Some teachers were waiting in a room to play the students in a basketball game. One teacher remarked to his principal: “You know what I have discovered about teaching? Fifty per cent of teaching is repeating directions.”
The principal shot right back, “What did you say?”
I said, “Fifty per cent of teaching is repeating directions.” All the teachers laughed at the joke.
Anyone working or living with children and youth knows that messages and directions and instructions, in fact almost everything, has to be repeated multiple times before anything seems to register. Who takes out the garbage after being asked only once? How many young people clean their rooms after only one request?
But instructions aren’t the only things we need to hear more than once in order to take them to heart. In order to thrive, we all need to hear someone say to us, “I love you.” Whether that someone is a spouse, parent, son or daughter, grandchild, niece or nephew, a friend – whoever. And we need to hear this more than once a year. For some of us who have weathered the hurts of various broken relationships, saying “I love you” for the first time again can be one of the most frightening things we do.
I suspect Peter felt a similar fear when Jesus took him for an early morning walk on the beach.
It was late in the afternoon the day before when Simon Peter decided to go fishing. In the area of Lake Tiberias (or Galilee, as we more commonly know it), night was usually the best time to fish. Six of Jesus’ other disciples said they would go with him. They fished all through the night until the sun began to rise -- but they caught nothing. At daybreak, Jesus was standing on the shore watching them but they didn’t recognize him at first. He called out to them: “Good morning! Did you catch anything for breakfast?”
“Nothing! Not even a minnow.”
Then Jesus told them: “Throw the net off the right side of the boat and see what happens.” I don’t know if they thought he was some local fisherman who knew the lake better than they did after three years away from the fishing business but they did what he said. All of a sudden there were so many fish even these strong men weren’t able to handle the net.
It was only then that John recognized Jesus and said to Peter, “It’s the Lord!”
Eventually the disciples were able to get their large haul of fish to shore where Jesus was waiting. The Apostle John, who wrote this Gospel, said they didn’t dare ask who he was because they knew it was Jesus serving them breakfast! This wasn’t the first time they had been with Jesus since he was raised from the dead. But it took some time and more than one encounter with the Risen Jesus before the reality of his presence began to sink in – that he was not dead but alive! I think we can understand that. Besides Jesus wasn’t around all the time, day and night, as he had been before.
After breakfast, Jesus said to Peter, “Let’s go for a walk – just you and me.” I wonder what Peter was thinking and feeling. I can imagine a mixture of emotions – a mixture of joy and fear. Joy because Jesus had died but now he was alive! And here they were, walking again side by side! Yet fear because Peter could never forget how badly he had failed Jesus. Jesus, Peter thought, must feel so hurt that he had denied him. What did Jesus think of him now? What would Jesus say to him? Would Jesus reprimand or lecture him for denying that he knew him – not once, not twice but three times? Would Jesus tell him he was no longer welcome to be with him? Would Jesus tell Peter he couldn’t be a witness for him any longer after being such a dismal failure?
But even in the darkness of his failure and denial, Peter really loved Jesus. And I believe that, when Jesus died, Peter grieved especially severely of all the disciples because he loved him and yet had denied even knowing Jesus. Can you imagine the guilt he must have felt? I believe Peter also grieved deeply at what he thought was the death of the greatest hope and destiny the world would ever know. And now, joy beyond joy, Jesus was alive! But Peter had yet to grasp the significance of what Jesus being alive – his resurrection – really meant for his own life let alone for the world.
Jesus understood Peter more than Peter knew. Jesus knew Peter loved him. Jesus knew Peter was apprehensive about how he felt about him since the denial. Jesus knew Peter had a lot more to learn about loving his Lord. And Jesus knew it was time that Peter realized he was forgiven. So he had a personal conversation with Peter.
“Peter, do you love me?” Not once, not twice, but three times Jesus asked: “Peter, do you love me?”
Can’t you almost hear Peter saying to himself: “I knew it, I knew it! He is angry at me. But can I blame him after what I did? But I’ve already told him I love him. Can’t he believe me?” And after the third time Jesus asked him, Peter was really upset. “Lord,” he answered, “you know everything. You know I love you.” Ironic, isn’t it, that Peter felt hurt when it was Jesus who should have felt upset and not Peter!
Peter is probably the best known to us of all the disciples and was one of three disciples in Jesus’ inner circle. He was often front and centre -- having something to say or impulsively doing something. He was strong, courageous and willing to go to great lengths for Jesus. He took up the challenge to follow Jesus when he left his work as a fisherman to obey Jesus’ call. He was willing to leave his home and travel up and down the countryside with Jesus – for how long he didn’t know. He often asserted his loyalty to Jesus. And he seemed to possess an acute perception of the absolute uniqueness of Jesus. It was Peter who made the Great Confession [Matthew 16:6]: “You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God.”
Jesus thought so highly of Peter that he changed his original name of Simon to Peter, which meant “rock” in Greek. Do you know what Simon means in Greek? It means snub-nosed! What a change that must have meant for Peter!
Peter was fearless at times. He was brave enough to attack the servant of the high priest with a sword in the Garden of Gethsemane when the crowd came to arrest Jesus. Peter even followed Jesus into the high priest’s courtyard. Alone with Jesus and the other disciples, Peter had boasted he was ready to die with Jesus so he failed to heed Jesus’ warnings that he would deny him [John 13:38]. Peter was a complex individual who always responded enthusiastically to Jesus -- and yet he also failed miserably.
Peter and the other disciples were still in Jerusalem when they received the news of the empty tomb from Mary Magdalene [John 20:1-10]. Then he and John ran to the tomb and impulsive Peter ran right inside while John merely stood outside and looked into the tomb at first. Peter had to know for himself.
Now back to the beach where not once, not twice but three times Peter told Jesus that he did love him. And not once, not twice but three times Jesus responded to him with grace and forgiveness. Three times is significant for Peter, isn’t it? Three times he denied Jesus -- three times he said, “I don’t know the man.” He even swore an oath that he didn’t know Jesus. Because he was so afraid. And yet ... and yet … Jesus forgave Peter. Jesus also entrusted him (and the other disciples) with the responsibility to carry on his teaching and to tell the good news of his resurrection to the world. Jesus, in his love, matched Peter’s threefold denial with a threefold restoration of confidence and hope in him.
How did Peter experience the gracious forgiveness of his Lord? Scott Hoezee of Calvin Seminary described it as Jesus putting “Peter back in charge of the family business and Peter did not fail to miss the significance of it.”
Let me put it another way. You are the employee who forgets one evening to lock the back door of the store. That particular night, the store is robbed when a thief happens to find the open door. The owner of the store finds out you left the door unlocked. But a week or so later, the owner tosses you the keys and says, “OK, you’re in charge of closing the store tonight.” Wouldn’t you be encouraged that the owner’s trust in you remained despite your costly mistake?
It became clear to Peter – and to everyone, including us! -- what the grace and forgiveness of the Risen Jesus meant for him. In the first 15 chapters of the Book of Acts, God used Peter prominently in the day-to-day life of the Early Church to preach the good news of Jesus’ resurrection as well as to perform miracles as signs of the truth he preached. Peter was put in prison but miraculously released. And at the first Church Council in Jerusalem, Peter stood up for the equality of the Gentiles, the non-Jewish converts. Peter clearly lived out his faith in Jesus Christ boldly before everyone he met. He was no longer afraid. And when he faced his own death under Nero in Rome, he died unafraid.
So what does Jesus’ exchange with Peter mean for us? At least two things I think. First, our sometimes lack of faith and trust in God does not disqualify us from God’s grace and forgiveness. Interestingly enough, a recent story in Time magazine tells us why.
In Time magazine’s regular column called “10 Questions” [“10 Questions,” Time magazine (3-22-10), p. 4], readers are given the opportunity to interview celebrities and world leaders through questions submitted via email. In the March 22, 2010, issue, South African Archbishop Desmond Tutu, author of Made for Goodness [HarperOne, 2010], was featured. Here are two of the questions readers submitted, each followed by Tutu’s answer:
“After all you’ve seen and endured, are you really as optimistic as your book Made for Goodness says you are?” [Zelalem Dawit, Addis Ababa]
Tutu: “I’m not optimistic, no. I’m quite different. I’m hopeful. I am a prisoner of hope. In the world, you have very bad people -- Hitler, Idi Amin -- and they look like they are going to win. All of them -- all of them -- have bitten the dust.”
“What is your favourite Bible verse and why?” [Satu Rahikainen]
Tutu: “Romans 5:8. ‘[While] we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.’ It sums up the Gospel wonderfully. We think we have to impress God so that God could love us. But [God] says, ‘No, you are loved already, even at your worst.’”The second thing Jesus’ exchange with Peter means for us is that, if we really love Jesus as Peter and the other disciples did along with the women who followed him too, we also have our work to do for God in 2010. If we intentionally seek to follow Jesus, we will discover our particular assignment along the way. A story about Rodger & Hammerstein’s South Pacific tells us the broad strokes of our work.
One night in New York City, on Broadway, singing star Mary Martin was preparing to go on stage as she had a thousand times before in Rodger & Hammerstein’s South Pacific. Just before she took the stage, a note was handed her. The letter was signed by Oscar Hammerstein himself who was that evening on his deathbed. The note was short. It simply said: “Dear Mary, A bell’s not a bell until you ring it. A song’s not a song until you sing it. Love in your heart is not put there to stay. Love isn’t love till you give it away.”
When the play was over, the cast rushed her backstage and asked: “What happened? We’ve never seen you perform that way before?”
Mary read Hammerstein’s note to them and said, “Tonight, I gave my love away.”I can hear Jesus’ words to Peter in that! “Peter, do you love me? Feed my sheep. Take care of my people.” Jesus was saying in other words: “Peter you know the song. Sing it! Peter you’ve got the bell. Ring it! Peter, your love for me isn’t love till you give it away.”
May this be so for you and for me.
Rev. Chris Miller
April 18, 2010
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