Jesus knew that Peter would deny knowing him… Was it because Jesus had some amazingly prescient knowledge of what was to come? Or did he have wisdom about what humans do when in severe distress? He had been in other situations in which people’s family refused to tell the truth because it meant associating them with Jesus.
So often when he healed people he restored them to community, but the man who washed in the pool of Siloam was left with only Jesus to follow… Jesus knew that to associate oneself with him just might prove too hard, even for a person who felt emotionally zealous.
But Jesus also knew that emotional zealousness was the thing that gave a person the ability to return, even when ashamed.
I suppose that Peter felt as awful as a person can feel after boasting that he would never deny him and then doing just that, and then witnessing Jesus’ death. Peter must have felt so much despair! And these women and others tried so hard to convince him that they had seen Jesus!
It is Jesus who approaches Peter after the resurrection. The Scripture tells us facts, but I imagine it was a very emotional meeting. How would you react if someone asked, “Do you love me?” and you had denied knowing them in their greatest need?
Jesus didn’t just ask it. He asked it three times: the number of times equal to Peter’s denials. I think this is important. He gave Peter the opportunity to affirm for as many times as he denied.
When Jesus told his disciples to forgive 70 times 7, that is what he meant: to offer the opportunity to do right for as often as the person has done wrong. People will do wrong over and over and over. It is the nature of being human. To offer the opportunity to do right is to be like Christ.
I imagine that Peter wept. We don’t read this in Scripture. But to weep is part of the experience of returning home.
I also imagine that Jesus didn’t tell him to stop crying. It would be easy to make a nice, clean confession. “Of course, I love you.”
Still, the truth needed to come. Where was Peter’s heart? “Do you love me?” Let all the weeping come until the heart is revealed, because here is what it means to love: not careless zealousness but dedicated devotion that means you will feed my sheep. It means the practice of discipleship even when it hurts.
Do you love me?
Do you love me?
Like Peter, I hear the question ringing often as I wrestle with my emotions.
Like Peter, I do not wrestle alone. I can rest knowing that when Jesus asks, “Do you love me?” he seeks to open my heart so that I might follow him more faithfully.
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