"The People of God Given Abundance"
April 14, 2013
THE THIRD SUNDAY OF THE CHRISTIAN SEASON OF THE PASSOVER
Acts 9: 1 - 19a/Psalm 33: 1 – 11/Revelation 5: 6 – 14/John 21: 1 - 14
The Reverend Father Leo G. Yanguas
of the
Archdiocese of Manila
National Church in the Philippines
Territorial Church of Asia
for the
International Communion of the Charismatic Episcopal Church
We are to resurrect our purpose of gathering here. We are to recognize that we are here to give our thanks, to worship and to praise God. The most important thing is to partake of the body and blood of Christ, the result of which is we live out the fruits of His grace.
Looking at the Scriptures of Easter, one of the things that God shares with us is the image of man. We have no problem believing Christ can rise from the dead; believing that He can defeat sin, hell, death and the grave. During the Season of Easter, one of the things that Christ really emphasized is saying, “Look, My hands, My feet, My side. I am in the flesh. I have risen from the dead and I am in the flesh. Look at My scars, My nail prints.” It is a picture that God wants to bring to us: man has triumph over these things in the flesh.Man can defeat sin, through Christ, that whatever darkness is thrown at him, he can rise above all these things.
Imagine the picture that God gave us last week in the gospel. The disciples were all enclosed in a locked room in fear and in hiding. Suddenly Christ appears to them in the flesh and says, “Peace with you.” What a picture of Easter for all of us! Nothing can hinder and stop us from declaring peace to those who are in need of peace. This speaks powerfully to us that nothing can stop man from proclaiming and fulfilling what God has told him to do.
In the gospel today, Jesus manifested Himself for the third time to His disciples. John shares that there are many instances every day that God manifested Himself alive in the disciples, in the flesh.
What we have to resurrect in our lives is the awareness of God with us every day. We have lost that and that expectancy. One of the beautiful images is the miracle of the manna every day for forty years. Every day, the children of Israel go to sleep and when they wake up in the morning, the manna was there. The first experience they had for that day is the faithfulness of God. The first experience that they had, as the children of Israel, is God Himself. It is God’s faithfulness to provide His very presence among them every day of their lives. They experienced God every day for the rest of the forty years in the desert.
One of the things that we have to resurrect in our lives is to be aware that every day that we wake up in the morning, having that expectancy in our hearts, God is alive and He is with us. We are expecting to experience Him this day. The children of Israel had the pillar of cloud by day and the pillar of fire by night. There was not a day, a moment that God was not with them.
God is alive in us. For some of us, when we wake in the morning, our problems and our emotions are more real. Christ has risen from the dead and He is alive and manifesting Himself to us every day faithfully. But some of us are so in depth into the system of the world that even though Christ is manifesting Himself to us, we can’t even recognize Him. We are so engrossed into the system of the world that it has been a blessing to us. The RH Bill has become a blessing to others. They say, “We will be prosperous because of this bill. We will be relieved of our poverty because of this bill.” Death has become a blessing.
We have to resurrect the attitude of expectancy every day of our lives. Christ has risen in the flesh. We can experience Him in the flesh. In many forms and ways, He is there but we don’t recognize Him. No death, sin or failure will hinder us from experiencing God every day. This is His faithfulness to us. Christ appeared to the people when they were in doubt. Christ appeared to them when they were in confusion. Christ appeared to them when they needed it the most. Will not Christ appear to you when you need Him the most for a certain day?
We are so immersed into technology that relationship has died. We have so abused the technology that the relationship, the unity, and the fellowship we have has died. We have to resurrect this. We don’t have any enemy – death, sin, and the grave have been defeated. The major enemy that we have is ourselves that we don’t give time to God anymore. We have to resurrect our time with Him early in the morning.
God is a practical God. I am sharing about the practicality of Easter. We think Easter is some theology or doctrine that is way far off that we cannot reach. We think Easter is something that we can talk about, argue about, and divide ourselves so that we can have division for the sake of argument. But Easter is the most practical thing that we can experience in our lives.
When Jesus rose from the dead, this was what was imprinted in Peter’s mind in Acts 3, “When He rose from the dead, the first thing that Christ did was thatHe ate and drank with them.” In our gospel today, Christ taught His disciples how to fish. He prepared breakfast for them.
Wives, you are living resurrection lives when you prepare breakfast for your family. In the story when Mary and the women went to the tomb, it says that Christ’s burial clothes were folded properly. For the youth and the children, when you fix your bed, you are living resurrection lives because this is what Christ did. He rose from the dead just to fix His beddings and it was folded properly and neatly and the angel was there watching Him.
Easter is so great! Christ taught His disciples to fish. We are so immersed in the world, thinking that we have everything. In the faithfulness of God, He opens our eyes and we find out that all things we have is really nothing. The gospel shares that the disciples toiled all evening in the world and they caught nothing.
Is God telling you to resign? God is not telling you to resign but He is telling you to resurrect your commitment, your faith, your obedience into His ways, so that when you go into the world catching fish, you will catch big fish. Christ did not tell His disciples to stop fishing, but He says, “I will teach you how to fish properly. Put it on the right side of the boat.” And they caught big fish.
In the story of Daniel, they were deported to Babylon, the greatest city at that time. They were chosen to be the king’s servants. The king says, “Feed them the best of the land and the best of the wine that comes from my table.” Daniel did not compromise. He said, “No, we will eat vegetables and drink water and see who will be the best looking after ten days.” After ten days, they were not looking haggard but younger in Babylon, in the system of the world. We say, “What good is resurrection? What good is eternal life? Can we use that in our workplace? Can we use that in our business?”
The book of Daniel is like a prophesy proclaiming to us what we are to be in the world living the resurrection life. We have to bring up and resurrect that attitude that we will not compromise with the world. Because Daniel did not compromise with the system of the Babylon, he turned out better, younger, and ten times wiser.
The king had a problem and he wanted the wise men to solve his problem, but he doesn’t want to tell his problem. Daniel was able to interpret the king’s problem. He was given honor. This is resurrection life, the picture of resurrection life for us. In our fishing, in Babylon, in captivity, we can be the most effective person in that place, but we have to resurrect our faith, our obedience that we will not compromise the ways of the world. We will turn out even better than them.
We have so much in our lives that we haven’t realized. Sometimes, God will allow us to go in any situation in our lives just for us to realize that we have the potential in our lives. Within us is the answer to the problems that we face. Sometimes, He allows us to go to situations that we call problems that we can resurrect the ability that we have.
This is the picture that we have. This is why Christ prepared the fish and the bread. This means that there is no separation of what is spiritual, of what is worship, in the workplaces, business, and school. You can be successful in both areas of your lives because Easter is practical; it can be lived out; and it can be manifested in our lives.
We have to resurrect once again the faith, the obedience. They caught 153 big fish, and for us this is great. For Peter, something is greater than that. The prosperity and the abundance that God gave us is good. Praise God for the one hundred and fifty-three fish!
With all these things, the most fulfilling part of our lives is what John saw that he said, “It is the Lord.” When you obey, trust and walk in faith regardless of what your emotion is, when you give when you don’t have anything to give, when you forgive when you don’t want to forgive, because you did not compromise God’s principle and you obeyed regardless of what people are saying, there is such a satisfaction and fulfillment in your lives. When you obey, regardless of the blessings that you have, nothing can stop the feeling that, “It is the Lord.” No one can take that away from us and this is what matters.
Nothing can take that reality, that experience, that the next time, whatever the world may put in front of you, you say, “I have seen the Lord.” When the disciples obeyed, when they did not compromise, when they put the net on the right side of the boat, they said, “Yes, we obeyed and we saw the Lord risen from the dead and we have experienced Him for this day.”
If I would have a title for this homily, I would entitle it, “The Breakfast for Champions.” Christ prepared breakfast for them – fish and bread. Let us live the resurrection life. Let us resurrect – that uncompromising spirit that God gave us that we can be like the disciples; we can be like Daniel regardless of our situation. We will find ourselves on top – wise, younger, not stressed, not problematic, and able to solve the world’s problems.
Resurrect our prayer time with the Lord. Early in the morning, Christ prepared breakfast for the disciples, so that when they go out to the world, they have 153 fish and breakfast with the Champion. And they are ready to face the world. Let us resurrect that time we have for the Lord like attending the 6:00 morning Mass if you can.
Early in the morning, what the disciples experience is that Christ fed them. In the Old Testament, it was manna. In the fulfillment of the Resurrection, it was bread and fish. God has made us equipped with so much abundance that we can live out our lives in the world in a practical way, in flesh and blood.
Christ says, “See here My prints. This is the result of lies, of false accusations, of what man in his evil mind can do. Yet, I have overcome these. I experienced them, but I rose above them. I conquered them and I rose up victorious regardless of the imperfections that I had have in My physical being. I was able to rise up and conquer them.”
God is a great God and He is faithful and He is with us every day of our lives. When we wake up, the manna is there waiting for us to experience Him during the day of our lives. God is there. He is faithful. Let us have that expectancy in our lives that we can live out the life that God gave us.
LET US CONTINUE OUR REFLECTION
WITH
CARDINAL OF HOLY MOTHER CHURCH
AND
VENERABLE PRIMATE
OF THE PHILIPPINES
THROUGH
THROUGH
THE WORD EXPOSED
PSALM 27:4-6
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