Peter's Landing
“Then they all forsook Him and fled.”
All of them including John left Jesus and they ran for their lives. I want to say to you this morning, the day after the crucifixion - the day after Good Friday... How are you feeling?
Are you feeling abandoned?
I looked up the Oxford Dictionary, the word, 'abandoned' means to give up completely. Have you given up? Has COVID-19 put the 'final nail in the coffin', so to speak? Are you saying: “I can’t anymore!”
Are you feeling deserted, has your family left you? Are you sitting alone today?
Well, I want to ask you to please reconsider how the disciples must have felt. You know for three years they walked with Jesus - They lived with Him. Can you imagine - God made flesh, they saw Him walk on the water.
They saw Him transformed and transfigured on the Mount of Transfiguration, talking to Moses and Elijah and then hearing a word from His Heavenly Father: “This is My Son...”
Folks I want to say to you they must have been devastated on this very day 2000 years ago. Everything that they had hoped for had crumbled. Loneliness and abandonment is a terrible thing and those disciples understood exactly how it felt.
Early this morning I was contemplating about this very thing. I remembered, as a young man of 22 years old, I told my mom and dad, “I want to go to Australia - I want to be a cowboy in Australia.” Of course, I was very naive, I was a country boy anyway... I got on that big plane and flew to the other side of the world. I got off that plane at Sydney Airport in New South Wales. I didn't know a living soul and I didn't have a contact on the whole continent of Australia.
I eventually got on a train and I went West where I got a job on a little dairy farm. They weren’t very wealthy people, they gave me the attic in the outside house. The lady took a sheet and cut it in half - She said half was for the bottom and the other half is for the top, that is the truth! One piece of flex coming from the top with one light bulb, that was it. I remember sitting down after a couple of days and saying to myself, “What have I done?!” I felt abandoned, I couldn’t get back home - I had no money to go home. My mom and dad were on the other side of the world.
But I want to tell you there is a friend, that’s Him, who sticks closer than a brother, His name is Jesus. You see, Jesus didn’t abandon the disciples and we are going to hear tomorrow morning, that is right - Resurrection Sunday - what happened.
My favourite place in Israel is Peter’s Landing where, early in the morning, they had gone fishing. Remember they had given up... Don’t give up folks!
And somebody was shouting from the shore, “Boys, throw the net on the other side”... and they picked up a hundred and fifty-three fish! He had already made bread, baked it and roasted fish for them. And He said to Peter: “Take care of My sheep.”
Have a good day today and remember - He will never abandon you.
God bless you, and goodbye.