John 21:15-19 And now Jesus turns to Peter to provide healing to his
soul. The charcoal fire, perhaps particularly its smell, would have reminded
Peter of the memory of his denial. The bystanders then had asked Peter three
times if he was with Jesus. Now Jesus asks Peter three times if he loves Him.
In the first two questions, Jesus asks Peter if he really, truly loves Him (agape),
to which Peter's response is that Jesus knows that he likes Him (phileo).
The first time Jesus asks Peter by comparison to how much he loves fishing.
The second time there is no comparison. The third time, Jesus asks Peter if he
likes Him, which grieves Peter because Jesus seems to have accepted Peter's
friendship as the current level of their relationship. Perhaps Peter's response
is born of discouragement because of his own recognition that his denial of
Christ meant that at some deep level, he didn't really love Jesus that much.
How many of us are in the same boat
with Peter? Perhaps we have never been tested as Peter was. Or perhaps even
without this kind of test, we know that our level of devotion to Christ is not
that deep? So Jesus goes on in this asymmetric relationship to tell Peter that
even though right now his commitment is only that of friends, the day will come
when he will be willing to, and will, give his life for Him. Implicitly, Jesus
was telling Peter that in His sovereignty, He would continue to lead Peter down
the path of discipleship to that place where he would have that kind of love.
We can perhaps see in this a parallel to YHWH's relationship with Abraham, in
which Abraham made a covenant by sacrificing but YHWH sent fire that passed
through the parts of the animals. (Genesis 15:9-17) Abraham wasn't asked to
offer Isaac until much later. (Genesis 22:2) In Peter's case, all he had to do
was follow Jesus (akolothei), that is, join Him on the road.
It is wonderful that the gospel
records the ups and downs of Peter's relationship with Jesus, because so many
of us are in the same boat. We have times and seasons of deep devotion, we make
promises to The Lord, and then we fail. In our ups and downs we become
discouraged with ourselves. Ignatius recorded a series of principles for
discerning spirits, based on this recognition that all of us have seasons of
consolation and desolation. Perhaps, of all of the principles he gives, the
most critical is the fifth: In time of desolation, never make a change, but be
firm and constant in the resolution and determinations one made prior to the
desolation. In bringing Peter back on track here, Jesus simply says,
"Follow Me." Implicitly He tells Peter He has not and will not give
up on Peter, as long as Peter is willing to continue with Him down the
discipleship road.
What do we gain in these times of
desolation that God seems to sovereignly allow? We learn that God is still
there and sovereignly working even though we do not sense Him or recognize
anything happening that seems to be His handiwork. And so this develops a type
of faith that God values. It is not blind faith, but childlike trust. Another
possible gain is to treasure the value of actually hearing His voice. And when
things go wrong we learn the correct value of earthly vs. eternal things. Peter
went fishing but no longer found it satisfying. His heartbreak was that he felt
that His relationship with Jesus, which he valued so much more than fishing (John 6:68), seemed to be permanently
ruined. He mourned the loss of relationship as one might mourn the death of a
loved one. But in Jesus' sovereign restoration, this mourning prepared Peter
for the permanent indwelling of the Holy Spirit, although Peter did not yet
understand it, and the subsequent pastoral ministry to which Peter was called.
No comments:
Post a Comment