In last week’s posts, I shared some biblical advice for the emotional and spiritual dysfunction that comes from living in the past. Whether we are pining over the good old days or nursing old wounds, the past is no place to live. Jesus is calling us to follow him today as he leads us into the future God has planned for our lives.
But leaving our past behind and following Jesus is not easy. Never has been. Never will be, especially when we have failed so miserably and so often. It’s hard to shake off the shame of our past when we have so deliberately abandoned our calling to follow Christ. We feel like failures. And if our failures are especially ugly, we may even decide to give up our faith altogether.
That’s what shame does. It fills us with a hopelessness that can cause us to walk away from Jesus’s calling on our lives.
But the good news is that Jesus never gives up on us. We may decide to stop following him, but he NEVER stops following us. Wherever we go, whatever we do, Jesus is there, watching and waiting, always ready to meet us right where we are, and to once again issue the challenge to each of us - Follow me!
And that’s exactly what happened to Peter.
It’s a familiar story. Even after the resurrection appearances of Jesus to his disciples, Peter’s cowardly and shameful denials on the night of Jesus’s arrest still haunted him. “Even if all these others abandon you,” he had boasted, “I’ll never leave you. I’ll be with you till the bitter end. You can count on it, Jesus.” Hours later, Peter is calling down curses on himself while assuring those gathered by the fire in the courtyard of the High Priest, “I don’t know the man.”
In Peter’s mind, there was only one thing left to do, go back to his old life. He returns to his career as a fisherman. And because of his influence, the other fishermen disciples follow him.
They fish all night but catch nothing. Early the next morning, as the sun rises, they see a figure on the shoreline. “Caught any fish?” he calls out to the weary men in their boats. His words only serve to drive home the fruitlessness of attempting to return to their old lives.
“Cast your nets on the right-hand side of the boat,” he cries after hearing their answer. The result? 153 fish. That’s when Peter recognizes Jesus, jumps in the water, and swims ashore. The others follow, and together, they find Jesus cooking a breakfast of fresh fish.
I love that! The Lord of glory, the Christ of the ages, cooking breakfast for his friends!
After breakfast, Jesus turns to Peter and asks a penetrating question - “Simon, son of John, do you love me more than these?” He may have been talking about the other disciples, but I don’t think so. I think he was talking about the fish, talking about Peter’s old life as a fisherman.
Now, here’s where it gets interesting. The word Jesus uses for love is the Greek word agape. It refers to selfless, sacrificial, all-in kind of love. But Peter answers honestly. He answers from where he’s at in his relationship with Jesus. “Yes, Lord,” he said, “you know that I love you.” And the word Peter uses for love is the Greek word phileo, which means brotherly love. After telling Peter to “feed my lambs,” Jesus asks him a second time, “Do you agape me?” And again, Peter answers, “I phileo you.”
And then follows the third question of Jesus to Peter. And I love what is going on here. Jesus asks Peter, “Do you phileo me?”
“Okay, Peter, I’m going to meet you where you are. You’ve heard me say many, many times that following me means picking up a cross, placing me above family, and those things most precious to you in life. You know that ultimately, I’m calling you to agape me. But Peter, let’s start where you are right now. Do you phileo me?”
“Lord, you know all things; you know I phileo you.”
And then Jesus says to Peter, and I’m paraphrasing here - “Peter, you will agape me in time. You will give your life for me.”
That’s when Jesus gazes deep into the eyes of this wounded warrior and says, “Follow me.”
That’s the Lord we serve. One who follows us, even when we stop following him. One that tracks us down and meets us wherever we are in our lives. And often, where we are is a shameful place. One that threatens to undo our faith walk altogether.
And Jesus meets us where we are, as we are, in all our shame and hopelessness. “Follow me,” he says once again. So, we pick ourselves up, dust ourselves off, and start again in what is, at times, the most difficult thing in all our lives - following Jesus.
I wonder if today, you are hearing Jesus calling? Perhaps he’s with you at the breakfast table this morning. His presence filling the room. Don’t be afraid to tell him where you are. Don’t be afraid to start over in your spiritual journey.
I’ve known too many wounded, bitter, hopeless disciples who have simply given up and walked away. If you’re one of those, I get it. I understand. Been there. Done that.
But like Peter, Jesus has tracked me down. And like Peter, who once spoke for all the other disciples when he asked, “Lord, where else can we go, you alone have the words of eternal life?” I’ve come back to the one who always meets me where I am.
Lord Jesus, what a deep burden I feel today for those who live in the shame of failure. It’s a burden I feel because it’s a burden I’ve carried. May your grace and love surround them through the presence of your Spirit today. And may they hear in the depths of their spirits your renewed call to “follow me."
In Christ,
Dan
Check out my podcasts from Church on the Edge and my books on Kindle.
You can listen to my message, “When God Rolls Away the Shame,” here.
Felt like Dan was writing about me not Peter! What a fantastic message this morning.