Extreme Makeover Series

Extreme Makeover

John 21: 12-19

First United Methodist Church, Vineland

Georgina Pando-Connolly

Humor:

How come when you mix water and flour together you get glue..

and then you add eggs and sugar... and you get cake?

Where did the glue go?

NEED AN ANSWER?

You know very well where it went!

That’s what makes the cake... Stick to your hips.

Well, that’s it, it finally happened to me! In spite of the constant warnings from the cosmetic industry, regardless of the tons of cold-cream, Oil of Olay and thousand of Lancome samples. Even with a regimen of exercise, weight training, breakfast with Dr. Pericone and dinner with Dr. Atkins, everything my mom told me about aging is happening to me.

I call it gravitational readjustments because I refuse to call it drooping. Why the other day I was resting in bed, and as I turned over, parts of my body left the bed before I did. I’m sure that has never happened to anyone here. Then that same day I bump into Adell and Virginia and . . . as I’m describing my troubles they speak these comforting words, “Ha! Wait until you get to be our age!

Well in a world full of runway models and movie stars, a world ruled by magazines and TV adds, in a world where everyone is supposed to look like Jennifer Lopez or Brad Pitt, common, ordinary people like you and me look at ourselves in the mirror and scream …….Ouch! I need a makeover.

It’s great to be healthy and to want to look our best, but we need to be realistic and not only accept, but find joy, humor and yes, beauty in the body and face that God has given us, and yes, even in the changes that take place in these faces and bodies. We know there are many different kinds of beauty, even in the physical realm.

There is a royal dignity in displaying your gray mane. Is there anyone here as beautiful as Bessie or Evelyn, with their ninety-plus years of age? Who says bald isn’t handsome? And why not feel proud of the stretch marks in your belly, aren’t they reminders of the children God gave you to carry and to love. Young girls, the average dress size in America isn’t size 2 petite, but size 12. So take care of what you have been given but be content with your size and shape.

But no, people are no longer satisfied with simple makeovers to help them look their best. No, now there’s a reality TV show called EXTREME makeovers, where plastic surgeons, cut, remove and replace flesh, teeth, hair, bones, fat, from any part of one “lucky” person’s body to make them “perfect”. Extreme Makeover! Physical perfection. Shallow beauty for a shallow world. What about us, believers, do we get caught in all this?

The letter to the Romans Chapter13, Verse 11 speaks to us today:

“ Besides this, you know what time it is, how it is now the moment for you to wake from sleep. For salvation is nearer to us now than when we became believers.”

Do we realize that the time is today, to wake up from this clueless Christianity, for our salvation is here! Jesus did His part, we must wake up and let the Spirit of God change us!

When I was 29 I didn’t have a relationship with Jesus. As April and my 30th birthdays approached I panicked. I won’t be young any more, I thought. But on March 12 of that same year an amazing thing happened in my life. I met Jesus and His love and His power. Jesus touched my heart and changed it and anointed my life. By the time my 30 birthday came, I was too busy and too much in love with my Lord to focus on vanity.

The Holy Spirit of God had given me a Radical makeover. I changed !

Extreme Makeover of the Spiritual kind. Do you need one? Well I know a Divine Physician willing to assist just for the asking. I know a God so good that He was willing to suffer and to die for you and for me. I know a God so powerful, so forgiving that He takes a bunch of cowardly men, including a mess like Peter and turns them into anointed leaders of His church. I know of a love so strong that it invades a bunch of sinful women and suddenly they are clean, and powerful and brave enough to stand at the foot of the cross and catch the drops of blood from their Rabbi’s wounds. Complete change, extreme makeover.

Our Gospel this morning presents some of the apostles, led by Peter, fishing again all night at the Sea of Tiberias and catching nothing. Then just after daybreak a man calls to them from the shore, “Did you catch anything?” They say, “no.” Then the man instructs them to throw the net to the right and they catch so many fish that they can’t pull the net. Immediately John realizes that this is Jesus and tells Peter. And what does Peter do? He puts some clothes on and jumps into the water, rushing desperately to be with Jesus.