St. Michael’s Church
CHARLESTON, SC
WEDNESDAY MARCH 2, 2016
1 PETER 2:22-25
JOHN 21:15-19
PREACHER: THE REV. AL ZADIG, JR.
HELP US LORD TO BE SO CONNECTED TO YOU THAT WE MIGHT BECOME THE SERVANTS
OF OTHERS.
TAKE OUR LIPS AND SPEAK THROUGH THEM,
OUR MINDS AND THINK THROUGH THEM,
AND TAKE OUR HEARTS, AND SET THEM ON FIRE.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++
It was a scene I will never forget.
During a brief college tour of the Southeast last week, my two oldest children and I were in New Orleans
visiting Tulane University.
One night we found ourselves walking through the French Quartercomplete with all its eccentricities to put it mildly.
As we’re walking, we see a man sitting in one of the doorways with:

3 words in front of him,

on 3 cardboard signs…

Homeless

Hungry

Hated
I didn’t see that last word coming.
Hated.
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During our 13 hour drive home that word haunted me…
What happened in his life?
 How was he hated?
 Did he live with self-hatred?
It’s such a violent word, we all tell our children not to say it.
Good old Ann Landers puts it in perspective, writing:

Hate is like acid,

it damages the vessel in which it’s kept,

and destroys the objects on which its poured.
Marya Hornbacher, makes it much more personal in her book: Wasted: A Memoir of Anorexia and
Bulimia, she writes:
I hated the-me underneath.

When you realize you dislike yourself so much,


When you can’t stand who you are,
And this deep spite has been the motivation behind your behavior for years,
Your brain sometimes just can’t deal with it.

Condemnation

Self hatred

Hurt, Pain and Guilt are all things that can plague and destroy the human heart.
++++++++++++++
This heart pain knows no boundaries.
From a homeless man
To anyone of us..
Even to a disciple.
Peter, the disciple of Jesus deals with this self hatred.
Yes, this is the 3rd sermon on Peter in a month, so by now,
You know his story.
Peter on Maundy Thursday, while trying to protect Jesus falls asleep 3 times, and on the third time,
as he’s waking up, Jesus is being taken away to his death.
Which produces in Peter a guilt that leads to a self loathing,
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
What have I done?
Out of that self condemnation, Peter denies he knows Jesus, not once but 3 times.
To make matters even more painful, as Peter betrays Jesus the 3’rd time, a rooster crows and
simultaneously..
Jesus looks directly at Peter, with a look that would have penetrated Peter down to the deepest part of his
soul.
It causes Peter to run away weeping bitterly.
Peter from this time forward is a marked man, when people see him, they look the other way…
Ministry was now nearly impossible for Peter.
+++++
Have you been there?
You made a terrible mistake,
Your self loathing is equaled
by the treatment you feel you’re getting by your friends?
The only way out..despair and isolation.
+++++++
To our newly made Confirmands,
to each of you,
let me speak to you for a minute.
You are growing up in a world that will define you by what you have
and look like..
A world that will tell you there is no way out of self-hatred.
Be wise and spot the lie.
Jesus, in dying on that cross, gives you and me not only the miracle of the 2nd, 3rd, 4th chances and beyond,
but a recipe to defeat those voices in here!
As we know from Easter..
If Peter who:

Falls asleep 3 times

Denies Jesus 3 times
Can be restored, you and I can too.
Jesus gives another way out.
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Jesus dies on that Good Friday Cross but then on Easter day,
rises again, and sends an angel to speak to the people who come to the tomb searching for his Body.
As we said on Easter, Jesus gives the angel one sentence to say..
Tell the Disciples AND PETER THAT I’VE RISEN!
The key is: And PETER!
Proving that Through the Resurrection, we can get a second chance!
The resurrection takes all of our




Sin
Mistakes
the hatred toward us
Even our self hatred!
The resurrection buries all that and for the Christian RESTORES joy.
+++++
Today, we get the rest of this supernatural story.
The reading we just read from John 21 occurs after the resurrection.
Meaning, after he dies, Jesus re-appears from the dead to speak to the disciples.
This is supernatural stuff!
How many times to this point does Jesus reappear?
Of Course “3”!!!!
As an aside, if you haven’t seen the move RISEN, you need to.
It tells the story specifically of what happens after the Resurrection, it’s all from John 21.
So, if you’re keeping score at home:

Peter falls asleep 3 times

Peter denies Jesus 3 times

Jesus comes back to life day “3” after his death

And Jesus on his 3rd Supernatural appearance, dedicates it to his unfinished business with
Peter.
Jesus gives peter one of these….
Then looking at Peter in the eye,
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and to reverse the 3 denials…
JESUS Asks Peter 3 times..
Do you love me Peter..
Do you love me?
Do you love me!
Jesus knows Peter’s heart has to be…
RESTORED
before PETER can go on in life and ministry!
For ministry to move forward, there can be no remnant of hatred, or self hatred.
This tells us that Jesus is clearly still on Peter’s side.
I think some of us need to hear that this morning.
Despite disappointments, failings, hurts, Jesus is still on your side! He loves you!
+++
Through this conversation with Peter,
Jesus gives a workshop on how to restore the joy from
 Hatred
 Hurt
 And Pain.
By giving 3 new words…
 Love
 Give
 Cross.
+++++++++++
Let me unpack that.
First question to Peter…Do you Love me?
The word Love here is Agape love.
The highest form of UNCONDITIONAL LOVE!
In other words…Peter,
DO YOU possess a profound love for me…more than these things…
Meaning:
More than hatred, hurt and pain?
And Because they all just came in from fishing,
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
Peter..do you love me more than the fish y’all just caught?

Peter, do you love me more than your boat?
 Really Jesus? Ouch!

Do you love me more than all the material of the world?

Do you love me more than your career?

Do you love me more than you love your family, friends and fellow disciples?
The first way out of hatred…is Love, the kind of love God showed us by sending his only Son to die for
us!..

Is your love for Jesus stronger than your self loathing?

In hating the self…
o You are hating the one who created you.
It is okay to pray:
Lord help me
love you the way you love me,
help my love for you be stronger than hatred, hurt or pain.
As David Booman quoted Corrie Ten Boom last Sunday:

Look Inward at yourself and you will be depressed

But look to God and you will find rest.
Jesus..
Do you Love me;
Do you Love me;
Do you Love me?
Peter responds each time, Lord, you know I love you…
++++++++++++++
Love..
Then Giving.
Jesus goes on to say…If you Love Me, give yourself away.

If you love me..
o Feed my Lambs

If you love me..
o Tend my sheep

If you love me..
o Feed my sheep.
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You know there is only one proof that we love Jesus…it’s obedience.
Love prompts obedience.
John 14, Whoever obeys my commands; he is the one who loves me.
Peter if you love me, obey me by giving your life away to others.
Stop looking inward and look outward.
2 types of folks to give ourselves to:

Feed my lambs…
o in other words, feed and take care of the youngest among you…
o
take care of the helpless
o
the least
o
last and lost in your life.
But then to cover the generations Jesus says…Tend the sheep.
Tend and feed the mature, the seniors among you…
+++++++
The way out of hate..
Loving Jesus more than yourself…
Giving yourself away to the youngest and oldest around you completes itself on the Cross.
Here’s what I mean:
After the 3 questions and answers, Jesus takes Peter’s hand and says…

Peter, when you were younger

You dressed yourself

But soon

Others will dress and take you where you don’t want to go.
In other words…
Loving Jesus,
feeding his lambs and sheep
will lead to Peter’s death.
We now know for historical fact that Peter died by crucifixion as Jesus did with one difference.
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Peter requested he be crucified upside down because he didn’t feel worthy of dying as Jesus did.
You and I probably won’t be crucified,


But loving Jesus
Giving ourselves away
Will require something in us to die.
When hatred, when hurt and pain rear their head, we pray:
Lord help me die to that: To

Those things in my life that keep the hatred alive

Those things that keep me from loving, and giving

To a lifestyle that draws me away from Jesus
In my life, I find these are daily deaths.
Shannon Alder, the author of;
“300 questions to ask your parents before it’s too late writes:”
“Before you can live, a part of you has to die.

You have to let go of what could have been

How you should have acted

What you wish you would have said differently.

You have to accept you can’t change the past

The opinions of others at that moment in time

or outcomes from their choices or yours.
+++++++
Dying to the past.
Love
Give
Cross=joy:
Jesus ends this part of the conversation with Peter by saying…FOLLOW ME PETER.
This symbolizes full restoration.
This is the 3rd time Jesus would say
Follow Me Peter!
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Meaning, Jesus never gives up on us,
Jesus never gives upon us!
The result for Peter is joy!
How do we know Peter was restored?
How do we know he fed the lambs and tended and fed the sheep?
Obedience.
Peter would go on to write 2 letters called:
1 and 2 Peter.
Peter, the one who knows suffering and self hatred more than any other,
writes these letters to offer encouragement to suffering Christians.
Lending truth to the fact that our healing is primarily for the sake of others..
For ministry to move forward, there can be no remnant of hatred, or self hatred.
Peter chooses to share the most profound truth of the love of Jesus:
Quoting from chapter 2 verse 24:
“Jesus bore our sins so we might die to sin and live for Him.
By the wounds of Jesus we are healed.”
Love
Give
Cross.
++++++
Finally, Let me speak to our confirmands again and to our St. Michael’s community as a whole:
CHURCH is about
Men, women and children

who understand their personal suffering,

who make their broken-ness transparent before Jesus

and are forgiven and transformed through the Holy Spirit

So that ministry to the unreached can go forward!
To bring this home, we are going to end this preaching series on Restoration May 7 with a bang!
That’s when the Rev. Dr. Russ Parker will be at St. Michael’s doing a conference called:
“Restoring hearts
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Renewing Foundations
Releasing the Vision!”
If anything has resonated with you in this sermon,
You need to attend!
I hope everyone of you will be here Saturday May 7.
The Rev. Dr. Parker is such a powerful speaker,
In fact last week, he shared a story with me that describes this restoration to joy from hatred.
Russ was preaching at a funeral and told the congregation:
“When someone dies,
Family members often have words that are never shared with the deceased, which can lead to regret.
But because the dead are with Jesus
We can give Jesus our unspoken words
And in doing so,
Jesus makes those words clear to those in heaven,
and in the process lifts our hurts and pain away.”
After this funeral, a man comes up to Russ and says:
I am the son of the man you buried today,
and I hated him.
I hated my father.
I haven’t seen or talked to my dad in 60 years.
In tears the man says:
As you invited us to give our unsaid words to Jesus,
I thought you were crazy,
But then suddenly a memory popped into my head and it was a question I asked my father when I was very
young…which was:
Dad, why don’t you love me?
My father could never could answer that question.
I then closed my eyes and gave my hate to Jesus for Him to handle,
I gave that question to Jesus, along with every emotion from it…
I was filled with His love..
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and when I opened my eyes….I COULD SEE.
You see, Russ, before today I was physically blind,
but through that Love,
Jesus restored my eyesight and my heart!



Love
Give
Cross.
Let us pray.
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