“Restoration” (Full Service)
Sermon begins at 32:06
“Restoration”
John 21: 1-17
There is no other Biblical story that resonates with me more than the gracious restoration of the Apostle Simon Peter as recorded in John Chapter 21. Simon Peter is so relatable to us because he is so very like us!
I think of Peter as having “foot in mouth disease”… at times he was brash, impetuous, and proud. There were many instances in the gospels where Peter failed, and he failed miserably. For example, Simon Peter had previously asked Jesus, “Lord, where are you going?” Jesus replied, “Where I am going, you cannot follow now, but you will follow later.” Peter defiantly asked, “Lord, why can’t I follow you now? I will lay down my life for you.” Then Jesus answered, “Will you really lay down your life for me? I tell you the truth, before the rooster crows, you will disown me three times!” (John 13: 31-38)
Peter’s failures serve as a point of connection for us because we all fail too, don’t we? There are those small inconsequential failures as well as the monumental failures and everything in between…the times we’ve lost our temper, we’ve done things we regret doing, we’ve let an untruth stand uncorrected…we’ve gossiped or lied about someone, and the list goes on. We’ve made good decisions… we’ve made bad decisions… and often times the decisions that we regret the most are the irreversible ones. If only we could push the rewind button, we exclaim! That’s our hearts’ desire! One of the hardest things for us to recover from is the shame of having done something that isn’t considered a mistake or an accident. What brought Peter the most shame was his three-fold denial of ever knowing Jesus!
Beside a blazing charcoal fire in the high priest’s courtyard, where he was warming his hands…Peter was recognized as a follower of Jesus…Peter was the one who in an attempt to defend Jesus, had cut off Malchus’ ear in the Garden of Gethsemane…yet when confronted in the courtyard, he was the disciple who denied knowing Jesus… three times. After the third denial, Peter remembered that Jesus had predicted that before the cock crowed, he would have denied him three times…and Peter came face to face with His sin!
So how does one recover from abject failure such as Peter’s denials? He lied about his relationship with Jesus…in fact he told three bold faced lies in a row…and in the end, he didn’t know what to do…Peter was overwhelmed with shame. He must have felt his own hypocrisy and his own weakness, and he was embarrassed… despite having gone right into the tomb to ensure that Jesus was no longer there and despite having seen the resurrected Lord in the Upper Room, Peter was still weighed down by his denials of Jesus.
Peter went from the Upper Room where Jesus appeared in his resurrected and followed Jesus’ instructions to go to Galilee (Matthew 28:10 ). Galilee was home for Peter…his home turf if you wish…and so in going back home, perhaps Peter hoped to find solace.
And so, Peter came full circle. For Jesus originally called Simon Peter from the shoreline of the Sea of Galilee and his last encounter with Peter was there also. Peter who was called to leave his nets, and to follow Jesus so that he might become a fisher of men… reappeared after the resurrection of Jesus, standing on the same seashore, wondering what to do next! Seeing some boats and fishing nets, he decided to set out on his own … to try again what he knew how to do best…fishing for fish.
Following Peter’s example, the other disciples jumped in the boat and said, “we’ll go along with you too.” And they all went out and got into the boat and fished all night, but they caught nothing! Another failure! If this happened to you, how would you react? Perhaps like this… I’ve failed at everything now…even the thing I’m supposedly good at…fishing! What a failure I am!
So, when Jesus saw the disciples fishing, he called out to them saying “Catch anything?” …”friends, why don’t you try the right side…you’ll find fish there!” It was Peter’s close friend, John, who recognized the risen Jesus standing on the shoreline cooking breakfast. With John’s encouragement, the impetuous Peter leaped out of the boat to go to Jesus. Beside a blazing charcoal fire where Jesus was warming his hands, Peter accepted Jesus’ invitation to breakfast. Peter went back and helped to haul the net full of 153 fish ashore! I am sure the significance of this familiar setting beside a charcoal fire was not lost on Peter.
Knowing how much Peter was hurting, after they had all broken bread and ate the fish together, Jesus lovingly took Peter aside for what today we might call an intervention.
A word of explanation is in order here. To begin, we should know that Biblical scholars do not agree on the use of the two words for love that we are going to focus on during Peter’s restoration. Some say the two Greek words, agape and phileo, that Jesus used for love were virtually interchangeable. Others ask, if they were interchangeable, then why did the Apostle John who took such care with his writing, not use the same word each time, in parallel structure? As an English teacher, this was my question too. Why did Peter answer with phileo love when Jesus asked him about agape love? And why did Jesus change from saying agape love to saying phileo love when he asked Peter the third time, do you love me? After reading several interpretations by scholars, this is my best understanding of this passage.
The word Greek word agape, was used 300 times in the New Testament and was the standard word used for love. Agape love encompasses the act of self-giving…self-denying. Jesus showed his agape love for us by dying for us on the cross. The famous chapter on love in the 1 Corinthians 13 is a description of this agapelove. Love is patient, love is kind…and so on. It is used to describe charitable love and meeting the needs of others. It is the same love that motivates people to go into war-torn Gaza or the Ukraine to provide humanitarian aid to people in need. Agape love is used to describe a sacrificial kind of love. As Christians we are called to love one another and even our enemies, with agape love.
However, the word phileo love in Greek is only used 50 times in the New Testament…six times less frequently. The word phileo adds an emotional nuance to the word love…it suggests a trusting, cherishing, adoring love. It describes the love between close friends. It’s what we mean when we describe a friend who can finish our sentences for us, or someone who is the “salt to our pepper.” It includes feelings of warmth and affection and loyalty towards one another. An example of phileo love is the love that King David had for Jonathan. Although we can’t feel this phileo love for our enemies, as Christians, God calls us to show agape love to them…including to those whose personalities clash with ours, those who treat us badly or those who are hostile to our faith.
Jesus knew that Peter wanted to be restored to full fellowship with him, and so Jesus seized this opportunity to publicly reinstate Peter to the tasks that Jesus had been preparing him to do, as a shepherd to the sheep under his care.
And Jesus did it by soliciting Peter’s three-fold affirmation of love as a sort of “do over” for Peter’s previous three-fold denial. Jesus didn’t ask these questions to satisfy himself…for Jesus knew that Peter loved him. But Jesus asked these questions for Peter’s sake, to reassure Peter and so that Peter would be able to leave his past denial of Jesus behind him, as he moved forward with a three-fold confession of his phileo love for Jesus, to serve him and his church.
Jesus did it this way…and I quote… from John 21, v. 15 and forward…in this paraphrase of the passage that Fairlie read for us today from the pew Bibles.
15 When they had finished eating, Jesus said to Simon Peter, “Simon son of John, do you love me more than these?” “Yes, Lord,” he said, “you know that I love you like my own flesh and blood. You are family to me.” Jesus said, “Feed my lambs.” 16 Again Jesus said, “Simon son of John, do you love me?” He answered, “Yes, Lord, you know that I love you like my own flesh-and-blood brother—like my own kin!” Jesus said, “Take care of my sheep.” 17 The third time he said to him, “Simon son of John, do you really love me like your own brother—like your own flesh and blood?” Peter was hurt because Jesus asked him the third time, “Do you love me like your own brother, like your own flesh and blood?” He said, “Lord, you know all things; you know that you are like family to me. I love you as though we were brothers—like you were my own flesh and blood!” Jesus said, “Feed my sheep.”
It was likely embarrassing for Peter to have to make this same admission over and over again, not only to Jesus but also within earshot of his friends. Perhaps Peter was hurt because he felt that Jesus didn’t believe that Peter loved him.
You see in his face- to- face meeting with Jesus by the fire, Peter spoke the truth to Jesus. For Peter loved Jesus with agape love, but he also cherished Jesus…he adored him…he loved Jesus like a brother…and Peter longed to be in a restored relationship with him which the use of phileo love implies.
Jesus intentionally repeated the structure of the three-fold denial of Peter, with Peter’s three-fold declaration of his love for Jesus, in the presence of witnesses. He did it as an example to the disciples, and to set Peter free from his own shame and self-judgment! Jesus wanted Peter to resolve his guilt and shame in his own mind, once and for all!
Did you notice that Jesus himself never gave up on Peter? Jesus never rejected Peter. It’s true that Jesus rebuked Peter when needed. But did you notice that Jesus didn’t rehash every wrong thing that Peter had done in his company? Did you notice that Jesus didn’t even mention Peter’s denial of Jesus right before his death? Out of love for Peter, Jesus gave Peter the opportunity to make amends…to repent of his sins…and to quote Corrie ten Boom, to have the sins of his past “thrown into the sea of God’s forgetfulness.” Jesus wanted Peter to look forward with anticipation to what God was calling him to do moving forward…to feed God’s lambs…the young ones, the immature ones, the ones who are still learning and growing and making all kinds of mistakes…and to tend and feed God’s sheep…the older ones, the ones who have been through some of life’s challenges, the ones who might need additional nourishment, or shearing, or rescuing from predators.
Jesus intentionally gave Peter three practical things he could do to show his love for Jesus…so that Peter could be relieved from the memory of his prior failures and begin again. And Jesus commissioned Peter to be a shepherd… to feed and look after both the young lambs and the mature sheep in his care…
Beloved…this is such an important message for us to hear. As an old sheep, I confess that I have sometimes felt defeated, and ready to give up. I also know there are others who live defeated lives because of unconfessed sin, or persistent sin that keeps resurfacing like a thorn in the flesh, or who focus on old wounds and bitterness from failures in the past …and in fact there are some who are much harder on themselves and less gracious to themselves than Jesus himself would ever be! And when we feel defeated this way, our tendency is to give up…to say to ourselves, “what is the point? Why try? I’ll never get it right. God will never forgive me for the things I have done that I can’t undo!”
But the good news is this. Our God is a God of love, of grace and of forgiveness. It is because he loves us so much that he sent Jesus his only son to atone for our sins. In fact, it is precisely when we are weak, wounded, and our most vulnerable, that God comes alongside us in our weakness and restores us to spiritual health and strength through the Holy Spirit. He comes to us in a still small voice…perhaps in the voice of a friend… in the ordinariness of our lives…at the breakfast table, in the car, at the office, in the mall. He reassures us that we belong to him. When we are truly sorry and say Lord, I have sinned and fallen short of your glory…and I want to repent, then he gives us brand new opportunities to be used by him, in big and small ways, when we yield our lives to him.
Today, we’ve witnessed the Apostle Peter’s transformation in the wonderful story of how Peter was restored and used in a powerful way in the early Church.
Within weeks of this episode, Peter, the uneducated fisherman, went on to preach to a crowd of thousands at Pentecost…notably with no preaching script, no degree in theology…no training in public speaking…and 3,000 people were baptized that day in the name of Jesus! Yes, 3,000 people! He went on to heal a lame man in Acts 3, to raise Dorcas from the dead in Acts 9, and to teach and lead the other disciples in spreading the good news about Jesus. He was responsible for bringing the gospel to Samaria, and to the Gentiles. And most of us would be considered Gentiles to this day! And in the end, Peter died as Jesus had prophesied, as a martyr for the cause of Jesus.
Hilary Price has said that when we accept God’s love for us after we have failed him, it’s through God’s acceptance of us, that we begin to receive our complete healing because we are released from the bondage of our own remorse. The love we have for Jesus is worked out in our loving actions and attitudes toward others, our woundedness begins to heal… and so, we are blessed.
Let’s move forward to follow our Saviour Jesus … in the words of the Apostle Paul in Philippians 3:12-14
12 Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already arrived at my goal, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me. 13 Brothers and sisters, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, 14 I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus. May it be so for us too! AMEN