Passover meal with Jesus and the disciples, as Jesus
redefined its meaning. Good Friday was a time to reflect upon the enormous cost
of our salvation, as we gathered around the cross. Easter Sunday was a glorious
day of celebration of our risen Lord! Then came Easter Monday. I think the
British have it right. They have made Easter Monday a national holiday; a day
to reboot from Holy Week.
We
are not alone in feeling the emotional letdown after Easter. We wrongly assume
that after the first Resurrection Sunday the disciples were energized, on
board, and ready to press forward. But they were not. In fact for the next 40
days, Jesus continued to appear to the disciples to encourage them and to
prepare them for their role as the leaders of the infant church. Even after
Jesus’ ascension, it was another ten days before the Holy Spirit came in power
and the church was born.
The
most telling story of the emotional letdown of the disciples is found in the
Gospel of John. Peter and the others had encountered the risen Jesus for
themselves. But instead of embracing this new reality, they decided to go back
to their old way of life.
Afterward Jesus appeared again to his
disciples, by the Sea of Tiberias. It happened this way: Simon Peter, Thomas
(called Didymus), Nathanael from Cana in Galilee, the sons of Zebedee, and two
other disciples were together. "I'm going out to fish," Simon Peter
told them, and they said, "We'll go with you." So they went out and
got into the boat, but that night they caught nothing. John 21:1-3
The
disciples were excited, at first, about the resurrection, but they had not yet
connected it to their personal lives. So in the emotional letdown of the
experience, they went back to what they knew best; fishing. Jesus wasn’t about
to leave them there, so he came to them in the midst of their confusion and
disappointment. He orchestrated a second miraculous catch of fish, just as he
had done at the beginning of his ministry, when he had called Peter, Andrew,
James and John to follow him.
Still,
Peter felt ashamed of his denial of Jesus, and unworthy to continue Jesus’
work. It was there on the shores of the Sea of Galilee that Jesus fully
reinstated Peter, and commissioned him to lead the church forward. (John
21:15-22)
I
often feel as Peter did; unworthy to lead others on this essential faith
journey. After the emotional high of Holy Week, my resources are drained.
Instead of my spirit being buoyant, it is sagging. I feel like retreating to my
workshop and making sawdust. It is at these times that Jesus comes to me and
encourages me to continue to live in the new reality of the resurrection.
Peter
had to leave his nets a second time, and follow Jesus. We are all faced with
the on-going challenge of leaving our nets, and following Jesus in this new
reality of resurrection living.
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