Sermon by Meg Peery McLaughlin from John 21:1-19

Peter has seen the risen Lord, twice, and still ends up back on the water at night, catching nothing. The Easter flowers have wilted. The world feels heavy. John doesn't rush past any of it. Instead, Jesus shows up on the beach, not waiting for Peter to have his act together, and the smell of betrayal slowly becomes the smell of breakfast. Resurrection, it turns out, doesn't beam you into a new life. It meets you inside the old one. So what does it mean to lose the self defined by your worst moment, not as diminishment, but as the way toward something truer?