JESUS’ resurrection scene this Sunday in the Gospel of John is filled with concrete images and questions, such as “going fishing”, “caught nothing”, “Anything to eat?”, “tucked in his garments”, “lightly clad”, “jumping into the sea”, “a charcoal fire”, “having breakfast”, “one-hundred fifty three large fish”, “a hundred yards”, “Do you love me?”. Oftentimes, these are words that we use and images that we create at baseball games, camping trips, Sunday brunches, baptismal celebrations, swimming parties, barbecues, dinners, and bedside talks.
Isn’t it interesting that that the Risen Lord would enter again into the mundane lives of his disciples? He would reappear to them at their work places, meal times, night times and waking up moments. He’d show himself again to them during periods of fears, anxieties, and frustrations. It is as if the Risen Christ would reappear to spark new energies into their otherwise boring, stale, and routinary lives. He would come again to pump new blood and energies into their vessels and bones, relationships and callings, to motivate and to inspire them again.
Shouldn’t it be the same for us? We need the Risen Christ to bring new vigor and spirit again and again into our lives, even for those who feel and claim that they have arrived at their “maintenance mode”. For it is never God’s intention, the Maker of heaven and earth, that we fall into a meaningless, joyless, banal and enervating lives. After all, he desired that joy might be in us and “may be complete” (John 15: 11).
Springtime cleaning is here! We all need to clean the cobwebs of confusion and distractions in our minds and the toxic wastes of hatred, jealousy, and resentment in our hearts. We need renewal and relaxation so we can give ourselves again to others. We have to redirect our energies into more life-giving activities and preoccupations. We can’t let any negative issue suck up our positive dynamism.
We can recreate ourselves again, or, rather, God can recreate us. Some of us may not be very healthy and strong anymore because of age, but we can’t make this state of being as an excuse for not having wholesome lives. Our works or professions must not solely define us so that we can engage into fulfilling hobbies and projects.
“Going fishing” is more like a new interest than a task to do. At some point of our lives, Jesus reappears in our lives to convey to us a surplus of meaning in this regard: that it’s not time yet to pack up all our things and go into state of oblivion or anonymity, but to refashion ourselves into something that would be life-giving to ourselves and others.
Indeed, may this Easter season make us new again and again!
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Reverend Rodel G. Balagtas attended St. John Seminary in Camarillo, California and earned his Doctor of Ministry in Preaching from Aquinas Institute of Theology in St. Louis, Missouri. For twenty years, he has been in the parish ministry of large multi-cultural communities. Since 2002, he has been the pastor of Immaculate Heart of Mary Church in Los Angeles. Please email Fr. Rodel at [email protected].