Jesus is in the repair business

Happy Easter to you! Whilst many will have moved on from Easter, we are continuing to enjoy it. The message of new life at Easter, hope and a restored world is too big to squeeze into a weekend, so the church throws a seven-week party. Easter rolls all the way to Pentecost, 50 days after Easter Sunday. We are heading towards the day when we will celebrate God's Holy Spirit falling upon the early church. To take us there, we have several weeks to reflect on how the earliest disciples responded to the risen Jesus and consider how we ourselves can respond today.

To help us on that journey, I'm going to trial delivering this sermon series. During Easter, the Sunday readings all include a passage from the book of Acts. This wonderful book, written by Luke, records Jesus being raised from the dead, and the events that unfolded as a result. It charts the disciples making sense of the Scriptures in the light of the resurrection, the birth of the church, and its role in taking the good news beyond Jerusalem to the world.

Whilst officially titled the Acts of the Apostles, in recognition of their response to Jesus' return from the dead, it might better be called the Acts of the Holy Spirit (rapidly pursued by the early followers of Jesus). Without the Holy Spirit guiding, driving, and providing for all that we do as church, our efforts and time are at best wasteful and are worst unfaithful.

So, over the coming weeks, please join in the pursuit of God's Word for us, here and today, as we reflect on these passages from Acts. I would welcome your comments and questions, both to inspire my own studies and prayers, but also to help focus my reflections on what it is that you want to hear.

Today, we are thinking about how God is in the repair business. And our readings this week are from the Book of Acts chapter 9 verses 1 to 9, and also from the Gospel of John, chapter 21, verses 3 to 17. So do please go and have a read of those now, either in your Bible or by Googling it on the web.

Have you ever broken something and then repaired it? My dad used to run a furniture business, and out the back was this huge workshop full of tools and bits of wood, and it was a wonderful mix of smells, polish and glue, wood, and the like. My brother and I could lose a whole day just messing about with a hammer or a saw or a screwdriver.

There was this amazingly talented craftsman there who would take people's damaged or broken or old furniture, and then slowly, lovingly repair it and restore it before handing it back to them days later. It was wonderful to see something that was loved and precious returned to its former glory, and wonderful also to see how happy it made those people.

In the first reading today, the one from Acts, we heard about Saul. Saul was a Pharisee, one of those who wanted Jesus executed. Having achieved that, or at least so he thought, he was now busy rounding up all those who were still following Jesus. But one day his own eyes were open to the truth.

Saul meets Jesus on the way to Damascus, on the way to causing trouble, on the way to arresting and rounding up Jesus' followers. He wasn't behaving like a very nice man, and he was somebody to be feared. It was not his good behaviour that led him to having an encounter with Jesus clearly. It was Jesus' love for Saul that did that.

The story goes on to say how Saul had to be led by the hand, because he was blind. Saul had to rely on other people. I've never been blind and I've no idea what it must be like. I wonder if you know somebody who is and whether you got any experience of it yourself. At first, Saul was blind to who Jesus was, and then he was actually blind.

Before Jesus goes on to restore his sight and to give him a new identity in the name of Paul, not Saul, he repairs his life, and he goes on to help other people. And not because Saul or Paul was a good person, but because God loved him, and because God is in the repair business.

In our second reading from the Gospel of John, we hear more examples of this repair business at work. Look back over the reading yourself and have a look to see where you read about something that was not working that was repaired, or something that was broken, that was restored.

At first, there were no fish, and then there were many, many fish. Some texts would say 153 fish, which was the number of nations that were understood to be in the world at the time. In other words, the fishermen caught the world. There was a moment when they did not know it was Jesus, and then they recognised Jesus. They were hungry, and then they were not. And Peter, who had denied knowing Jesus three times, receives forgiveness three times.

There was repairing where it was needed, and there was restoring where it was needed. Jesus is busy in the repair business, always looking for ways to make things better, and not because people have done well in life, but because God has given us a life to live well.

There are two messages that we can take away from today. The first, as already mentioned, is that God is in the repair business. When things get broken, God does not throw them away or ignore them. God recycles them, restores them, repairs them, and brings forward something wonderful. Whether that be in a relationship or a piece of work or a missed opportunity or anything else, and not because we deserve it necessarily, but simply because God loves us, and that's what he does. That's who he is.

The second thing to take away is that just like Jesus asked others to help Saul and then asked Paul to go and help others, just like Jesus asked the forgiven Peter to look after and feed his disciples, Jesus is asking us to join in with his repair business, too. This week Jesus is asking us to keep our eyes open, to restore what is damaged, to repair what is broken, and to lead others to live life well.