John 21:1-19 — Do You Love Me

LINDA BROWN: A charcoal fire in a courtyard, and a charcoal fire on a beach. Two fires, a few weeks apart, and the same man standing next to both of them. At the first one, Peter said three times that he did not know Jesus. At the second, Jesus asks him a question three times. FRANK EDWARDS: And the question is not, why did you do it. Welcome to Dig Deeper. I'm Frank Edwards, Linda Brown is with me, and this is day thirty, our last day in the Gospel of John. We have walked from the first line of the book, in the beginning was the Word, to a breakfast by the lake after the resurrection. Some of the disciples had gone back to fishing in Galilee. They caught nothing all night, and at dawn a man on the shore told them where to cast the net. It was Jesus, and he had a charcoal fire going, with fish and bread on it. John chapter twenty-one, verses fifteen to nineteen. LINDA BROWN: Read it, Frank. FRANK EDWARDS: When they had finished eating, Jesus asked Simon Peter, "Simon son of John, do you love Me more than these?" "Yes, Lord," he answered, "You know I love You." Jesus replied, "Feed My lambs." Jesus asked a second time, "Simon son of John, do you love Me?" "Yes, Lord," he answered, "You know I love You." Jesus told him, "Shepherd My sheep." Jesus asked a third time, "Simon son of John, do you love Me?" Peter was deeply hurt that Jesus had asked him a third time, "Do you love Me?" "Lord, You know all things," he replied. "You know I love You." Jesus said to him, "Feed My sheep. Truly, truly, I tell you, when you were young, you dressed yourself and walked where you wanted; but when you are old, you will stretch out your hands, and someone else will dress you and lead you where you do not want to go." Jesus said this to indicate the kind of death by which Peter would glorify God. And after He had said this, He told him, "Follow Me." LINDA BROWN: Before the question, there is that catch of fish. John even counts them. FRANK EDWARDS: A hundred and fifty-three large fish, and John notes that even with so many, the net was not torn. People have spent centuries guessing at a hidden meaning in the number, and none of the guesses is certain. The simplest reading is that it is the kind of detail a fisherman remembers, because somebody had to count them. And it echoes the beginning. Peter's first big moment with Jesus, in Luke's Gospel, was another night of catching nothing, followed by a catch so big the nets began to break. Now, at the end, the net holds. Peter jumped into the water and swam to shore before the boat could get there. LINDA BROWN: He calls him Simon son of John. Not Peter. FRANK EDWARDS: That caught my ear as well. Peter, Cephas, means rock, the name Jesus gave him the very first time they met, back on day two of this series. Here Jesus goes back to the name he had before. Simon, son of John. It is gentle, but it is pointed. The rock had not held. And the first question has an edge to it too. Do you love me more than these? Only a few weeks earlier, at the supper, Peter had said, I will lay down my life for you, and in Matthew and Mark he adds, even if everyone else falls away. More than these was Peter's own claim. LINDA BROWN: And Peter does not make that claim again. FRANK EDWARDS: He does not. He just says, yes, Lord, you know I love you. Matthew Henry, the English commentator from the early seventeen hundreds, noticed exactly that: "He now answered, Thou knowest that I love thee; but without professing to love Jesus more than others." The boasting is gone. What is left is Peter, knowing his own heart a little better and throwing himself on what Jesus knows. LINDA BROWN: Here is where I have my doubt, though, and on our last day I want to say it properly. It is a touching reunion, but it is convenient. Peter denied Jesus and is neatly forgiven and put in charge of everyone. How do I know this is not a failure tidied up after the fact by those who later looked up to him? FRANK EDWARDS: If it were tidy, I would share your suspicion. A story invented to rehabilitate a leader would make him look good at the end. Look at what actually happens to Peter here. Three questions, one for each denial, and the third one hurts him. John says Peter was deeply hurt. Then Jesus tells him, plainly, that when he is old someone will tie him up and lead him where he does not want to go, and John adds that this was about the kind of death Peter would die. Early Christian writers tell us that Peter was eventually executed in Rome. That is not a promotion. That is a road with a cross at the end of it. LINDA BROWN: So he is not being put in charge of a comfortable job. FRANK EDWARDS: He is being given lambs to feed and sheep to look after, the very job Jesus described as laying down your life. And right after this passage, Peter looks over his shoulder at the other disciple and asks, Lord, what about him? And Jesus says, what is that to you? You follow me. Even restored, Peter is still Peter, comparing himself to someone else. The writers did not polish that out either. LINDA BROWN: That last bit is very human. Five minutes after the most important conversation of his life, he is checking whether someone else got a better deal. FRANK EDWARDS: And He does not explode. He just brings him back to one thing. You follow me. LINDA BROWN: Then I have to admit something. It is not tidy. Being asked three times until it hurts, and told how you will die, is not how you flatter someone. It reads more like the truth than I expected. FRANK EDWARDS: And notice what He does not ask. He does not ask, are you sorry. He does not ask, will you promise never to do it again. He does not make Peter relive every word he said by the other fire. He asks one thing: do you love me. Some readers make a lot of the fact that two different Greek words for love are used in this exchange, but many scholars think John uses them interchangeably, and I would not build too much on it. The point is the question itself, asked three times, until the three denials have been met by three answers. LINDA BROWN: Three denials, three answers. He undoes it one by one. FRANK EDWARDS: Without humiliating him, too. And then he gives him work, and an invitation. Follow me. The same words he said to Philip back in chapter one. The book begins with people being called to follow, and it ends with a failure being called to follow again. So the claim of this last passage, put plainly, is that the risen Jesus knows all things, including the worst about us, and still restores people who have failed him, and calls them to follow. LINDA BROWN: Feed my lambs, shepherd my sheep. That is the shepherd language from earlier in the book. FRANK EDWARDS: Back in chapter ten, Jesus said, I am the good shepherd, and the good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep. Now the good shepherd, risen, hands his flock to Peter, who ran away from it. Not because Peter has proven himself, but because he has been forgiven. And there is a lovely footnote to this. Later in the New Testament there is a letter written in Peter's name to church leaders, and in it he writes, be shepherds of God's flock that is among you, and when the Chief Shepherd appears, you will receive the crown of glory. Peter, given the job by the lake, passed it on in the same words. LINDA BROWN: So he never forgot the beach. FRANK EDWARDS: It sounds that way. And notice that he calls Jesus the Chief Shepherd. Peter never mistook himself for the shepherd. He was a sheep given a job, who had been carried home first. LINDA BROWN: Then the hard part at the end. When you are old, you will stretch out your hands, and someone else will dress you and lead you where you do not want to go. That is a strange thing to say to a man you have just forgiven. FRANK EDWARDS: The meaning was clear: it showed the kind of death by which Peter would glorify God. Stretch out your hands was a phrase some ancient writers used for crucifixion. And early Christian writers tell us that Peter was eventually executed in Rome, many years later, during a persecution under the emperor Nero, and the tradition says he was crucified. So Jesus is telling Peter, on the morning of his restoration, that the promise he made too quickly at the supper, I will lay down my life for you, would one day come true after all. Not by his own strength that night by the fire. Years later, as an old man who had been forgiven and had followed. LINDA BROWN: So the boast he could not keep, he kept in the end. FRANK EDWARDS: After he had been forgiven, not before. That is the order all through this book. The gift comes first, and the faithfulness grows out of it. Follow me was not a reward for getting it right. It was the same invitation he gave on the first day, given again to Peter, who had got it badly wrong. LINDA BROWN: You know all things. That is Peter's last defence. Not, I am strong. Just, you know. FRANK EDWARDS: You know all things. You know I love you. It is the most honest prayer in the book. He cannot point to his record. He can only point to what Jesus can see. LINDA BROWN: Thirty days, Frank. Before anyone answers Peter's question, take us back over the road. Where has John been leading us all this time? FRANK EDWARDS: To one person. The Word who was with God and was God, become flesh and living among us. Come and see, on the second day. Water turned into wine at a wedding. A teacher told he must be born again. Living water at a well, bread on a hillside, a blind man washing at Siloam, Lazarus walking out of a tomb. I am the way and the truth and the life. A crown of thorns, and it is finished. An empty tomb, and Thomas on his knees saying, my Lord and my God. Every sign was pointing at the same face. And John closes his book with Peter, failing and then forgiven over breakfast. LINDA BROWN: Then I should say where I have ended up, because I have pushed back on almost everything. I have not arrived. But I understand now what is being claimed, it is not small, and I am not as sure as I was that it is easy to dismiss. And I keep coming back to Peter at that second fire. The same kind of charcoal fire, the old failure right there in the smell of it, and Jesus cooking breakfast. FRANK EDWARDS: Then let me say plainly what this last passage says to that, because it is the whole book in one breakfast. Peter did the worst thing a friend could do, three times, by a fire. Jesus did not pretend it away, and he did not leave him there. He lit another fire, called him by name, met every denial with a question, and gave him back his place: follow me. What Jesus did for Peter, he offers to you. Whatever your own failure is, there is forgiveness in him, because on the cross he paid for it in full. You do not have to fix yourself first. Peter did not. Come to him as you are. Tell him the truth, in your own words, wherever you are listening. Trust what he finished, and follow him. LINDA BROWN: And for someone who is still where I am? FRANK EDWARDS: Keep reading, and keep asking, and the invitation will still be standing. He was patient with Nicodemus in the dark, with Thomas behind a locked door, and with Peter on that beach. Find people who follow him, a church near you, and ask them your questions face to face. But do not mistake this for something meant only for people who have it together. The risen Jesus knows the worst about every one of us, and he still says the same two words. Follow Me. LINDA BROWN: Listen once more, slowly. Jesus said this to indicate the kind of death by which Peter would glorify God. And after He had said this, He told him, Follow Me. [long pause] FRANK EDWARDS: The Apply This Today section in the app takes this passage into ordinary life, for anyone who wants that next step, and every passage from this series through John, with a devotion for each one, is waiting in the free Dig Deeper app at dig deeper dot A I. LINDA BROWN: Thanks for listening, and for reading the Gospel of John all the way to the end. Come back soon.