[AI translation] It is one of the most precious scenes in the entire Gospel of John, about how Jesus welcomes His unfaithful, cowardly, fallen disciple back into ministry and confirms him in it to the death. And for us, this passage is especially precious now because, perhaps under the impact of last week's evangelism, there are many among us who are waiting for Jesus to welcome, accept and strengthen them back into His grace and service. Well, how does this happen?First of all, Jesus looks for the opportunity to speak to you in a voice you would never have expected! We know how Peter behaved in the court of the high priest, don't we? He did not dare to take allegiance to the mocked Christ, he refused to have fellowship with Him, he betrayed his Saviour when he should have been bearing witness to Him! He behaved in a truly shameful manner! And yet, not that Jesus turned away from him, as he deserved, but on the contrary, he turned his full attention to him. Do you remember that after his resurrection, when he spoke to the angel through the women, he said to them, "But go and tell his disciples and Peter that he has gone before you into Galilee; there you will see him, just as he told you." (Mk 16,7) So he sent a special message to Peter! At the Sea of Galilee, he introduced himself to the fishing disciples in such a scene that Peter was compelled to remember the first scene of the fishermen when the Lord called him to the apostleship. And now, at the end of the meal, he brings Peter out in private, but not this time to make him face the past, but precisely to cover up the past and start afresh with him.
See, that's grace! Such is His love! When someone sins against Him, when he deserves so much to be turned away from Him, to be ignored, to be abandoned: then He, the Lord, makes an opportunity for reunion, for reparation, for reconciliation. I have offended Him, and He will come after me! I have ignored Him, and yet He seeks me! I have denied Him, and He still wants to reconcile me! Truly it is as the psalmist says: "My gracious God is coming before me" (Ps 59:11) He is coming before me, like the father of the prodigal son who ran to meet his son with outstretched arms to make the return easier, to give him courage, to make him see that the way back to Him is free!
Now, during the evangelisation, one of the participants was approached and asked why he had come here, what was he doing here? He was shocked by the question. Yes, what am I doing here, he thought to himself, why am I here? And he could not answer himself. For somehow he had drifted into it against his will. What was he doing here? His inner balance was almost upset until it finally dawned on him that it was not he who was looking for something, but Jesus who was looking for him! Well, he was here, he must be here, because Jesus had come after him, had prepared an opportunity to meet him in private. Yes, it was quite clear to him!
Is it already clear to you that Jesus is looking for you?! But how long he has been searching! How many precious occasions He has already prepared in which He has come before thee to make it easy for thee to put away thy sins, to close up thy whole old life, and to begin again a new, pure, holy life! When one of our sister women understood this now, at the evangelistic meeting, she almost refused to believe it was true! How could the Lord come to her with His seeking love, His forgiving grace, when she had given him no reason to do so! So said our brother: I have never dealt with Him - that is, with the Lord - more deeply, more seriously, and now I see how much He deals with me! How can this be?! Can I accept this? Well, what has Peter done to deserve to be spoken to like this by Jesus? Could he have done something to make up for his mistakes, his labours, his efforts in the Lord's cause? Peter has done nothing! Jesus did something - oh, so very, very much! He paid your debt for you, suffered your punishment for you, died for you on the cross, obtained forgiveness for you, prepared your place in heaven, covered your sins with his blood, and when he had done all that was necessary for your redemption, for your salvation, he came to you, made an opportunity to meet you alone, looked you in the eye and asked, "Do you love me?
So He asks you a question that shows that He has already forgiven you everything! This question, "Do you love me?", you know, makes me wonder, "After all that has happened, am I allowed to love Jesus? Is it even possible for me to enter into the most precious relationship of love with the Lord? Is he ready to accept me and start all over again with me? Are you willing to forget everything and look at me as if nothing had happened? - Do you love me? - as if you were asking: do you feel, Peter, how much I love you? Do you feel that now you will truly love me, now that the warmth of my forgiving love will penetrate your soul, now that you will experience, when you will experience for yourself, what grace means! Now you will love me truly, with a love that is deathly, unbreakable, unrepentant, everlasting!
Yes, because true love is the reflection of Christ's forgiving love! That is to say: I begin to truly love Jesus when I am caught in the radiance, light and warmth of His redeeming love! And when the Lord asks you now: "Do you love me?", He wants to let you know whether you have already accepted His great, dying love? Has His sacrifice for you already inspired in you even a little love in return? Has the light of His redeeming love shone into your heart? You may have admired Him hitherto, or reverenced Him, esteemed Him, cherished Him, looked upon Him with a certain awe and thought of Him - but to love Jesus you must first accept His redeeming love!
By asking this question, "Do you love me?", Jesus is placing Himself before you as a forgiven sinner. Do you love me?" - Do you have in your heart not only admiration and admiration, but also love for Jesus, because if you do, this is already a testimony that His love has penetrated your heart. Can you discover in your own heart a spark of love, however small, but living, for Jesus? Because if you can, it is already the reflection of God's forgiving, redeeming love in you! By this you can know whether you are really in grace, whether you already love Him? So, not by whether you no longer sin against Him, not by how perfect your following of Christ is, but by whether you already love Him, whether you can love Him! Jesus is leaning into your heart and seeing if He sees Himself in it - if your heart already reflects His love for you - that is, do you love me? The Lord asked Peter three times. We read that when He asked him a third time, "Do you love me? Not because he was afraid that Jesus would not believe him that he really loved Him, but because he was very much reminded of that sad night when he had denied his Master three times. It was in the light of God's forgiving love that his own wickedness was seen. It is interesting: Jesus had not said a word about it, and yet, by the third question, all that he had sinned was laid on Peter's soul. The power of forgiveness is wonderful: it makes the old sin bitter, hateful, painful all at once. Nothing can make a man hate his sins like forgiveness! Nothing can burn even the root of sin out of a man's heart like forgiveness. "Peter was grieved, because he said to him the third time, 'Do you love me?'"(John 21:17b) Do you know this sorrow? It's not enough to know your sins: you must come to total sorrow. It is a terrible thing when you know exactly how, when and what you have sinned, but you cannot hate the sin, you cannot be pained by it, you cannot weep over it, you cannot repent from the heart and be sad like Peter! That is why many people cannot repent, even though they already know everything, have all the necessary knowledge of salvation, even though they would like to repent, - but they cannot! Those who have not yet grieved because they have sinned against the Lord, because they have denied Jesus: they have never really stood in the light of His redeeming love, they do not yet fully know the power of Jesus' redemptive death, the painful joy of forgiveness of sins, the liberating power of salvation. Happy desolation! This is what we read in the Bible: "Sorrow according to God brings unrepentant repentance unto salvation" (2 Cor 7:10). (Mt 5,4)
Something is clear from the original text that is not reflected in the English translation. Peter does not answer with the word Jesus is asking. The Greek has two words for the verb "to love". Jesus is asking Peter for the maximum of love, but Peter is testifying to the minimum of his own love. Jesus asks a second time for the maximum of love - the love with which He can love - but Peter again answers with the minimum. The third time Jesus asks the minimum, as a sign that this is enough to make Peter an apostle again. When Peter humbly, humbly, again gives the minimum of his love, Jesus returns the shepherd's crook to his hand: "Feed my sheep."
However stumbling, feeble, whining your love for Christ may be, He can use it, and it is precisely this kind of love that He can use best. Do not say, then, that you are weak, that you have no practice: accept that He will immediately put you at His service, immediately draw you into His service. To him who has known the love of the Lord, Jesus immediately gives a work, immediately entrusts human souls, lambs: young, sheep: old! As if to say: Do you love me, do you really love me: well, here is this child, here is this adult, in the way you treat them, show how much you love me! Love me so that they can feel it in you! God's Word says, "We love him, for he first loved us. If anyone says to me: I love God, and hate thy brother, he is a liar: for he that loveth not his brother whom he seeth, how can he love God whom he seeth not? And we have a commandment from him, that he who loves God should love his brother also." (1 John 4:19-21) So you who love Jesus: feed His sheep and keep His sheep! But He not only gives you a task, but He also encourages you: 'Truly, truly, I say to you, when you are young, you will be girded up and go where you want to go; but when you are old, you will stretch out your hand and someone else will gird you up and take you where you do not want to go. And he said this to signify by what death he would glorify God. And having said this, he said to him, 'Follow me' (verses 18-19). You may share in my shame, but you will share in my glory! Fear nothing of the things which you must suffer: you are mine, and neither life nor death, neither things present nor things to come, neither height nor depth, nor any other creature shall snatch you out of my hand, out of my love! You can trust yourself to me!
Come then, let us pray together to our Lord:
Just guide me, Lord, and hold my hand, Till I reach my goal with joy.
For without you my strength is so little, But where you go before me there is no fear.
With thy holy mercy cover my heart, In joy and in sorrow make it silent,
That thy child may rest at thy feet, Who, with eyes to thee, may follow in thy faithful path.
Though my weakness be not touched, Thou dost point me from the blind gloom to heaven;
Only lead me, O Lord, and hold my hand, Till I come to my happy goal.
Canto 462, verses 1-3
Amen
Date: 30 September 1951.
Lesson
Jn 21,15-19