June 7, 2026 – Second Sunday after Pentecost
Genesis 12.10-16
John 21.15-17
Déjà vu All Over Again
Second Sunday after Pentecost
Christ, you know I love you / Did you see I waved?
I believe in you and God / so tell me that I’m saved.
Christ, you know I love you / Did you see I waved?
I believe in you and God / so tell me that I’m saved.
Yes, Debbie and I finally saw Jesus Christ Superstar at the Goodspeed Opera House last weekend and I want to thank Karli for starting things off this morning by reminding us Everything’s Alright from the same show. I know some of you saw Superstar at the Goodspeed as well. We’ve had season tickets for maybe a half dozen years now, and to my mind, this is the best show we have seen at the Goodspeed to date. One of the earliest of the Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice musicals – it was the third time the two collaborated – Jesus Christ Superstar is an incredibly well-written and I think well-composed depiction of the last week of Jesus’ life. Of course, when it first appeared in 1970 it ran into some predictable headwinds: a musical about Jesus’ betrayal and crucifixion? And Rock & Roll to boot! Perhaps most scandalous of all, there is no resurrection in Superstar – the show concludes with Jesus’ body being taken down from the cross for burial, accompanied by an instrumental-only evocation of John 19.41: “Now there was a garden in the place where he was crucified, and in the garden there was a new tomb in which no one had been laid.” The End – The End. Nobody sees the risen Jesus, and nobody – but nobody – leaves the theater without a lump in their throat.
While there may be no post-resurrection stories in Jesus Christ Superstar, there are multiple stories in Matthew, Luke and John. [Mark, like the musical, has no stories of a resurrected Jesus.] A few years ago you and I looked at one of those stories, I think it was the road to Emmaus, when the disciples did not recognize the resurrected Jesus until he ate with them – “He was made known to them in the breaking of the bread.” And one of the things we said about that story is that the disciples’ experience of meeting Jesus at the table after the resurrection reminded them of their experience with him before the crucifixion at the Last Supper. “He was made known to them in the breaking of the bread.” He met them on familiar territory, in familiar circumstances. So this week I decided to do a little more digging into those post-resurrection stories, in fact, into all of them, and discovered that every single one of them described the encounter with the risen Jesus in a way that was reminiscent and replicative of a story from his earthly ministry. For the women and the disciples, seeing the risen Jesus was like déjà vu all over again.
Let’s go back to Easter morning, since it is the story we know best. Do you remember who first discovered the empty tomb? It was the women: different stories describe different women, including Jesus’ mother Mary, Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James, Joanna and Salome, but every time it was the women. So let’s back up two days: who were the very last people who remained at the cross with Jesus until the end? It was the women: Mary, Mary Magdalene, and Mary the wife of Clopas. The first ones to discover the empty tomb and the risen Jesus were the last ones to see him alive two days before. Déjà vu.
Michele read the story of Peter’s encounter with the risen Jesus this morning. Jesus perplexed Peter by asking the same basic question three times: “Simon Peter, son of John, do you love me?” “Yes Lord, you know I love you.” “Feed my lambs…. Simon son of John, do you love me?” “Yes, Lord; you know that I love you.” “Tend my sheep… Simon son of John, do you love me?” “Lord, you know everything; you know that I love you.” Jesus said to him, “Feed my sheep.” “Feed my lambs… tend my sheep… Feed my sheep.” Odd that Jesus would ask the same question of Peter three different times, until we remember what Peter did three times three nights before. What did Peter do? He denied Jesus three times. After Jesus was resurrected, Peter encountered Jesus in a way that went straight to the heart of what he had done while Jesus was still alive. Three denials, three commands to tend the flock. Déjà vu.
In another post-resurrection story, the disciples were out fishing but were not catching much of anything. A stranger on the beach suggested they toss their nets out the other side of the boat, and sure enough when they did they caught so many fish the net was too heavy to haul in. Which is almost exactly what happened a year or so earlier, when Peter complained to Jesus, “We’ve been working all night and haven’t caught a thing.” So Jesus told them to try their nets again, and they caught so many fish that not only couldn’t they land the catch, but the boat actually began to sink. Once again, Jesus did something after the resurrection he had done with them before, and in that moment they recognized him. Déjà vu.
One more. We remember the story of the great commission at the very end of Matthew’s gospel, when Jesus took them all up to the mountaintop and said “Go and make disciples of all the world, and teach them all I have commanded you, and baptize them in the name of God the Creator, Christ the Redeemer and the Holy Spirit.” In just the same way he had previously taken Peter, James and John to the mountaintop at the transfiguration to give them their marching orders. Déjà vu, all over again.
The pattern is unmistakable. The reasons why, well, wonder with me for a moment, because this is a rich question. Is it that Jesus comes to us in the most familiar ways when we most need to see him, to recognize him, to know he is there for us? Is he reminding us of who he was, and is, and what he has already done for us, before he shows us something new? Or are we seeing Jesus as we remember him, even when he comes to us in novel and unexpected ways? Remember, after the crucifixion nobody, but nobody ever expected to see Jesus again. It was only when he said or did something that triggered a memory, what the Greeks call mimesis, that his followers knew it was he. One of the most powerful and tender of these moments is when he found Mary Magdalene weeping outside the empty tomb; he asked why she was crying and, not recognizing him at first, she said to him, “They have taken my Lord away and I don’t know where he is!” Do you remember what happened next? Jesus spoke but one word: “Mary.” Mary. And in that one word she had heard him speak so many times before she knew it was he and her tears of sadness became tears of joy. All he had to do was to say her name in that warm familiar voice. “Mary.” [a few names]… and it goes straight to the heart.
The Bible’s use of déjà vu is not limited to the resurrection stories. We heard from Genesis this morning that Abram was afraid to let the Egyptians know Sarai was his wife; he thought they would be stunned by her beauty, and kill him so they might have her. So husband and wife pretended to be sister and brother, and Pharaoh rewarded Sarai’s beauty with a bounty of gifts. It was considered such a clever gambit that it is repeated two more times in Genesis, once more by Abraham and Sarah and once by Abraham’s son Isaac and his wife Rebecca. What once was old is new once again.
Simon the Zealot is one of the most obscure of Jesus’ disciples. The only thing we know about him is his moniker. Simon is mentioned three times in the Bible, and each time it is simply part of a list of disciples’ names. It happens once in Matthew, once in Mark and once in Luke. In other words, all we know is his name, written once in each of three gospels. And yet an entire mythology has arisen around him; because he is called the Simon the Zealot, the story goes he was one of the fiercest defenders of Jerusalem against the Roman occupiers. Jesus Christ Superstar has an entire song named for him, Simon Zealotes, which I began with this morning, Christ, you know I love you / Did you see I waved? I believe in you and God, so tell me that I’m saved. Simon knew Jesus to be a staunch Jew, and as such, either hoped or assumed that his triumphal entry on Palm Sunday meant that he was there to overthrow the Roamn government: There must be over fifty thousand / screaming love and more for you / And every one of fifty thousand / would do whatever you asked them to / Keep them yelling their devotion / but add a touch of hate for Rome / you will rise to a greater power / we will win ourselves a home. Simon’s expectation of Jesus was colored by his earlier understanding of what the Messiah was supposed to do. It was a reasonable assumption, shared by many. But Jesus transformed that understanding into something new, not just for Simon, but for so many others whose hope for political liberation gave way to the new reality of spiritual freedom. In other words, their previous experience and understanding of Jesus opened the door for knowing Jesus in a new and entirely unexpected way. Like a resurrected Christ.
I wonder if these stories are not preparing us for something new. A new understanding of Jesus, perhaps. A new manner and method of understanding and doing church. A new way of knowing ourselves. A new way of knowing our neighbors. A new way of welcoming strangers. During this Pride Month, maybe a new or renewed commitment to standing with those among us whom so many others would rather marginalize – and this is more important than ever in these days. A new way of coming to the table, and seeing in the breaking of the bread not only the Jesus who did this so many years ago with the disciples, but seeing in the breaking of the bread the company of all the disciples, the sisters and brothers who have always been with us – maybe communion can be déjà vu all over again.