The Message
THIRD SUNDAY OF EASTER SUNDAY
"Your Body Has a Memory"
John 21:1-19, NRSV
Would you pray with me: Lord, as we gather
today in Your Resurrection Power on this Third Sunday of Easter to worship and
honor you, may we spiritually reflect upon your Holy
Word and be filled. May the words of my mouth and the meditation
of our hearts be acceptable in Your sight. For
you O Lord, are our Strength and our
Redeemer. Amen.
In today’s Gospel Lesson we find our resurrected Lord at the lakeside, at lake Tiberias, also known as the Sea of Galilee. The disciples have been out fishing all night and they did not catch anything.[1] Standing on the beach is Jesus, but the disciples do not know that it is him. [2] This person on the beach tells them to cast their net to the right side of the boat. They listen and do what they are told. Then, they catch so many fish that they are unable to haul their catch into the boat and instead have to drag the net full of fish to shore. And miraculously, “the net is not torn.” [3] It is an anonymous beloved disciple who recognizes Jesus and says to Peter, “It is the Lord!” And of course, Peter being Peter, jumps off the boat into the sea to get to shore as quickly as he can. As the disciples arrive on shore, they are greeted by a charcoal fire "with fish on it, and bread, " [4] and by Jesus, who invites them to "come and have breakfast. [5]
Did you ever wonder why the disciples would listen to this stranger on the beach telling them to cast the net to the right side of the boat? For we are told that "the disciples did not know that it was Jesus." [6] So why did they respond as they did to this command?
And what other actions do you see in this story taking place which are reminiscent of Jesus' ministry prior to his death and resurrection?
This morning as we look at today’s Gospel lesson, we will look at it through the lens of body memory. Using today’s Gospel Lesson, we will explore how sights, smells, words and the sounds, the things we touch, and even the food we taste can trigger memories. For we may not realize it, but both pleasant memories as well as trauma is stored within the memory of our bodies, causing us to behave in certain ways.
I invite you to partake in today’s Gospel narrative. Just for a moment, close your eyes and picture that you are one of Jesus’ disciples present on that day. Let your minds wander and feel the sensations within your own body and notice the emotions unfolding within your heart and soul.
You have been working all night, dropping the heavy nets and lifting them out of the water, catching not a single fish. How are you feeling? What are you feeling? Perhaps you are tired, or even exhausted. And likely you are a bit frustrated, or at least disappointed. The movements of your arms, your back and your legs move in a rhythm learned long ago in the days when you were mere fishermen, before you left your nets behind to follow Jesus. How familiar these rhythms have become once again during this night. Your body moves in the memories of the past, in the rhythms of the daily life you once lived. And when you are told to drop your net to the right of the boat, you do so without thinking, for this too is familiar, a reminder of your call story, in which you were fishing on the Sea of Galilee when Jesus first came to you and said, " Follow me, and I will make you fish for people." [7]
Then
you as the beloved disciple recognize that “It is the Lord” when you see your
nets so full of fish that you cannot haul the catch into the boat. Do you feel
the excitement, the anticipation, the great joy?
And now, back on shore with Jesus, you see the charcoal fire with the fish and bread. What do you smell? What are you thinking of? What are you feeling? Perhaps seeing the fish and the bread reminds you of the time Jesus fed the multitudes with just two fish and five loaves of bread. [8] Or perhaps your mind travels to that night of Passover, when Jesus broke the bread, giving it to you, saying “take eat, this is my body.” [9]
But what about Peter. What does he think about, when he sees the charcoal fire, when he feels the heat of the burning ambers, and smells its smokiness? Can he notice anything else that is before him? Or does his gaze become focused solely only on that charcoal fire, reminding him of when he stood in the high priest’s courtyard before that charcoal fire warming himself, [10] on that night when he denied our Lord three times.
After breakfast, the Lord takes Simon Peter aside, and three times asks him, “Do you love me?” [11] What is Peter feeling? Does he feel embarrassed or ashamed because of what he had done? In being taken aside was Peter anticipating Jesus to ask him why did you deny me? Perhaps, but the Gospel only tells us that, “Peter felt hurt” because Jesus asked him a third time, “Do you love me?” [12]
What are you personally feeling in hearing Peter being asked this question three times? Did Jesus not trust Peter’s love for him? Or did Jesus do this to undo the imbedded memory of Peter’s denial? Jesus had already forgiven Peter. Yet Jesus does more than just reinstate Peter to lead the others. Jesus heals Peter’s wounds that are within his bodily memory.
I invite you now to return to our time in the presence of our Lord, with your eyes opened, sitting with and holding onto your own personal experience from this story.
In his book, The Wounded Healer: Ministry in Contemporary Society, well know author and theologian Henri Nouwen states: “Nobody escapes being wounded. We are all wounded people, whether physically, emotionally, mentally, or spiritually. “The main question is not, ‘How can we hide our wounds?’ so we don’t have to be embarrassed, but ‘How can we put our woundedness in the service of others?’ When our wounds cease to be a source of shame, and become a source of healing, we have become wounded healers.” [13]
The story of Peter denying Jesus appears in all four Gospels accounts. [14] Why do you think this is so? Because Peter told the story multiple times. He was a wounded healer. He wanted everyone to know the story that even though he denied our Lord three times, Jesus still loved him and took him back. And Peter’s shame of his denial having been healed by Christ, can become for us a source of healing too.
How many times do we ourselves deny Jesus, doing what we want rather than following in Jesus’ ways? I know that I am guilty of this, for I am but a human being, just like all of you. Yet, Christ sympathizes “with our weaknesses,” for he has been tested in every respect as we are; but he is without sin. [15] “He was wounded for our transgressions, crushed for our iniquities,” and “upon him was the punishment” that makes “us whole.” [16] For “by his bruises we are healed.” [17] Jesus, bloodied and bruised, forgave Peter who denied him three times.
And in today’s Gospel Lesson we see the healing power of our Resurrected Lord healing Peter. He makes Peter whole. Just as Christ wants us to be made whole.
Let us hear the words that “upon him was the punishment” that makes “us whole.” [18]
Yet, do we truly accept this? Or do we cling to our transgressions and inequities hiding them deep within ourselves out of shame, hurt, or fear?
Jesus made Peter into a wounded healer who like Christ could sympathize with human weaknesses, for Peter in being tested the first time, failed and was forgiven, and he was healed. And in the end, in the last days of Peter’s life, he did not deny Christ, but stood firmly in his faith, trusting the Lord in all things, even unto his own death.
As Nouwen said, we are all wounded people. Too often we hide our wounds, burying them deep with us? Sometimes we do so because we are embarrassed by what we have done and we do not want others to look unfavorably upon us. Other times we bury the trauma we experience because it is just too emotionally painful to deal with. We may try to hide it from our mind’s memory, but we cannot hide it from the memories of our body. One way or another, it is going to come out. And often our emotional, mental and spiritual pain surfaces as real physical pain.
There are many things that trigger memories impacting our emotions and our actions, be they from pleasant or painful past experiences. Why do you think that the disciples responded to throwing the net to the right side of the boat when told to do so, while not recognizing the person on shore telling them to do it? Had they not heard this before? And today, we have seen why it was necessary for Peter to be healed from having denied Jesus three times.
Our transgressions, our sins, those things for which we are shameful of, when left unhealed fester and grow within us like an infected sore. Jesus did not want this to happen to Peter.
I’m sure that most of you have heard the old saying, “if you fall of a horse, dust yourself off, and get back on.” And why would you want to do that? Because if you fall from a horse and don’t get back on right away, the trauma from the fall could instill a memory which causes fear of ever getting back on a horse, or even fear of horses themselves.
Nouwen reminds us that nobody escapes being wounded. In our lifetime, we all encounter being hurt by the things we have done to ourselves, as well as by harm done to us by other people. This harm becomes embedded in our memories within our brain. And it can move from our head into our hearts, nerves, and muscles, running rampant throughout our entire bodies.
“Our bodies are a physical manifestation of our experience.” [19] If we do not deal with the hurt when it happens; if we don’t get back up on that horse, then we process and hold onto hurt burying it deeply within us until we may not know that it is even there. [20] That is, until it manifests itself as physical pain.
We are mind, body and spirit which are inseparable from one another. Just as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are One God inseparable in substance. And it is through the divine action of Father, Son and Holy Spirit that I invite you to partake in accepting God’s healing love and grace upon you this day. Today as we gather around the table, and eat of the bread of life and drink from the cup of salvation, know that healing comes from our Lord, and it manifests itself in many ways. Let yourselves feel the healing Power of our Resurrected Lord flowing throughout your body.
Pay attention to the sensations and feeling that emerge and accept God’s will to make you whole. Perhaps you may feel your heart gently warmed or experience a tingling sensation flowing through your body. Your head or hands may unexpectedly feel like they burning. Some will experience in their heart what feels like a skipped beat as your heart jumps for joy in the Lord. Tears may fill your eyes. Or perhaps you may even feel the Spirit’s breath blowing upon you even though there is no physical source of breeze. Know that God’s healing is real. Accept God’s gift to you and be healed this day. For by the Grace of God the Father, through the power of the Holy Spirit, in Jesus’ name today we claim healing.
Jesus asked, “Do you love me?
What do you say? Yes Lord. Say it with me “Yes Lord.”
Jesus asked, “Do you love me?
“Yes Lord.”
Jesus asked, “Do you love me?
“Yes Lord.”
Lord, we love you, not because of what you do for us or give us but because you alone are Lord. You are the almighty, creator and make of all things. And all you make is good.
We come before you Lord on this day and in this moment, humbly submitting ourselves to you, acknowledging all that Jesus endured for our sake was because of your great Love for us and desire to make us whole. And by his bruises we are healed.
Lord God Almighty, breathe your breath upon us, that in the name of Jesus healing flows though out our minds, bodies, and spirits to make us whole, to heal our brokenness of body, to strengthen us in our weaknesses, to comfort us in our grieving, to let us find peace from our anxieties, and to free us from all that is not of You. We bring these things to the foot of the cross and leave them there.
Fill us with the presence of your Holy Spirit. Command that Your healing be upon us Almighty God in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen.
Lord, we thank you for the healing that is taking place within us right now, and for the healing that will continue to manifest within our bodies, mind and spirit, making us whole and making us into wounded healers. Praise be to God, the One who is, who was, and who is to come. Amen.
[1] John 21:3, NRSV
[2] John 21:4, NRSV
[3] John 21:11, NIV
[4] John 21:9, NIV
[5] John 21:12, NIV
[6] John 21:4, NIV
[7] Matthew 4:19, NRSV
[8] Matthew 14:19, NRSV
[9] Matthew 26:26b, NRSV
[10] John 18:18, NRSV
[11] John 21:15-17, NRSV
[12] John 21:17, NRSV
[13] Henri
Nouwen, The Wounded Healer: Ministry in Contemporary Society (New York: Doubleday,
2013).
[14] Matthew 26:69-74, Mark 14:66-74, Luke 14:66-72 and John 18:15-18. 25-27, NRSV
[15] Hebrews 4:15, NRSV
[16]
Isaiah 53:5
[17]
Ibid.
[18]
Isaiah 53:5
[19] Sara Harowitz, “Your Body Has a
Memory – Here’s How It Physically Holds Trauma, and Ways to Release IT,” Well+Good,
April 9, 2022, https://www.wellandgood.com/how-we-hold-trauma-in-our-bodies/
[20]
Ibid.
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