John 21:1-19
This morning we are going to take a closer look at one of the most poignant and profound encounters between two people in all of the bible – the one-on-one conversation between Jesus and Peter.
Before we get there though, we need to briefly set the context for this conversation.
Although Jesus had met Peter in a group with other disciples, no gospel records a private one-on-one conversation with the person whom, from the very first calling of the disciples, was to be the rock on which Jesus would build his church.
After the two meetings with all the disciples we read about last week, Jesus had vanished again, and Peter was still tormented by guilt and things unsaid. So he went back to Galilee, to his hometown, and this is where today’s reading is set.
Peter had gone back home to do what he used to do before Jesus called him three years previously, which must have felt a bit like a dream to him by that stage – he went fishing.
Fishing with him were part of the old crew he used to fish with; Thomas, James and John the sons of Zebedee, old Nathanial, in whom Jesus had said there is no deceit, plus two other unnamed disciples.
They had fished all night and caught nothing (nothing new there) when an amazing thing happened.
At dawn, the coming of the light of a new day, Jesus appears on the shore, the very light of the world and yells out to them in the boat – “try the other side”, and they caught so many fish they couldn’t haul in the net.
Suddenly John exclaims – “it is the Lord!”, Peter jumps out of the boat in his undergarments that they wore when fishing, while the remaining disciples tow the huge haul of fish to the shore.
Where Jesus cooks them breakfast. It all happened over a charcoal fire.
Remember that was over a charcoal fire in the temple courtyard that Peter had denied Jesus three times. Denied loving Jesus three times.
Jesus and Peter then have the conversation that Peter must have been both dreading and also yearning for. Jesus goes directly to where Peter’s pain is, as he always does with us.
Later in this passage we learn that Jesus had taken Peter away from the others and was walking slowly with him along the shore – John was following them at a distance.
Jesus, piercing Peter’s heart asks him “Simon, son of John, do you love me more than these?”
Meaning more than the other disciples loved Jesus, because Peter had rashly said “Lord if all others desert you, I never will,” implying a more steadfast love than any of the other disciples.
Peter answers, “Yes Lord, you know I love you.” Jesus replies “feed my lambs.”
Note that Jesus calls Peter, Simon. The name Peter had before Jesus changed his name to Peter, meaning rock. Because Peter was the rock on whom Jesus had decided to build his church.
But here three times, he calls him Simon. His worldly name – the name he had before he encountered Jesus of Nazareth – his name as a fisherman.
Again he asks Simon, “Do you love me?” “Yes Lord, you know that I love you.” “Tend my sheep.”
A third time Jesus askes Simon, “Do you love me?” The three questions correspond to the three times that Peter denied Jesus, the three times Peter said, “No, I don’t love Jesus!”
The third time, Peter, really hurting now, answers “Lord, you know everything; you know that I love you.” “Feed my sheep.”
Now something remarkable is happening here. Without getting into too much detail, the language that the New Testament is written in is Greek, which has four main words that we translate as love.
I won’t give you the Greek names, but they translate as something like this: I love Ice-Cream, I love my wife, I love my brothers, sisters and friends, and the love that Jesus has for us, so much that he died a lonely, humiliating and torturous death on a cross for us – that is self-sacrificing love.
As you can see, these all have completely different meanings. Love is not always love. What is happening here if we look at which meanings of “love” are being used here which are just translated in English as love?
Jesus asks Simon Peter “Do you love me like I loved you and died for you?” He answers, “Lord you know I love you as a brother.” Jesus still says, “Feed my lambs.”
Before his denial, Peter had said he loved Jesus and would sacrifice himself for him. He now knows that wasn’t true, and by his actions, he had shown that he loved Jesus like a fickle friend.
Again he asks, “Simon, do you love me like I loved you unto death?” “Lord, you know I love you as a friend.” Still, “Tend my sheep.”
The third time is different. Jesus asks Simon Peter, “Do you love me as a friend.” “Lord you know everything, you know I love you as a friend.”
Jesus always meets us exactly where we are. He came down to Simon’s level, knowing that Simon Peter could not rise up to the measure of Christ’s love for him.
We are exactly like Simon Peter. We too cannot love God as he loves us – the most devout person in the whole world, ever, has been unable to do that… and yet…
In five weeks’ time we celebrate Pentecost, the coming of the Holy Spirit to all peoples and nations – the start of the worldwide Church, the body of Christ. Not long after today’s reading, the book of Acts starts when Jesus ascends to the Father.
Jesus had told the disciples to wait for the counsellor, the advocate from God to come and he will ignite the very fire of God, the power that fires the sun, in all those who believe.
After Pentecost, Simon is once again Peter, and what a change has come over him. He is on fire and became the rock on which the church was built.
He did end up loving God in the same way that God loved him in Jesus Christ – his love cost him his life when he was martyred on a cross around thirty or so years later.
Without the Holy Spirit, we too, like Peter, cannot love God the way he loves us. Through faith we are baptised into the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, whose power truly does enable us to love as we have been loved.