Reading: “Take care of my sheep” John 21.16(NIV)
Again this morning we return to John chapter 21 – in the first half of the chapter we read of the lakeside in Galilee with the disciples fishing from that gently moving, drifting fishing boat, the early morning mist drifting over the open water the broad hills round about, and while they are doing these ordinary things, back with the life they know, in Tiberias, here they meet with the risen Lord Jesus who stands on the shore.
The early Church fathers, the leaders of the Church in the early years
looked at John’s gospel 21. These were men of deeply spiritual understanding and depth in their life of prayer.
They looked at John 21 and wondered why it was that
it was John, the beloved disciple who recognised Jesus on the sea shore, and not Peter……
John who says ‘It is the Lord’ – and not Peter……….
the early Fathers thought it was because of John’s closeness to Jesus
and his deep insight into spiritual things, that John saw Jesus first…..
but perhaps there is another reason –
Was Peter there in that boat, that early morning still dwelling on all the events of the past week – the arrest, the trial, his own denials of Jesus ? When things go wrong, that’s what we do isn’t it, we can often dwell on it, thinking it all through, wondering if things could have been different, and so on…………..
perhaps Peter, that morning, is a man turned in on himself, his mind taken up with all the events of the past days…… burdened with the guilt of it all, and the pain….
We read that the boat was around a hundred yards from the shore – but isn’t Peter a man much further away than that ? feeling at this moment distant, isolated and far away from all the richness he had known in Jesus ?
But here, now, is Jesus – standing there on the beach, coming to meet Peter..
and in those moments as we read on through John’s gospel, Jesus takes the bread and the fish and invites the disciples to eat with Him. And, for Peter, instead of distance – there is now closeness to the living Lord, instead of guilt, and pain, and shame, he finds full forgiveness and is restored……….
So we are beginning to discover that Peter’s experience, as recorded in John 20 and 21 is so much like our own Christian life – is it not…. sometimes we seem far away from all the bright truth and grace and love of Jesus Christ, separated by guilt, or sorrow, hardened by the pressures of life…. our souls become like stone……
perhaps that’s your condition this morning…. but listen
and Christ is here, for us …… and like Peter, because Jesus, the crucified and risen Jesus is here - instead of distance – we find He restores that wonderful closeness to Himself, and that instead of guilt, and pain, and hardness of heart, we find full forgiveness and the wellspring of life begins to flow again…..in Him………
Peter, forgiven restored……… but perhaps we are getting a little ahead of ourselves at this point……
Peter is restored….
Restored to what ?
In the apse
of the Peruzzi Chapel in
The gospel
before us this morning speaks of the restoration, not of a fresco, but of a
man; Peter, first of all to a living relationship with the risen Jesus Christ
Himself.
this is what is
at the heart of the conversation here between Jesus and Peter, here….
When the
Lord asks Peter – do you love me ? three
times………
this is what
is happening – Peter is being restored by
the Lord to a living relationship with Him… this is Jesus the Good Shepherd
drawing back Peter, the sheep who has wandered, caring for him, leading Peter
to life, restoring Peter’s soul, bringing him to the green pastures of life
again………
when we seem far away from all the bright truth and grace and love of Jesus Christ, when we have become separated by our guilt, or sorrow, hardened by the pressures of life…. our souls become like stone……
it is because, like Peter, it has to do with our relationship with Jesus,
and when the crucified and risen Lord draws us back into that living relationship
it is then that we are restored……… as the Lord leads us to the green pastures of life in Him……….
Peter is restored….
Restored to what ?
Well, secondly Peter is restored to the life of service, the servant life……..
We think back here to those words of Jesus in the Upper Room,
As the Father sent me, so I send you………
And we see this all through the gospels
that the Father has sent His Son Jesus into this world as a servant,
now Peter is sent out into that same world as a servant……
just as the Father has sent Jesus into this world as the Good Shepherd,
so now Jesus sends Peter out into this same world, as a shepherd of the flock, of the Church, caring, feeding, looking after all the flock that the Lord has given him.
Now, the
gospel of John leads on to the Acts of the Apostles. Look at Peter in the Book of
Acts, Peter on the day of Pentecost or Peter in the early Church, looking after
the little flock, defending the
a man restored, made new, in Jesus Christ
and at the foundation of all this
he knew for himself, as a restored man, the love of Jesus Christ
he knows the same love of Christ that Paul wrote of:
may you be rooted and established in love…. to know this love that surpasses
knowledge that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God…..
that’s what carries Peter all through the years ahead, that’s what draws him, that’s what drives him on…….. the love of Jesus Christ…
that Peter heard and saw in Jesus on that shore so many years before……
as the apostle Paul puts it:
Christ’s love compels us, because we are convinced
that one died for all..
and He died for all, that those who live should no longer live for
themselves but for Him who died for them, and was raised again……
What can we do, in the face of such love as this, but go on with a restored, with a new heart and a new courage, and a new determination to serve the living Jesus Christ ?
AMEN.