(Delivered to Berowra Uniting Church on 29 April 2001)
One of the set readings for this week was the conversion of Paul in Acts 9. However, I want to pick up on Peter’s interaction with Jesus in the Gospel reading. So instead of reading about Paul’s conversion, we read the next chapter in Acts which also tells us something about Peter’s relationship with Jesus.
Why did Jesus single-out Peter after the breakfast on the beach?
Why did he ask “Do you love me?’ three times?
Why was the vision of unclean animals repeated three times?
What was the essence of Peter’s relationship with Jesus?
When Peter calls Jesus ‘Lord’ what does he mean?
Peter is perhaps the apostle who the Gospels tell us most about. He was the one who always spoke first; who jumped in boots and all, even speaking against Jesus on occasions. In fact he had quite a case of foot-in-mouth disease! He was the first to recognise Jesus as the Christ. He was one of Jesus’ most intimate friends within the twelve. He became the leader of the church in Jerusalem after Jesus’ ascension.
The Gospels present some interesting dynamics in the relationship between Jesus and Peter.
For instance, the theme of fishing.
- Luke chapter 5 describes the call of Peter. Peter has been out fishing all night without any luck. But Jesus instructs the fishermen where to lower their nets and a great catch is made. After the catch is landed, Jesus calls Peter to follow him and become a fisher of people.
- After Jesus’ resurrection, Peter goes back to fishing. Once again Jesus appears and instructs the fisherman where to throw his net and another great catch is made. It is the size of the catch which seems to call John and Peter’s attention to the man standing on the shore and they realise that it is Jesus. And then, in the ensuing conversation after breakfast, Jesus calls Peter once more with the words ‘Follow me’.
‘Following’ is another theme woven into the Gospels. Just a few chapters earlier in John (13:36–38), Jesus tells Peter that where he is going, Peter cannot follow. This must have been a hard word to Peter who had given up everything to follow Jesus. Peter replied ‘Lord, why can’t I follow you now? I will lay down my life for you.’ But Jesus was referring to his death, and it was not long after that Peter had denied knowing Jesus three times.
We can imagine the guilt, and, perhaps more importantly, the shame, which Peter must have felt at failing to follow at the time when Jesus seemed most in need of help.
Nevertheless, in the encounter with Jesus on the beach, Peter is again called to follow. That call must have brought to Peter’s mind a memory of his first calling … and of his failure to follow. It was a reminder which Jesus intended, not to emphasise Peter’s failing but to re-instate Peter’s confidence and to refocus Peter’s vision on the crux of their relationship: that Jesus is the Lord and Peter is the follower.
As many have commented, the three-fold question ‘Do you love me?’ and the three-fold commission to ‘Feed my sheep’ must also have reminded Peter of his three-fold denial. We see a message repeated three times again in the reading from Acts: three times Peter has a vision of the Lord directing him to eat unclean animals. I wonder if the three-fold repetition was another reminder of his three-fold denial and Jesus’ thrice-repeated question and thrice-repeated commission. Perhaps the fact that the vision of unclean animals was repeated three times acted as a sign to Peter that this really was a message from Jesus.
But what Jesus really asking with the question ‘Do you love me?’ There’s probably whole books on that issue, and I can’t claim any great knowledge of Greek to analyse it at that level. But my mother did a B.A. when she was about 60, and studied some Greek. She raised an interesting point about verse 13, which says ‘Peter was hurt because Jesus asked him the third time “Do you love me?”’. Although the word ‘love’ is repeated three times in English, the original Greek uses a different word in the third question. The first two times, Jesus asks ‘Do you agape me?’, that is, ‘Do you love me unselfishly in the way that God loves you?’. But the third time, Jesus asks ‘Do you phileo me?’, that is, ‘Do you love me with the tender affection of a close friend?’.
That raises the question of what actually upset Peter about the third question. Was Peter hurt because the question was asked three times, or because of what Jesus asked the third time? The text seems to leave various interpretations open.
However, if we look at the behaviour of Jesus towards Peter, there are at least a couple of things which stand out about what Jesus meant by love. Firstly, Jesus’ behaviour towards Peter shows that love is forgiving. Jesus understands our weaknesses and failings. His life’s mission was to enable forgiveness and restoration of right relationships. And he calls Peter and us to share in a life which expresses the same forgiving love.
Secondly, Jesus’ commission to Peter is to ‘Take care of my sheep’. For Peter, and for us, Jesus was saying ‘If you love me, express it by caring for others’.
Peter habitually called Jesus ‘Lord’ and I’d like to look at how that title is applied to Jesus. Paul writes that God exalted Jesus to the highest place so that every tongue would confess that Jesus Christ is Lord (Phil 2:9–11). This phrase ‘Jesus Christ is the Lord’ is perhaps the most succinct summary of the Christian faith.
- It is Jesus who is the Lord. Jesus the man. The historical man, born in Nazareth during the rule of Caesar Augustus while Quirinius was governor of Syria (Luke 2:1–2). Jesus, who healed the sick, released the oppressed, challenged the hypocrisy of the established religious order, who spoke in riddles and forgave people’s sins and who called Peter and others to follow his example. Jesus, who was crucified, died and was buried but who eye-witnesses report returned to life to cook breakfast for them.
- But it is not simply Jesus the man who Christians declare as Lord. It is Jesus Christ who is the Lord. I used to think that Christ was Jesus’ surname, but of course it is a title. Jesus, the Christ: the Messiah. The anointed one of God. The one and only Son of God. The sinless and glorified Christ whose sacrificed life restores true life to us.
- Furthermore, Jesus Christ is the Lord. It is not that he once was the Lord. He is in the present continuous tense. He was with God in the beginning and all things were formed through him (John 1:1–2). He will come again to judge the quick and the dead. And he is Lord regardless of whether anyone believes it or not. He is not just Lord of those who choose to follow him. He is Lord by right, not by popular acclaim or democratic ballot.
- Jesus Christ is the Lord, not simply a Lord. He is the only one to whom this title can be properly given (Jude 4).
- And finally, Jesus Christ is the Lord. He is sovereign. He is the master of all (Acts 10:36). He is the very essence of God distilled into human form.
When Peter saw the vision of unclean food, his first reaction was ‘No, Lord’ (RSV) or ‘Never, Lord’ (Living, Phillips), or ‘Certainly not, Lord’ (Good News). Now there is something fishy about that phrase: ‘No, Lord’. The two concepts sit uncomfortably together. In fact they are contradictory. Sometimes we find ourselves in tension between ‘No’ and ‘Lord’, but the tension can only be inconsistency in two ways: either we maintain the ‘No’ and in the process deny that Jesus Christ is the Lord, or we accept that Jesus Christ is Lord and stop saying ‘No’ to him.
This is what Peter came to learn: that Jesus was Lord and that he was the follower.
This is the fundamental claim of Christianity: that Jesus Christ is the Lord, to whom belong all praise and honour, glory and power, for ever and ever. Amen.