Christmas III
John 21: 15-25
(End of the Four Gospels)
After they had had held their meal together, Jesus
said to Simon Peter: “Simon, son of John, do you love me more than the others
here?
 |
| Grunewald |
Jesus said to him, “Feed my lambs.”
And he said to him again, a second time, “Simon,
son of John, do you love me?
Peter answered, “Yes, Lord, you know that I am devoted to
you.”
Jesus said to him, “Shepherd my young sheep.”
He asked him a third time, “Simon, Son of John, Are
you my friend?”
Peter was heartbroken that he could say to him the
third time, ‘Are you my friend’, and he answered, “Lord, you know all things;
therefore you know that I am devoted to you.”
Jesus said, “Feed my sheep. Amen the truth I say to
you, when you were younger you girded yourself and walked wherever you wished.
But when you are old, you will stretch out your hands and Another will gird you
and lead you where you do not wish to go.”
He told him this to indicate the kind of death by
which he would bring the divine to revelation. Then he said to him, “Follow
me.”
But Peter, turning, saw the disciple whom Jesus
loved, following him. He was the one who had leaned upon his breast at the
supper and had asked, “Lord, who is it who betrays you?” When Peter now saw him, his asked, “Lord,
what of this man, what is his task?”
Jesus said to him: If is my will that he remain
until my coming, that does not affect your path. Follow me…”
From this day the story spread among the brethren
that this disciple would not die. But Jesus did not say to him that he would
not die, but, “If it is my will that he remain until my coming, that does not
affect your path.”
This is the disciple who here bears witness to
these things and who has written all this. And we know that his testimony is
true. There are also many other things that
Jesus did. If they were to be written down one by one, I do not think
that the world itself could contain the books that would have to be written.
December
25, 2008
For, in the words of an early mystic:
www.thechristiancommunity.org
Christmas III, Day
John 21: 15
-25
Mornings the sun rises and ascends ever higher. And as it
ascends, it warms the earth. Life stirs, people wake up and move about their
business.
This is the third Christmas Act of Consecration, the Service
of Day. At midnight we
celebrated the Light that overcomes darkness, bringing new life and hope. At
dawn we celebrated the healing warmth of the Love that entered the earthly
realm with the birth of the Christ Child.
And now it is Day. And in the full light of day-waking
consciousness we hear, from the end of all the gospels, the Risen Christ’s own
hope and warmth expressed for all of mankind. This hope, God’s hope, is framed
in a question that rings out three times;
“Do you love Me?” John 21: 15 - 17
For He has been born; He lived, died and rose again – for
our sake. He did so in order to implant divine love into human hearts. And now
He peers into hearts and seeks for it there. “Do you love Me? Did what I tried to implant
in human hearts, a love-seed, take root?”
 |
| Arild Rosenkrantz |
In love did He bring the world
into being, and in love
does He guide its difficult
slow-seeming journey now
through the arc of time. In love
will He
one day bring all the world to a
wondrous,
transformed state, and utterly
in love will it be taken wholly up
into the great mystery of the One
who has performed these things—and
all of this
so that in love absolutely will the
course
and form and governance of all
creation
at long last be comprised.[1]
There is a measure of birthing pain in today’s reading: the
pain of the ‘not yet’. For we all, like Peter, deny the Christ in us. But just
as Peter was given the opportunity to reaffirm and redirect his love, so too
this year we are given a chance to start over; to say with our hearts and
souls, as many times as He asks us: Yes, Lord, Your love is quickening in my
heart. Yes, Lord, I am devoted to You. Yes, I will nourish and care for those,
young and old, who are Your little ones.
[1]
St. Isaac of Nineveh
(†700)
“Love’s Purpose”, in Love’s Immensity,
Mystics on the Endless Life, by Scott Cairns, p. 74.
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