3rd Sunday of Easter
(Sunday 10th April 2016)
The Cross will lead you to eternal life – John 21:1-19
The human instinct when things go wrong is primarily to either fight or flight. This means we either put up resistance against what is causing us trouble or we run away from it. Either way is an attempt to stop or remove this trouble from our life. And this is what the Disciples of Jesus did on the early hours of Good Friday morning after Judas betrayed Jesus and the soldiers moved in to capture him. The disciples fought the soldiers to defend Jesus and when this failed, they fled.
Jesus on the other hand did neither of these two human instincts of fighting or fleeing. He chose another way and that was to accept this trouble or cross that had just entered his life which would become the heaviest cross he would carry in his life to Calvary. This cross would end in his death but it would ultimately lead to life for Jesus and also for everyone who follows him, eternal life. This happened because Jesus did not choose to fight or to flee but to accept what had come upon him, the cross in this life which leads to eternal life.
Meanwhile back with the disciples fear had engulfed them and they fled. The instinct of flight grows in Peter so much so that he denies that he ever knew his Lord and Master, not once, not twice but three times. Fight mode had failed and now in flight mode Peter shows that he will do anything to flee from the trouble he now finds himself in even if this means separating himself from Jesus and anything he ever had to do with him. Even though Peter does this to Jesus, Jesus had prayed that Peter’s faith would not fail in his time of trouble and fear and it doesn’t. Peter regrets hugely what he has just done.
In John’s Gospel today Jesus is back. He has conquered even death itself, rising from the dead in body and soul. We see again, Jesus is neither in fight or flight mode when he encounters his disciples. He does not want to look back and argue with them about their fighting and then fleeing from him when he needed them most. He does not want revenge or to choose new disciples. Instead he offers the disciples good advice on how to catch fish and also cooks them breakfast after they catch every kind of fish there is. Imagine having the most important person ever, cooking you the most important meal of the day on a beach. Heaven on earth!
Jesus knew that Peter needed to repent of his effort to separate himself from him when he denied he ever knew him three times. And so Jesus asks Peter three times ‘Do you love me?’ and Peter replies three times ‘Lord, you know I love you’ repenting of his three denials of Jesus. With Peter’s repentance, Jesus appoints him as Pope of his Church when he says to Peter to feed his lambs and to look after his sheep and to feed his sheep. Jesus also points out to Peter that this ministry won’t come without persecution too, without the cross too. The cross, Peter must not fight or flee from but rather accept, which will ultimately lead him to eternal life.
Fr. Noel Weir