Before I preached this narrative sermon to my classmates, I read aloud from John 21:1-19 (NRSV), projected the image below, and lit one candle to bring into the chapel the faint but unmistakable scent of fire.
Your name is Peter. You remember that night—the night that Jesus was arrested. It was the night that you did that thing you said you would never do, became what you said you would never be. How could you forget that? You never will.
Over and over again the people asked, “Are you not Jesus’ disciple?” and over and over again you said, “I am not.” Three times. Three times, just like he said it would be. And you didn’t just deny Jesus or that you knew who he was. You denied who he said you were and what he called you to do.
Are you not Jesus’ disciple?
No. No, I am not.
When it happened, you were warming yourself by a charcoal fire. The air is still thick with the smell of it, even when you aren’t by a fire, because you will never forget that scent. It’s always been unmistakable, but now it’s the smell of the most humiliating moment of your life. Every time you warm your hands you relive that shame a little bit more.
And where do you find yourself now but right here at another charcoal fire? It’s the first time Jesus is sitting with you by a fire since the night you wrapped yourself in the protection of lies.
But that’s not what Jesus talks about. “Come and have breakfast,” he says, and as he cooks the fish you breathe in the smell of sustenance and wonder if things between you will ever be what they once were, what they should have been.
Here you are sitting down to a feast like nothing has even changed between you. You became what you swore you would never be and you two have never even talked about it and this silence is actually starting to weigh on you as much as the shame ever has and God—Are you ever going to talk about it?
Jesus breaks bread and gives it to you, and as you reach out to take it, you can still see the wounds in his wrists where they nailed him to the wood. But the fish are hot and the bread is fresh and you are hungry. So you let the whole meal go by in friendly conversation, and you don’t ask Jesus about the awful thing burned into your memory to this day.
But he knows, doesn’t he?
And after you’ve eaten together, he speaks.
Your name is Peter. At least, it is to Jesus. Isn’t it?
“Simon, Son of John,” he says. It’s a little like when your mother used to scold you for teasing Andrew when you were kids. Except there’s a look on Jesus’ face now, and even though all you can think about is the burning coals and the heat of shame, there’s this look on his face and you can’t describe it, but whatever it is means you’re not in trouble.
“Simon, Son of John,” he says, “do you love me more than these?”
You do. You cherish him. He tells you to feed his lambs.
Maybe some time passes. You can’t be sure how much, because all that matters is that Jesus turns to you again.
“Do you love me?” he says.
You do. You cherish him. He tells you to tend his sheep.
The next time he says it like he knows what hearing a question three times will mean to you. He says, “Do you love me?”
Someday the story of this conversation is going to be written down in Greek, and many well-meaning preachers are going to focus on the use of different words for love—agape love, phileo love—and what they think those words mean. Some will preach how this goes to show that, even now, you can’t get where Jesus is or where he wants you to be.
Poor Simon Peter, they’ll say, because they too will never forget the night you denied Jesus and everything you were supposed to be for him. It will be easy for them to interpret the words to reflect what they already know about you: That you fall short and Jesus needs to meet you in your weakness. They will shame you even in your redemption.
Maybe they wouldn’t preach it like that if they could hear what you hear.
You and Jesus don’t speak Greek. You speak Aramaic, and what you hear is the very same question spoken three times. What you hear is three opportunities to affirm your love and three instructions to cherish Jesus’ people the way you cherish him. What you hear is Jesus calling you to be the disciple you were always meant to be. What you hear is the emotion in his voice when his third question both breaks you open and restores you. What you hear is the voice drowning out the crackle of fire. What you hear is love.
Jesus calls you Simon, but you both know that you are and forever will be Peter. You are the rock on which your beloved Jesus will build his church. You are the one who will shepherd his flock. You are the one who will speak to the Jews and the Gentiles. You are the one who will die for them all—for Jesus, for his people. You are the one who cherishes your friend no matter how ashamed you feel of your failure.
Peter, someday a Christian named C.S. Lewis will write about this kind of love between people who know each other the way you and Jesus do—that between friends, the question Do you love me? means, Do you see the same truth? Do you care about the same truth? Lewis won’t mention you or this conversation with your Lord, but if you could know what he would write, you might say, “Yes! That’s what Jesus is asking of me. Do we see the same truth? Am I ready to care for his people as much as I care for him? Am I ready to lay down my life? Am I able to bear the name Disciple, to be the person Jesus made me and do what he called me to do?”
And Jesus thinks you are. At Passover, you told him you wanted to follow him wherever he was going, but back then you weren’t ready. Now, Jesus says, “Follow me.” And you will. The last word on you in this story is not your mistake.
And you don’t know this yet, Peter, but someday millions of Jesus’ people will put the ashes of burnt palms on their foreheads. Those sooty dark smudges will remind them that they are mortal and that they have fallen short of what Jesus has called them to be. But there but for the grace of God, those ashes will mean so much more. Through the ashes, anointed on each forehead in the form of a cross, Jesus will speak to their hearts: “My friend, do you love me?”
And if they can hear those words above the crackle of fire, and each and every reminder of fall and failure, then like you, Peter, the people you nourish and lead and all of their spiritual descendants—they too will know who they are and what they are meant to do . . .
If only they will hear love over the persistent whisper of shame.
If only they will hear love over the persistent whisper of shame.
