Closing the Loop
I have been sitting in the post-resurrection passages during this time of year known as Eastertide. (Thanks to the folks at Lectio365.) Today we were in John 21:15-19. One of the things that caught my eye was the way John see-saws between the two identities of the fearful, forceful, flaky fisherman who was declared to be “the rock” of the church.
John, the author, refers to this man as Simon Peter. Jesus addresses him as Simon, son of John (or Jonah…Now there’s an idea that calls for some further consideration.).
Here on the beach, where Jesus has laid a charcoal fire to cook fish for seven weary, care-worn friends, He gently confronts the shame and confusion that Peter still bears from his three-fold denial…around a charcoal fire in another place.
There Jesus was on trial, and would be condemned to die unjustly as a criminal thereby fulfilling His calling as the Savior of the world. Here Peter is on trial, not for condemnation and judgment but for restoration and release into who that Savior has declared him to be!
Here, Jesus separates Simon, son of John and the failures of that old nature from Peter and the calling and design of the new man he will receive when the Holy Spirit comes! Three times Jesus asks for a declaration of the love He knows Peter has for Him. He is not asking because He doesn’t know, but because Peter needs to remember the love he denied around that other charcoal fire. He needs to re-affirm his devotion to the Risen Christ and to hear, with each confession of love, the renewal of his mission: to care for Jesus’ sheep, be the shepherd His lambs will need.
Jesus is willing to hurt Peter’s feelings by probing into the depths of his as-yet-unspoken guilt and shame, because He has one more challenging prediction: Peter will die at the hands of others, like Jesus had done.
And then the invitation that book-ends the previous three years: “Follow Me,” into suffering, into death, into service, into all the things Peter has seen and heard The Shepherd do and say.
In His mercy, Jesus does not sell short the need our hearts have for exposure to both our failures and our supposed adequacy. He is willing to put us in miserable, painful circumstances so that our hearts’ need for light becomes obvious. (Most of us are painfully slow learners.) His love for us is so great that He is not daunted by our blustering objections that we don’t actually need to deal with our old wounds and sins. He has freedom and peace for us that will be found nowhere else!
After all these years of following Jesus, I still struggle to walk as the kind of woman God has declared me to be. He continues to place me in front of my own “charcoal fires,” inviting me to take up commitments where confessing my proud, self-sufficiency must be a daily exercise, and where being forgiven and made aware of my continual need for Him are as necessary as eating.
Where is your charcoal fire? Where do you need Him to confront the failures that you think are too big to face? Where are you living in your old identity? Jesus calls to you, also, “Follow Me.”
So I continue…
Following Jesus every day in the everyday!
Christi
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