Christmas III
John 21: 15-25
Now is proclaimed the end of the entire gospel according
to John in the 21st chapter:
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, 2014
John 21: 15-25
Christ came to earth as the seed of a new kind of human
being. This new kind of human being is to rise in freedom above the compulsions
of fear. It grows in the light of Truth. It perceives that the meaning of our
existence on earth is to learn how to love.
Three times before the crucifixion, Peter had denied any
relationship to Christ, the Being of Love. And after the resurrection, he is
given the chance to redeem himself:
three times Christ asks him, ‘Do you love me?’ Peter is given
instructions about the path of love: nourish and guide what is developing
within those who are on the path of love. Feed my little ones; guide, shepherd
the growing ones; feed the grown. Keep their evolving souls alive.
This is the task of the Peter who exists in all of us.
Loving God means finding ways to support God’s growth within our fellow human
beings; feeding and supporting their spirits, their soul, perhaps even their
bodies. And we do so by being guided and fed by the one who called himself,
whom we call, the Good Shepherd. For as the poet says:
Who shall keep thy sheep,
Lord, and lose not one?
Who save one shall keep,
Lest the shepherds sleep?
Who beside the Son?
…
The shepherds sing; and shall I
silent be?
My God, no hymn for Thee?
My soul's a shepherd too; a
flock it feeds
Of thoughts, and words, and
deeds.
The pasture is Thy words; the
streams, Thy grace
Enriching all the place.
Shepherd and flock shall sing,
and all my powers
Out-sing the daylight hours.
