John 21:15-17,20-22 - August 13, 2009

John 21:15-17, 20-22 When they had finished eating, Jesus said to Simon Peter, "Simon son of John, do you truly love me more than these?" "Yes, Lord," he said, "you know that I love you." Jesus said, "Feed my lambs." Again Jesus said, "Simon son of John, do you truly love me?" He answered, "Yes, Lord, you know that I love you." Jesus said, "Take care of my sheep." The third time he said to him, "Simon son of John, do you love me?" Peter was hurt because Jesus asked him the third time, "Do you love me?" He said, "Lord, you know all things; you know that I love you." Jesus said, "Feed my sheep.” . . . . Peter turned and saw the disciple whom Jesus loved following them . . . . “Lord, what about him?” Jesus answered him, “If I want him to remain alive until I return, what is that to you? You must follow me.”

In Yesterday’s devotional we looked at the brief conversation between Jesus and Peter in John 21:15-17. We pondered how the Lord works in our lives and uses our hopes and disappointments to mature us and make room for his personally-tailored question that probes to the core of our identity, “Do you Love me?” Today, let’s continue looking at how the Lord reaches the core of our being in order to empower us to be who he created us to be.
What is amazing about Jesus is that he is masterful in reaching us each where we are at and causing us to address the very root of the issues that cause us to stumble. When Peter denied Jesus three times, he did so in the fear of man. This was a manifestation that at this specific point he had an allegiance higher than to Jesus in his heart – an allegiance to the thoughts of man and what man could do. These things Jesus explicitly taught his disciples not to fear (Mt. 10:28). Of course, Jesus knows such fear does not disappear by the “that was easy” Staples' button! Instead, as we looked at yesterday, Jesus must take Peter on a journey, like all of us, of facing his own lack of trust and sinfulness, in order to reverse that power. It’s the way of the cross before resurrection.
Now consider Jesus’ “personally tailored” probing of Peter to bring about this reversal. John’s Gospel records that it was in the context of warming himself by “burning coals” that he denies Jesus (Jn. 18:18). This original word behind “burning coals” occurs only twice in the whole New Testament, and both times in John’s Gospel. It occurs at Peter’s denial and, you guessed it, when Jesus restores Peter. A few verses prior (v.9) Jesus had prepared the burning coals with fish on them in Chapter 21. Jesus is setting the table, not just for breakfast!, but for restoration and healing, which will require Peter going back to that moment of lack of trust, denial, and allegiance to the fear and thoughts of man.
With Peter’s emotions rushing back to the moment of his denial, Jesus asks him, “Simon son of John, do you truly love me more than these?” (v.15) What could “these” refer to? I think immediately he was referring to the fish that he had just provided for Peter – the fish that would have represented Peter’s life and vocation before Jesus had called him. What’s more is that Jesus does, after all, address Peter not by “Peter” the name Jesus gave him when he called him (Jn. 1:42), but as “Simon, son of John,” the name Peter’s father had given him prior to his call. It is no wonder that Peter was hurt even as Jesus persisted in asking him if he loved him. Maybe Peter had been tempted to sulk in his own guilt and depression and retreat to his former life of fishing. In 1st century Palestine, the old saying holds true, “like father, like son.” Peter was to be a fisherman. And if we are honest, at some point, we have all wanted to run to a safe place in our past out of fear and not wanting to face ourselves and our deep-rooted failures and insecurities. Was Jesus testing him? I think so, but redemptively as always.
But it really wasn’t the fish that Jesus was getting at. Jesus was getting at Peter’s wholehearted allegiance. Even after Jesus restores him in this passage, and proclaims his shepherdly commission, Peter still finds himself being concerned with others in a competing manner– “well Jesus, that’s nice, but what about him?” (vv.20-22) But Jesus responds, “O Peter, what about him? You must follow me!” Wherever we have competing allegiances in our lives, the Lord Jesus will persist in gaining our total allegiance to him. It matters not that my circumstance is different than yours, or that they have it easier than me. No. What matters is in that place, “Do you love me more than these?” He will pursue us in his personally-tailored way, because he loves each of us with that love that drove him to the cross on our behalf, shedding the blood by which he purchased us, and he will stop at nothing until we are the free, God-glorifying, joy-filled, kingdom bringing people that we were created to be.
And, Peter, who once denied Jesus in the fear of man, who even while being restored focused not on the One restoring him but on comparing himself to another, would write with passion of the overcoming grace of Jesus (1 & 2 Peter) and who would give his life in supreme allegiance to Jesus, there nailing on his own cross all the other allegiances he once held dear, and thereby glorifying God in the utmost way that still reverberates throughout the heavens to this day (v.19). Will you allow Jesus’ probing question to go even deeper, and have its way today, “Do you truly love me more than these? You must follow me!"