Do You Love Me? — June 16, 2024
June 16, 2024
John 21:1-19
Do You Love Me?
I love the setting of today’s text from John 21 for a number of reasons. I love the water. I love the lake. You can almost feel the breeze coming off the lake as you read through this text. I especially over huge lakes like Lake Gennesaret as the Sea of Galilee is sometimes called. I love boats. I once preached on a boat full of pastors on the Sea of Galilee. It was an honor really to preach to all those ministers. There were Presbyterians, Lutherans, A.M.E, Baptists, Methodists all kinds of preachers. Have you noticed that whenever you are given an honor, life has its way of preventing you from thinking too much of yourself?
I was asked to speak to my colleagues in the ministry. We got out to the middle of the Sea of Galilee. They cut the engines off and our guide said, “from here we walk,” and as everyone started laughing, he added, “and now our speaker.” He brought me right back to earth, but I loved being there. I loved that experienced and I love the setting described in our passage today, the water, boats, and friends together fishing.
But there is something I love even more than all that in our text. You can find it there in v. 9:
When they had gone ashore, they saw a charcoal fire there, with fish on it, and bread.
Hold on to that image of the charcoal fire. When they had gone ashore, they saw a charcoal fire.
After Simon Peter gave up all hope of Jesus being the one who would usher in the Messianic age and bring the kingdom of heaven to earth, he decided to go back to his old way of life. ou see it there in verse 3.
Simon said to the others, “I am going fishing.” (v.3)
Apparently, none of them knew what to do after following Jesus around for three years and so they say, “we will go with you.”
But, they had lost their touch. They fished all night and hadn’t caught anything, not even a minnow, which couldn’t have been any fun. Earlier, I said, “I love fishing. “ That was maybe a little bit of a “white lie.” It would be more accurate to say I love catching fish. I like fishing. I love catching fish.
I know what it’s like to fish all night and not catch anything and I don’t think those guys were having fun. It’s like they don’t even know what a net is for or how to row a boat. Knowing what I know about Simon Peter’s temperament, from the Gospels and the Book of Acts, that was not a nice calm pleasant evening.
You have Simon Peter and Andrew – and the Sons of Thunder….How do you think they got that name? No fun. These guys who really knew how to fish weren’t catching anything.
But then, this “stranger” standing on the shore, a hundred yards or so away convinces them to throw their net on the other side of the boat. They seemed to have thought, why not, we’ve tried everything else. They did what this “stranger” said and caught so many fish the nets start tearing.
The text says they caught 153 fish. Why such an exact number? That almost sounds like an unnecessary detail, but according to the people of that day and time, the total number of fish in the all the world was thought to be 153.
So when God calls us to cast out a net – it is for everybody.
The disciples do what this stranger says, and then they realize he is not just the usual person trying to tell you how to fish who doesn’t know anything about it. They catch so many fish of every kind imaginable and they know something unusual is going on.
They come to realize who this stranger on the shore really is….
When Simon Peter realizes this “stranger” is Jesus, he jumps into the water. As he swims to the shore, what is one of the first things he sees, if not the first thing he sees? The charcoal fire we hear about in verse 9.
Why would that stand out? Why would he notice that?
He would notice it because the last time Simon Peter saw a charcoal fire, according to the Gospel of John, was just a few nights earlier.
What had happened a few nights earlier? A lot.
Judas had betrayed Jesus. Jesus was arrested, all the disciples deserted him, and Simon Peter, always the one to outdo everybody else, swore up and down he had never met Jesus: all while trying to hide his Galilean accent while warming himself next to a … charcoal fire.
There is no question that the charcoal fire of John 21 is a reflection of the charcoal fire Peter warmed himself outside of Caiaphas’ house as he denied Jesus.
Here is what is beautiful in that contrast of those two charcoal fires. It tells us that in our encounters with God, in our encounters with Jesus, we don’t have to pretend we are something we are not. We don’t have to hide who we are.
We don’t have to pretend that we are better than we actually are. Every saint has a past and every sinner has a future. That doesn’t mean we shouldn’t try to be the best people we can be, we should, but it does mean there is grace when we fall short.
Jesus knew what Simon Peter had done. He knew what Simon Peter had said around that other charcoal fire. He knew what Simon didn’t say. He knew all about all of that and he still loved Simon. He still had things for Simon Peter to do.
Jesus loved Simon Peter just like those of us who are father’s love our children. I love my children even though they are not perfect like all those children I see on Facebook. And, I think my children love me. It’s still early, it’s Father’s Day, I’ll let you know.
I realize that it is hard for us to love one another sometimes and there are times when we may not even be able to, but we were created to love one another.
We were created to take care of one another and we were created with a desire to patch things up when they need to be whenever we can, just like Jesus patched things up with Peter standing on that shore next to the lake.
This is a beautiful passage with a beautiful story and I love it.
I love the question Jesus asked Simon Peter as he was fixing him that delicious smelling breakfast there at the charcoal fire.
He could have asked Simon Peter a whole lot of things …
He could have said to him “Look Peter, I am going to forgive you and all, but do you promise you will never swear you never knew me again? Do you promise you will never fail again? He could have said, “We have to launch a huge enterprise, do you plan on raising a lot of money for me, because we are going to need a lot of money to do what we need to do.”
He could have asked him a lot of things, but what he did ask him was, “do you love me?”
Jesus became vulnerable all over again standing there next to that charcoal fire cooking breakfast that morning.
Ultimately, the kingdom isn’t so much about doing this or doing that, or not doing this and not doing that as it is about loving God.
Kind of like in our relationships with one another are all about love, first and foremost.
“Do you love me,” Jesus asked? “Take care of my sheep.”
No, you are not perfect. I don’t expect you to be perfect, but I love you and I have things for you to do. Do you love me?