Journey From the Cross: Peter Restored

Text: John 21:1-17

● I remember one of the first times that I went golfing on a course that didn’t have a “clown’s mouth” and being introduced to this strange, yet wonderful concept of the “mulligan”.

            It is one of the most liberating things you will ever hear one of your partners say when you’ve shanked one into the adjacent fairway. The real beauty of it is that it is reserved especially for times of “failure”.

“Hit another one”. “Take a mulligan”. It doesn’t even count; you don’t have to write it down. It’s as if that moment in time never happened and you are free to succeed once again.

● The more familiar that I became with the mulligan, the more I began to see how useful this could be (the transferability) even off the golf course.

            “Sir, did you know you were going 45 mph in a school zone?” “Yes, officer, but I think I’ll take a mulligan.”

            “Excuse me, Mr. Strong, your card has been rejected”. “I’d like to use a mulligan, please.”

            “Honey, does this dress make me look fat?” This is where you get a pre-emptive mulligan.

● Failure as the occasional occurrence is not as detrimental as failure as a condition (it’s the difference between “I failed” and “I’m a failure”).

            In the former, you are able to “identify with” (deal with) failure as an inevitable aspect of life. You are developing a healthier understanding of grace which makes allowances for failure but also ensures that we are not making excuses for them.

● In the latter, you are “identified by” your failure. It’s not just what you’ve done, but who you are.

You can quickly recall your failures, but you’re not able to rehearse anything that you’ve done right. In this state, your understanding of grace is tainted by demands for performance.

● John decides to wrap us this monumental work on the “glory of God in the person of Jesus” with a good “fishing story”.

John 21 records one of the most interesting and awkward dialogues in all of the Scriptures. Peter is obviously filled with regret for all of the ways that he has failed Jesus (not just failed).

● I think all of us who are even remotely familiar with this story realize that the symmetry is clear: Peter’s triple denial of Jesus during the Passion is now addressed with a three-fold chance at redemption.

Jesus is inviting Peter to revisit the places of his failure, but, he won’t let him go there alone.

Jesus is not taking Peter there just so that he will feel some adequate measure of regret, but so that he might help him overcome his “loss of heart” (passionlessness: apathetic---without heart).

            Apathy is not laziness, it’s even worse… it’s heartless activity (going through the motions).

We keep returning to our failure for some distorted sense of self-punishment, but Jesus takes a different approach.

Jesus’ approach and response are most intriguing. Never once does Jesus insinuate that Peter should apologize and “we’ll just forget this little incident” (“Anything you’d like to say, Peter?”)

● The question Jesus asks in our failure is not, “Why’d you do that?!”, but, “Do you love me?”

That question would not only wound him deeply, but would also become the source of his healing.

 That question is sometimes not easy to answer and makes me feel uncomfortable.

● When you are feeling as vulnerable as Peter, that’s not an easy question to answer. If I say, “Yes”, then Jesus could say, “Well, you sure don’t act like it; how does this whole ‘denial’ thing fit into that?”

            But, in the question, Jesus makes himself equally vulnerable. He makes himself available to Peter and then simply awaits a response.

● Peter’s response: “Honestly, Jesus? I don’t know what I know anymore, Jesus. I’d like to believe that I love you, but I’m not sure if I’m up to this ‘whole-heart’ kind of love.”

So, since he can’t really trust his heart right now, he just trusts Jesus. “You know everything…” He doesn’t want to be inauthentic, so he just leaves the analysis to Jesus.

“Peter was hurt because Jesus asked him a third time…”

● Jesus is saying, “Peter, you have to feel this. It’s good to sense this hurt. It’s only this type of sorrow (Paul called “godly sorrow that leads to repentance”) that will allow you to recover and endure.”  Engage it; grieve it, but then celebrate forgiveness.

We often spend so much time trying to ‘soothe’ or ‘ignore’ our conscience that we neglect the healing benefits of conviction.

I’m not sure that I really ever appreciated the extravagance of God’s love and grace until I first experienced the depth of my sin and the extent of the damage it had done to my soul.

“Whoever has been forgiven little loves little” (Luke 7:47). That means that our love for God will be proportionate to our understanding of the human dilemma and the extravagant love of God.

● In Peter’s disappointment and frustration, the first place he needed to look was to Jesus for his reaction. He needed to know that Jesus was “for” him.

“… absolutely nothing can get between us and God’s love because of the way that Jesus our Master has embraced us” Romans 8:39 (MSG).

            Not even our stubborn determination to ‘not let God love me’.

Our desire to be loved and develop a relationship with our Creator- God is far more central to who we are than our failures, but we feel guilt and pain more than we feel love.

But, maybe it’s because we don’t look deep enough.

● Most often, we are able to go just deep enough to reach our failure, but not deep enough to penetrate to the place of our longings and desires which are causing us to satisfy them in self-destructive ways (i.e. like tarnished silver: my mom used to polish the silver to return it to its beauty)

What Peter forgot while rehearsing all of his failure… he was chosen.

Jesus admonition was for Peter to love all the sheep, even the ones who stray, fall away, and do harm to others in the fold. Maybe this capacity to confront his own failure would position him to restore others who had failed greatly as well.

Each answer from Peter was followed with a renewed sense of mission. Jesus’ way of saying, “Peter, I trust what’s in your heart, even if you don’t.”

Our sense of identity and mission can be motivated by nothing less than the incomprehensible love of God.

            It can’t be self-determined effort (after all, they caught nothing) or obligation (as if we owe him one).

“Whatever we do,”, says Paul, “it is because Christ’s love compels us…” (2 Cor. 5:14) It’s because I am free to choose, but am convinced that God’s love leaves me no other choice.

● In the final analysis, my decision to embrace the story of Christianity had nothing to do with guilt, or sin, or failure… my life was already full of those things. But, to be loved “in spite of” those things”… that was really good news; compelling news that was powerful enough to capture my heart.