Easter Wednesday: The cost of reconciliation

When they had gone ashore, they saw a charcoal fire there, with fish on it, and bread. Jesus said to them, ‘Bring some of the fish that you have just caught.’ So Simon Peter went aboard and hauled the net ashore, full of large fish, a hundred and fifty-three of them; and though there were so many, the net was not torn. Jesus said to them, ‘Come and have breakfast.’ Now none of the disciples dared to ask him, ‘Who are you?’ because they knew it was the Lord. Jesus came and took the bread and gave it to them, and did the same with the fish. This was now the third time that Jesus appeared to the disciples after he was raised from the dead.

When they had finished breakfast, Jesus said to Simon Peter, ‘Simon son of John, do you love me more than these?’ He said to him, ‘Yes, Lord; you know that I love you.’ Jesus said to him, ‘Feed my lambs.’ A second time he said to him, ‘Simon son of John, do you love me?’ He said to him, ‘Yes, Lord; you know that I love you.’ Jesus said to him, ‘Tend my sheep.’ He said to him the third time, ‘Simon son of John, do you love me?’ Peter felt hurt because he said to him the third time, ‘Do you love me?’ And he said to him, ‘Lord, you know everything; you know that I love you.’ Jesus said to him, ‘Feed my sheep. Very truly, I tell you, when you were younger, you used to fasten your own belt and to go wherever you wished. But when you grow old, you will stretch out your hands, and someone else will fasten a belt around you and take you where you do not wish to go.’ (He said this to indicate the kind of death by which he would glorify God.) After this he said to him, ‘Follow me.’

Peter turned and saw the disciple whom Jesus loved following them; he was the one who had reclined next to Jesus at the supper and had said, ‘Lord, who is it that is going to betray you?’ When Peter saw him, he said to Jesus, ‘Lord, what about him?’ Jesus said to him, ‘If it is my will that he remain until I come, what is that to you? Follow me!’ So the rumour spread in the community that this disciple would not die. Yet Jesus did not say to him that he would not die, but, ‘If it is my will that he remain until I come, what is that to you?’

This is the disciple who is testifying to these things and has written them, and we know that his testimony is true. But there are also many other things that Jesus did; if every one of them were written down, I suppose that the world itself could not contain the books that would be written. 

[John 21.9-25]

It’s an old, old story, The two friends who have fallen out, restored to one another and a new deeper friendship formed.

As a Curate I visited the Holy Land, and of all the places I felt a deep connection, it was not the Church of Holy Sepulchre, or the Church of Transfiguration, but the Church which housed the Mensa Christi (the Table of Christ) which spoke to me most. Set on the shores of Lake Galilee, it is a small Church which surrounds an outcrop of rock, the rock where Jesus and Peter spoke. It’s a place that speaks of the healing of broken friendships and restored hope, a place whose significance was not hidden within complex theology, but rather alive with human possibility.

As we read the story of the restoration of Peter it’s worth noting that the English language flattens the Greek in which the story is written. As Jesus asks Peter if he loves him, so Peter responds that yes, Jesus is his friend. At that moment Peter finds it hard to forgive himself for what he has done*. It is not that he does not love Jesus, it is that he does not feel worthy or able to name that love, rarher he feels that relationship has been too deeply broken to be so easily healed. But heal it Jesus does, and he goes on to tell Peter that the cost of that love will be huge, as this painting of the Execution of St Peter by Caravaggio reminds us.

* Jesus asking Peter three times mirrors threefold denial of Christ on Maundy Thursday.