4/12/23

Christos anesti! Alithos anesti!
Christ is risen! He is risen indeed!

Before I discovered the Saturday night Easter Vigil, the churches I served had Sunrise services. That meant getting up well before dawn, gathering with a bunch of sleepy (sometimes grumpy) church people, having a brief service (sometimes in a cemetery) and then eating a very heavy pancake breakfast cooked by the men of the church. Then everyone would go home, finish getting dressed, and come back for the main Easter service. 

It was an interesting contrast  . . . I’d often see people looking their worst at the sunrise service (unshaved, barely out of their pajamas), and then a few hours later, see them in their Easter best!  

I prefer the Easter Vigil (and not just because I can sleep a few more hours on Easter Sunday!).

But I remember one early Easter Sunday, before dawn, in Kentucky. This service was held in our sanctuary, and my apartment was just a block from the church. As I was walking down the alley between my place and the church, I heard something I’d never heard in town before: a rooster crow. 

And immediately I thought about Peter on that first resurrection morning. On the previous Thursday evening, Jesus told Peter, as the King James Version memorably translates it: “Verily I say unto thee, That this day, even in this night, before the cock crow twice, thou shalt deny me thrice,” or as the Message has it: “Today, this very night in fact, before the rooster crows twice, you will deny me three times.” 

Later, in the wee hours of the morning, Jesus was on trial  before the high priest, and Peter was outside warming himself by a charcoal fire (as John 18:18 carefully tells us; if the Bible gives you a detail like that, you can guarantee it’s important). A servant-girl asked him, “You are not, also, one of this man’s disciples, are you?” Peter denied it, and a rooster crowed. Later, still warming himself by that same charcoal fire, Peter is asked two more times if he is one of Jesus’ disciples. He denied it both times, and the rooster crowed again. 

“Before the cock crow twice, thou shalt deny me thrice.”

Mark’s gospel tells us “Then Peter remembered . . . and he broke down and wept.” 

So, I wondered, walking down that alley, hearing that rooster crow,  if Peter heard a rooster crow on the first Easter morning? I’m sure the shame of that night was still fresh and painful: the big former fisherman had abandoned Jesus in the garden and denied Jesus when he was confronted by a little girl. 

But he had no idea that the rooster's crow on Sunday morning heralded a completely new day! Maybe even at that exact moment, Jesus was alive and speaking to the two women at the tomb (kairete: “hi!”) and telling them, “Do not be afraid; go and tell my brothers to go to Galilee; there they will see me.” 

My brothers. 

Despite the abandonment, despite Peter’s denials, on Easter Sunday morning, they were Jesus’ brothers. Friday night and all day Saturday may have been times of weeping, or repenting, or self-incrimination . . . but Sunday was an entirely new day of forgiveness and hope. 

Now, we don’t know if Peter heard a rooster crow on Easter morning (although chances are, he did). We do know that the detail about a charcoal fire, mentioned in John 18:18, makes another appearance. 

Just a few days later, by the Sea of Galilee, Jesus appeared to his disciples, who had gone fishing. Just like the first time when Jesus called some of them, they had fished all night and caught nothing. From the shore, Jesus, whom they didn’t recognize, called out for them to cast their nets on the other side of the boat, and when they did, they hauled up a net-full! They recognized Jesus, hauled the net with 153 fish (someone, probably Matthew the tax-guy, counted), and found “when they got ashore, they saw a charcoal fire there, with fish on it, and bread.” Then, in one of my favorite Bible verses, they heard Jesus say, “Come and have breakfast” (John 21:12). 

Sitting there around that charcoal fire, Jesus will ask Peter three times, “Do you love me?” The Bible doesn’t mention little details like “charcoal fire” unless it's important. It was around a charcoal fire that Peter denied Jesus, and now around a charcoal fire, Peter affirms and reaffirms his love for Jesus, and Jesus commissions Peter to “feed my sheep.” Peter couldn’t take those three denials away, but the sting of the memory faded in Jesus’ forgiveness.

Memories can be painful souvenirs sometimes, can’t they?   I’m sure we all have something that brings up a time or event we’d just as soon forget. But even the most painful times – like rooster crows and the smell of a charcoal fire – can be redeemed and sanctified into memories of God’s great and beautiful grace. 

A grace that can turn even the most wretched morning into Easter morning. 

Blessings on your week!
Pastor Terry