“What Difference Does It Make

“What Difference Does It Make?”

Text: John 21:1-14

© April 22, 2007 by C. Edward Bowen at Crafton United Presbyterian Church.

They’re calling it the worst massacre in modern American history. Thirty-two people killed on the Virginia Tech campus. And all week long we’ve been seeing and hearing reports about the horrifying and grisly slayings that took place there in Blacksburg. But perhaps what is even more troubling to us is the fact that we know that that kind of senseless evil and violence isn’t isolated just there in that Virginia town. No, we know all too well that that kind of senseless evil and violence is all around us.

Just this past week local school districts, in Bethel Park and in other communities, had to lock down their buildings and make the students pass through extraordinary security procedures before they would let them into the classrooms. The school district did that because of threatening messages that they had found, which indicated that perhaps some students were planning on going on a killing rampage of their own.

Right now we have three teenagers who are doing community service here at our church. The three girls are all doing community service because of fights that they got into at school – apparently something that’s not at all uncommon at the high school. Or just this past week a boy who comes here for Adventure Group got attacked and repeatedly punched by a fellow student at the elementary school.

Or in the news this past week it was reported that a 2 ½-year-old little boy was severely burned with sulfuric acid. Apparently some kids at a school in New Jersey found some drain cleaner liquid that had powerful sulfuric acid in it, and they poured the acid all over a slide on the town’s elementary school playground. And when that toddler came along and went down the slide, he got the acid all over himself, so that he had to be rushed to the hospital with third degree burns over much of his body.[1]

Jesus Christ is risen! He is risen indeed! On Easter Sunday, and last Sunday, and again today that’s what the readings from the Bible have been telling us. In fact, for nearly two thousand years that’s the message that the Christian church has been proclaiming: that Jesus Christ is risen, that he is risen indeed. But especially after a week like we’ve just experienced, we can’t help but wonder: if Jesus really has been raised from the dead, if the resurrection really is true – what difference does it make? What difference has it made in the world?

A couple of months ago I noticed that two of the books on the best-sellers list were books written by atheists about atheism. And so it made me wonder what those authors were saying that was causing so many people to read their books. And so I bought one of them – it was a book called The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins. And, in essence, one of the main points the author tries to make is: if God is real, if Jesus really has been raised from the dead, then why is the world like it is? If God is real, if Jesus really has been raised from the dead, then shouldn’t you be able to see some kind of difference in the world?

To illustrate his point, Dawkins points to an incident that happened in Montreal in the fall of 1969. You see, at 8 a.m. on October 17 of that year, the Montreal police went on strike. Well, by 11:20 that morning, a bank robbery had taken place. By noon almost all of the stores in the downtown area had locked their doors because of rampant looting. Within a few more hours, the workers at one taxi company had set fire to a competitor’s business, a sniper was shooting at people from a rooftop, and rioters had gone on a rampage through a number of hotels and restaurants. By the end of that day, six banks had been robbed, a hundred stores had been looted, twelve fires had been set, hundreds of storefront glass windows had been broken, and millions and millions of dollars in other property damage had been inflicted before the army finally had to move in to restore order.

And so in that book, atheist Richard Dawkins raises this question. He says: In Montreal, almost everyone who lives there says that they believe in God. Almost everyone who lives there says that they’re a Christian, that they believe in Jesus, that they believe that God raised Jesus from the dead. But if that’s what those people believe, Dawkins wonders, then what difference did those beliefs make in those people’s lives? If that’s what those people believe, then why couldn’t they get along and behave themselves for even a few hours without complete anarchy and chaos breaking out? If God is real, if Jesus is real, Dawkins asks, shouldn’t it make a difference in how believers live? But as far as Dawkins is concerned, as he looks at the world around him, he doesn’t see faith making much of a difference in most people’s lives.[2]

When it came to those first disciples, they presumably had faith in Jesus, but what difference did it make for them? We have to ask ourselves that question because in today’s reading the scene opens with Peter and six of the other disciples deciding to take a fishing trip. Jesus had just been raised from the dead, two different times they’ve seen him for themselves, but instead of racing out into the world and getting to work on the mission that Jesus had for them – preaching to people, teaching people, inviting people to believe – we find the disciples back where they were when they first met up with Jesus, fishing on the Sea of Galilee. After all that Jesus had taught them, after all the miracles they had seen Jesus perform, after all that Jesus had done – dying on the cross and being raised from the dead – what difference did all of that make for the disciples? Apparently it didn’t make much of a difference at all.

And even though the disciples were out there fishing in their boat all night long, what did they catch? Absolutely nothing. Not one single, solitary fish. But all of a sudden, right about the time when the sun was starting to come up, they heard some stranger on the shore call out to them and say, “Why don’t you try casting out your nets on the other side of the boat?” At that moment, the disciples in the boat didn’t realize that it was Jesus there on the shore, and quite possibly the disciples might have muttered to themselves, “Who’s the hot shot? What makes him a Mr. Know-It-All when it comes to fishing? We’re the experts. We’re the professional fishermen.” But since they had gone all night long without catching anything, they decided that it wouldn’t hurt to do what that stranger suggested.

Well, as soon as they did that, as soon as they took Jesus’ suggestion and cast their nets on the other side of the boat, the disciples were amazed to discover that that made all the difference in the world. Before they knew it, their nets were overflowing. And when they finally dragged their catch onto the shore and counted it, they were astonished to see that they had caught not just a few dozen fish – but that they had caught 153 fish!

Maybe you remember that back during the Last Supper scene in the Gospel of John, Jesus had said to the disciples, “I am the vine, you are the branches…apart from me you can do nothing” (John 15:5). And sure enough, here in this story, apart from Jesus, the disciples couldn’t do anything. Apart from Jesus, they couldn’t catch even one fish.

But what made all the difference was when they connected themselves to Jesus – when they listened to what Jesus had to say and did it. Then they discovered for themselves what kind of great things are possible. When they listened to what Jesus had to say and did it, they discovered for themselves that Jesus wants to do amazing things in our lives, if only we would turn to him and let him in.

It’s like the story about a little boy who was struggling to pick up a heavy rock. He kept grunting and straining, but he couldn’t budge it. His father, who had been standing nearby watching him, finally said, “Son, are you using all your strength?” The boy cried out, “Yes, I am!” The father said, “No, you’re not. Because you haven’t asked me to help you.”[3]

I think we’re sometimes tempted to wonder why we can’t budge the rocks that there in our lives. I think we’re sometimes tempted to wonder why our nets aren’t filling up. I think we’re sometimes tempted to wonder why things in our lives, and in the world around us, aren’t turning out better than they are. Is the problem with God? Is the problem that God just isn’t able to do anything to help us? Is the problem that God just isn’t able to make positive difference in our world?

No, the problem isn’t with God. The problem is with us. The problem is that Jesus is standing there at the shore, calling out to us, trying to tell us the right way to go. But all too often we’re not listening to what he has to say. We’re too busy doing things our own way, living our lives our own way, that we miss out on the help, the guidance, the abundant life that Jesus wants to give us.

As we look around at the way things are, we can’t help but wonder: What difference is Jesus making in the world? But the better question to ask is: What difference is Jesus making in your life? Do you want Jesus to make a difference in your life? If so, then make the effort to listen to what Jesus is wanting you to do, and do it. Because if we want this world to be different, we need to become different. In all of our lives, we need to let Jesus make a difference.