Christmas Day 2009, Do You Love Me?

Christmas III

John 21: 15-25

(The 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?

Peter answered, “Lord you know that I am your friend”.

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. 

Christmas III, Day

December 25, 2009

John 21:15-25

In this third of the three Christmas Day Services, we hear a reading from the very end of the Gospels. One might say that in this reading, the goal, the aim of Christ’s incarnation lights up, shining from the future into the beginnings.

His disciples had grown to love Him; they had suffered through the apparent loss of Him at His death. And now they are united with Him after his Resurrection. At Christmas we celebrate His birth on earth. This Resurrection is His second birth, His birth out of death.

He holds a conversation with Peter, which is at once deeply intimate and deeply personal. At the same time it is a conversation with the heart of every human being:

“Do you love me?.... If you do, then translate your love for Me into deeds of love for those whom I love.”  For Christ, it is not enough that we return His love. We must multiply it out into the world.  

We have heard: Glory to God in the Heights. And: Peace on earth to men of good will.

Vonesch

Indeed, peace on earth will only come about through good will, a will saturated with love and compassion. Good will starts as a positive inclination in our hearts. It awakens in movement toward others, with others. And then, good will fully exerts itself on earth in actual words and deeds that support others. The poet Hafiz says:

Out

Of a great need

We are all holding hands

And climbing.

Not loving is a letting go.

Listen,

The terrain around here

Is

Far too

Dangerous

For

That.[1]

 www.thechristiancommunity.org

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[1] “A Great Need”, in The Gift – versions of Hafiz by Daniel Ladinsky)