At the age of 14 I stood on the verandah of our mud-walled home in northern Kenya, gazing at the view I knew and loved so well - the forest-clad hillside, and valley, and the desert beyond. I was about to go back to boarding school for the new term, and though I didn't know it then, it was the last time I would see that home, and the last time for 15 years that I would see that view.
15 years later I was once again standing on the same spot. So much was the same - the forest-clad valley, the desert beyond. But so much had changed, so much had happened in the intervening years. Our house, and all the mission buildings, had been demolished - just the imprint of the cement floor of our home remained. My parents had both died in their 50's, after long and distressing illnesses. I was now married, with children. I was now a doctor.
And I had come back.
Memories crowded in - both happy and sad. It was an emotional moment. Yet somehow I had needed to go back to that spot, to stand in that same place,
- to lay the memories,
- to make a new start.
Sometimes, in order to lay memories to rest, we need to go back to the place where those memories began.
Picture now another scene, 2 scenes, on the shore of Lake Galilee. They happened 3 years apart. If you have been to Israel you can imagine it well.
The first time Jesus is standing on the pebbly beach, the waves lapping on the shore. He is speaking to a crowd of people. And they are straining to hear Him, and jostling and pressing and crowding Him. But there, pulled up on the beach, are 2 fishing boats, and the fishermen are rinsing their nets in the water. And Jesus climbs into one of the boats, and asks the owner, Simon Peter, to push the boat out a little way, so He can address the crowd better from the boat. And when He's finished He tells Simon Peter to put out into deeper water, and let the nets down. And Simon Peter protests that they have been fishing all night, and caught nothing at all. But he does what he is told, and the nets are so full of fish that they are in danger of breaking, and the boats of sinking.
And Simon Peter is amazed, and says: "Go away from me Lord, for I am a sinful man!" And Jesus says "Don't be afraid; from now on you will be a fisher of men!" And Peter leaves everything - his boat, his nets, his way of life - and follows Jesus.
And now here we are again 3 years later - the same shore of Lake Galilee, waves lapping on the same beach. And it's like a situation of "déjà vu". Peter - that same Peter - is back fishing again. And again they have been out all night, and caught nothing. So what's going on? What is this man - who gave up fishing in order to follow Jesus, and to become a fisher of men - what's he doing back on the lake? Back on a boat? Back at his old job? Well of course we know the story, with all its ups and downs.
How for 3 years Peter did follow Jesus, then it all went pear-shaped. And how he - he who had sworn to Jesus that he would follow Him anywhere and everywhere, and if necessary would lay down his life for Him,
- Peter who was brash, impulsive, self-confident
- Peter the doer; Peter the natural leader
- It was this Peter, who, in the end, when it came to the crunch, had bottled out.
Even to the servant-girl outside the High Priest's house Peter had denied any knowledge of Jesus. Three times he had said he didn't know Him. And, as the cock crowed, Jesus had turned and looked at Peter - a look he would surely never forget. Peter had failed.
And so Jesus had been executed, and Peter had stood watching from a long way off. And then he and John had found the tomb empty. And he and the other disciples had hidden themselves away in a locked room, terrified. And then Jesus had appeared to them - and it was all very confusing.
And now things had turned full circle. And Peter was back home in Galilee, in the place where he belonged
- doing what he was used to doing
- back to the boat; back to fishing for fish
- back to that lakeshore where he had first met Jesus.
And it must almost have been as though the past 3 years had been a dream. What had begun so wonderfully and excitingly had ended up in failure, a mess. And then, in the early morning light, Peter and the others made out the figure of a man standing on the beach. And He called out to them to throw out the net on the other side of the boat,
and they did, and it was so full of fish that the net almost broke.
Déjà vu! And John said "It is the Lord!" And Peter, the action man, leapt into the water and made for the shore. And there Jesus had a charcoal fire burning, and breakfast cooking - bread and fish.
I wonder, as they ate breakfast together round that fire what was going through Peter's mind. The last charcoal fire he had sat near was outside the High Priest's house. What memories came back? "I don't know the man!" he had protested. "I don't know Him!" "I don't know Him!" And the cock had crowed. And Jesus had turned and looked at him.
And now here he was again, beside another charcoal fire. What memories! What guilt! Then Jesus went for a walk down the beach with Peter. (We know they went for a walk because it talks about John following them) And as they walked Jesus asked Peter those 3 questions: "Do you love Me?" "Do you love Me?" "Do you love Me?" Three denials. Three questions. And Three times Peter replied: "Yes, Lord, You know I love You" - "Yes, Lord, You know I love You" - "Lord, You know everything. You know I love You."
Jesus was giving Peter the chance, the opportunity, for a new start. He was giving him the opportunity to put behind him the bitter memories of that other charcoal fire. The failure. The weakness. The craven fear - when all his bragging and brashness had been shown to be so much hot air. Jesus was giving Peter a second chance.
Jesus is the Lord Who gives second chances. When we mess up in life; when we do wrong; when we go off course, off the rails; when we let Him down - He gives us another chance. But I don't think He does so lightly, as though messing up in life doesn't matter. It does matter. It matters a lot. But it's not the end.
I think Peter's transition from Peter the loud-mouth; Peter the boaster; Peter the arrogant, the impetuous - to Peter the courageous Apostle; Peter the Evangelist; Peter who did, in the end die for his Lord - that transition didn't actually begin there on the lakeshore. It began before that - on that night when he denied Jesus 3 times. Because, we are told, that night Peter went out from the High Priest's house and "he wept bitterly". "He wept bitterly". The events leading up to Jesus' death left Peter a broken man. He had been so confident of his loyalty to Jesus. But when it actually came to the crunch he was shown to be, not so much a rock as a man of straw. A weak, pathetic failure. And he wept bitterly. And that was the moment when his restoration began. That was the moment when a new start became possible.
It is very easy for us Christians to become smug. To think we are strong. St Paul warns us (Romans 12:3): "Do not think more highly of yourself than you ought." To the Corinthians he writes (1 Corinthians 10:12): "If you think you are standing firm be careful that you don't fall."
Spiritual complacency is very dangerous, and deadly to the soul. It's very interesting that most spiritual revivals have begun with an outpouring of repentance, of feelings of unworthiness, of brokenness. Spiritual revivals almost always begin with bitter tears.
God can do wonders with broken people. He can do nothing with complacent people. Peter's restoration could begin when he wept bitterly. And now Jesus took this new Peter, this broken Peter, and began to build him up again. Note that Jesus' questions to Peter were not about the past. He didn't ask: "Why did you deny Me?" "Why did you deny Me?" "Why". His questions weren't about the then, but about the now.
"Do you love Me?" Jesus doesn't want to drag us through the mud of past failure. Repentance and tears draw a line under the past. The cross crosses out the past. We, each of us, has a past, has a story. But have we got a present?
What Jesus wants to know is how we are today.
"Do you love Me?" "Do you love Me?" "Do you love Me?' "Of course I do!" said Peter. "Of course I do!" "You know I do!" And each time Jesus follows this with an implied "If so then .." "If you love Me - then feed My lambs; feed My sheep; feed My sheep".
You see, Peter's love for Jesus, if it was real, had to show itself in his life. Declaration must lead to action. Belief must work itself out in lifestyle. Word must be matched by deed.
For someone to claim to love Jesus, to protest their commitment to Him, to come to church week by week, and say all the right things, and be sweetness and light, and then do things, say things, live a lifestyle, that is totally inconsistent with their claim, means they are living a lie.
"Do you love Me? Then feed My sheep." In other words, pass on that love. If you love Me - then love others, care for others, act like a shepherd. Sometimes those who claim to love Jesus behave more like wolves than shepherds, and their words are empty and false.
As Henri Nouwen says: "We like easy victories - growth without crisis, healing without pain, resurrection without the cross." For Peter there was no easy victory. The road to a new start was the road of failure, and bitter tears. It involved crisis and pain. It passed by way of a cross.
And so it is for us. But when we fail, that's when Jesus comes to us, not to rub it in, but to rub it out. To give us a new start, a second chance.
You see the Church is not a club for the complacent. It's not a society for the successful. It is, rather, a Fellowship of Failures, a Society of Sinners, a Gathering of those who depend on the Grace of God. The Church is a "space for grace". We're not here this morning because we are good. We are here because we are not good, and depend on the undeserved forgiveness and grace of God.
A child once tried to make a pot from clay. And in spite of a confident start he wasn't actually doing very well. It went all lop-sided and droopy. And the teacher watched him trying to put a brave face on it, trying to correct the faults, to straighten the sides. Finally the teacher said, "I think we'd better start all over again!" The soft clay was broken and kneaded back into a lump. Back to square one. And then the teacher held and guided the boy's hand, and together they began to fashion a new pot, a beautiful pot, out of the clay. But it needed first to be broken. Then to be re-moulded. It needed a new start.
Jesus can work with broken things, and can start again, and make something new and beautiful. He remoulded Peter's broken life that day on the wave-lapped shore of Galilee. This time it was real. He made a new man of him.
He turned a fisherman into a shepherd.
Jesus could have given up on Peter. But He didn't. And He doesn't give up on us. He is the Lord of second chances.
Sometimes He says "Let's go back to the start! Let's go back to where we were! Let's give it another go!" Perhaps He is saying to you and me today: "Let's give it another go!
"Do you love Me? Then live for Me!"
"Do you love Me? Then live for Me!"
"Do you truly love Me? Then live for Me!"
David Webster
| 