On this day we remember Peter, the apostle who first confessed that Jesus was the Christ, the Son of the Living God (Matthew 16:16). A gold star for Peter on that day and yet, shortly thereafter, Peter was hearing Jesus call him “Satan” for denying that he should go to the cross (Matthew 16:23), and much later, Peter was hearing himself deny that He ever knew Jesus (Matthew 26:72). How the golden boy had fallen. And so do we follow in His footsteps.
And so today’s story of Peter’s restoration is important for him, and for us. At the very least, if it isn’t already patently obvious, Jesus forgives sinners like Peter, and like you and me. After His resurrection, fully aware of Peter’s failure to stay true to Him in His greatest hour of human need at the cross, Jesus seeks Peter out in order to reassure Him of His love and His intention to continue to use Peter in His mission. And the same is true of you and me, in whatever ways we believe we have let Jesus down, or whatever ways we have deliberately and consciously denied Him or failed Him. He is before you and me this morning, seeking reconciliation and renewal of trust.
But there is a hidden piece in what Jesus says to Peter here, one which is equally important to him and to us. It has to do with the three ways He asks what seems to be the same question of Peter, and of us. He asks, “do you love Me?” (John 21:15&16), using the word for love which implies self-sacrificing love, the kind of agape love which God has for us. And Peter responds that, yes, though he loves Jesus with a different kind of love, the kind of family/friendship love called fileo, Jesus knows that Peter didn’t sacrifice Himself as agape would have demanded, but that He loves Jesus with the love he does have for Him. And, in both cases, Jesus seems to accept Peter’s level of love, and ours, as He recommissions Him to feed His lambs, His sheep. But then in verse 17 Jesus asks if Peter indeed loves Him with the family/friendship love. This is why Peter is hurt by the question, since Peter has already, twice, professed this level of love for Jesus. But again, Jesus is not offended by this lower level of love from Peter, or from us: again He commissions Peter, and us, to love His sheep with the love that we do have, not demanding the love that we don’t have. A very important exchange which reassured Peter, and us, that no matter what level of love we have for God at any particular time, Jesus will accept it, though obviously the trend in our life is to head for that level of loving God and others with which we have been loved, namely the self-sacrificing kind.
And Peter did go on to exhibit that level of self-giving love throughout the Book of Acts, and, as church history tells us, he, too, like His Master, gave his life on a cross for the cause of Jesus’ Love going worldwide. I wonder if, as you and I try to love Jesus with all the love we do have, low-level though it may be, if, one day, we will join Peter in being so flooded with the agape love from God that it becomes the love of our life for Him and for others.
