John 21:15-25 The Power of Easter: Power of Forgiveness
The End of John
He is Risen!
He is Risen Indeed!
Don’t worry, I’ll stop doing that. But I do want to remind you that even though Easter Sunday was almost a month ago, we are still in the season of Easter as well. On the church calendar, Easter is a season that lasts just as long as the season of Lent. 40 days, up to the Day of Ascension. More importantly, we want to recognize that Jesus’ resurrection from the dead was not just a one day thing, but that Jesus remains alive and rules right up to the present day.
Thus, just as we spent the season of Lent working through the story of the crucifixion from the gospel of John, we’ve been spending these first few Sundays of the season of Easter looking at the stories of the resurrection as told in John. And today, we will come to the final story in John’s gospel.
Our text today is John 21:15-25. This passage is of special interest to Bible scholars because it accomplishes several things that are important in our understanding of the early church and the Bible. For one thing, it confirms the authorship of this book. It also validates the apostolic leadership of the early church and gives us insight to an interesting rumor that raised a lot of questions among the first generation of believers. Most importantly of all, it is a beautiful reminder of God’s amazing grace and Jesus' call to all of us: to follow Him. Let’s read it, John 21:15-25:
15 When they had finished eating, Jesus said to Simon Peter, “Simon son of John, do you love me more than these?”
“Yes, Lord,” he said, “you know that I love you.”
Jesus said, “Feed my lambs.”
16 Again Jesus said, “Simon son of John, do you love me?”
He answered, “Yes, Lord, you know that I love you.”
Jesus said, “Take care of my sheep.”
17 The third time he said to him, “Simon son of John, do you love me?”
Peter was hurt because Jesus asked him the third time, “Do you love me?” He said, “Lord, you know all things; you know that I love you.”
Jesus said, “Feed my sheep. 18 Very truly I tell you, when you were younger you dressed yourself and went where you wanted; but when you are old you will stretch out your hands, and someone else will dress you and lead you where you do not want to go.” 19 Jesus said this to indicate the kind of death by which Peter would glorify God. Then he said to him, “Follow me!”
20 Peter turned and saw that the disciple whom Jesus loved was following them. (This was the one who had leaned back against Jesus at the supper and had said, “Lord, who is going to betray you?”) 21 When Peter saw him, he asked, “Lord, what about him?”
22 Jesus answered, “If I want him to remain alive until I return, what is that to you? You must follow me.” 23 Because of this, the rumor spread among the believers that this disciple would not die. But Jesus did not say that he would not die; he only said, “If I want him to remain alive until I return, what is that to you?”
24 This is the disciple who testifies to these things and who wrote them down. We know that his testimony is true.
25 Jesus did many other things as well. If every one of them were written down, I suppose that even the whole world would not have room for the books that would be written.
Restored
I heard this story about an old farmer who never really left his farm. All his life was pretty much spent on the family acreage, tending his crops and his livestock. He had a dairy farm, so every morning and every night meant chores, and he just never got away. After many years, he finally agreed to give up the farming and move to town. His grown son came and said, “Dad, now that you’re retired, I’m going to take you to the big city and show you things you’ve never seen before.”
So the son took his parents to a very lavish hotel right in the heart of the city. And as they were checking into their rooms in the lobby, the farmer just couldn’t stop looking around. He was especially taken by this one little room in the back of the lobby that had sliding doors. Every once in a while these doors would open and people would go in, and then these lights and numbers would dance over the top of the doors, and then the doors would re-open and different people would come out. He’s never been anywhere but the farm, so he’s fascinated by this.
And then, as he’s watching, this little old lady, stooped over and with gray hair, goes to the doors and walks in. The lights go dancing over the top, the lights go dancing backwards, the doors open, and out walks this young, beautiful, well-dressed woman. The old farmer turns to his son and says: “Quick! Go get your ma!”
Restoration. That’s what we see in our story today. Restoration.
You all know what restoration is. It’s bringing back to a former position or condition. Some of you do this with old cars, or tractors. You buy an old machine that’s weathered and rusted, maybe the upholstery is ripped up and faded, probably the engine doesn’t work so good if at all, and you go to work bringing it back to life. New seats. A new paint job. Overhauling the engine.
It’s a real skill, and it produces some great looking cars. An awesome tractor collection. Some people do it with furniture, or homes. Some people restore artwork.
And the point I want to make today is that God is a God of restoration. God is into taking things that are broken and making them brand new. Except, when it’s God who is doing the restoring, it’s more than just bringing back a former position or condition. When God restores, He brings back that which has been lost in such a way that the final state is even greater than what came before.
You see, we live in a disposable culture. Anymore, you don’t see people repairing or restoring broken appliances or electronics. If your TV breaks, don’t try to fix it. Just get a new one. It’ll cost you about the same as repairing it will. We don’t mend our clothes, we just buy more. It’s a disposable culture. One where planned obsolescence is factored into our costs.
But God loves to restore broken things. God especially loves to restore broken people. God isn’t looking to discard or throw away, He’s looking to renew and restore.
That’s what happens in today’s story. It’s often called “The Restoration of Peter.” It tells the story of how Jesus met Peter in his brokenness and not only forgave and restored him, but also gave him a new direction for his life. He brought back what was lost so that the result in Peter’s life was even greater than what came before. Or, as I’ll put it for today’s Big Idea: God restores for a purpose. God restores for a purpose. God’s forgiveness in our lives calls us to follow Him.
Let’s go through the story verse by verse, and as we go I’ll be drawing three lessons for our lives.
Do You Love Me?
Verse 15:
15 When they had finished eating, Jesus said to Simon Peter, “Simon son of John, do you love me more than these?”
“Yes, Lord,” he said, “you know that I love you.”
Jesus said, “Feed my lambs.”
Let me remind you of where we are in the story. Last week we read about Jesus’ third appearance to his disciples. Seven of them are out on the Sea of Galilee, practicing their old profession of fishing. They fish all night, but don’t catch a thing. Then early in the morning, Jesus calls out from the shore, without identifying Himself, and has them cast their nets on the other side of the boat. Immediately they are almost swamped by the size of the catch.
It’s an episode similar to when Jesus first called some of them to be disciples, and they excitedly join Jesus on the shore. He kindles a small fire and together they enjoy a breakfast of grilled fish.
It’s right after this breakfast that this conversation takes place. In all likelihood, they are still sitting around the fire. The other disciples are able to listen in. And that matters, because Jesus’ restoration of Peter isn’t just for Peter, the other disciples need to hear it too.
There has been some debate over what Jesus means when He asks: “Do you love me more than these?” More than what?
Some, primarily those who think the disciples were being disobedient by going back to their old life of fishing, think that Jesus is referring to the fish and the fishing gear. As if he is saying: “Peter, do you love me more than you love fishing?” Grammatically, that’s possible, but I think it exaggerates how much of a problem it was for them to spend a night on the water.
A second option is that Jesus is asking if Peter loves Him more than Peter loves the other disciples. Kind of like: “Peter, do you love me even more than you love your friends?” Again, grammatically it’s possible, but it doesn’t really fit the themes of John’s gospel. Jesus talks about no greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends (John 15:13). He’s not trying to put Himself in competition for Peter’s affections.
Rather, it seems likely that Jesus is asking: “Peter, do you love me more than these other disciples do?” Not that Jesus is putting these other disciples down, but He is reminding Peter of his earlier bluster.
You may know that Peter is the most outspoken of the disciples. He was always quick to answer Jesus, and on the night of the Last Supper he was adamant that no matter what happened to Jesus, and no matter what the other disciples did, he–Peter–would lay down his life for Jesus! (John 13:37) Peter had been eager to position himself as the best and bravest of Jesus’ disciples, but when push came to shove, he had failed. That’s what Jesus’ question is about.
It had to sting Peter. And the others around the fire knew exactly what Jesus was getting at. And early readers of the gospel as well. After Peter’s failure, could he really be a leader in the church?
Jesus asks a second time. Verse 16:
16 Again Jesus said, “Simon son of John, do you love me?”
He answered, “Yes, Lord, you know that I love you.”
Jesus said, “Take care of my sheep.”
Most sermons on this passage will talk about the word “love,” and so I suppose I should too. It doesn’t come across in English, but in the original Greek of the New Testament there are two different words for love used in this passage.
The first two times Jesus asks Peter if he loves Him, the gospel uses the word agape. Agape is often defined as sacrificial, or self-giving love. Sometimes it is called the highest expression of love in the Greek language. It’s often described as the best word for God’s love for us. Agape. Unconditional love.
When Peter answers, however, he uses a different Greek word. He uses phileo. Phileo is often defined as brotherly or friendly love. Think of how Philadelphia is called the city of brotherly love.
So, when Jesus asks: “Simon son of John, do you love me?” He uses agape. And when Simon Peter answers, “Yes, Lord, you know that I love you” he uses phileo. Almost like: “Do you love me?” “Yes Lord, you know that I am your friend.”
Now, I don’t want to read too much into this, like some preachers do. For one thing, the difference between agape and phileo can be overstated. They are interchangeable words. Frequently in the Bible God’s love is called “phileo” and our love for our friends is called “agape.” They are synonyms.
For another thing, when Jesus and Peter first had this conversation, they were not speaking in Greek. They spoke Aramaic. It is the gospel writer, under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, who chose these two different words for love. And one characteristic of the gospel writer’s style is that he likes to use minor variations in words. We see that in this passage when he uses other word pairs like “feed” and “take care of” and “sheep” and “lambs.”
That being said, though, we may have some insight into what is going on with Peter. As the gospel writer sees it, Peter is so aware of his earlier failures that he cannot quite bring himself to express his love in the way Jesus is asking. It’s not that he doesn’t want to, but he knows he didn’t live up to his earlier boasts.
Verse 17:
17 The third time he said to him, “Simon son of John, do you love me?”
This time, it is Jesus who switches words. This time, Jesus uses phileo. “Simon, are you my friend?” If Peter isn’t willing to use the stronger word, then Jesus will meet him in his failure. You say you are my friend, are you really? It’s at this point that Peter breaks.
Peter was hurt because Jesus asked him the third time, “Do you love me?” He said, “Lord, you know all things; you know that I love you.”
Jesus said, “Feed my sheep.
Three times Jesus questions Peter. Three times He instructs him to feed the sheep. That number three is not coincidental.
I’ve alluded to Peter’s failure several times, but I haven’t described it. Just to be clear, Peter did not live up to his bluster. Rather, on the night Jesus was arrested and put on trial, Peter denied three times that he had anything to do with Jesus. Once, it was standing around a fire not unlike the one they are seated at now. Three times Peter had the opportunity to take a stand for Jesus, to identify as one of His followers, and possibly risk getting tried and executed right alongside Him, and three times he chickened out.
What’s happening in this conversation is that Jesus is restoring Peter. When He asks Peter about his love, he’s not asking for Himself. He’s asking for Peter’s sake, and for the sake of the other disciples. Because after such a public failure, he needs a public reinstatement.
And that’s what the instruction to feed my sheep is. The word of forgiveness is found in the words of commissioning. I said that the big idea in this passage is that God restores for a purpose, and here’s the purpose for Peter. He is being commissioned to be a leader in the church.
I’m told that if you take a tour of the Holy Land you might be taken to a section of beach on the Northwest Shore of the Sea of Galilee where this conversation is believed to have taken place. Right next to it is a small church called The Church of the Primacy of St. Peter. This passage has special resonance this week, with the Catholic Church choosing a new Pope on Thursday. As the Catholic Church has it, this passage establishes Peter as the first head of the church and every Bishop of Rome since then has been appointed to fill Peter’s shoes.
We don’t necessarily see the connection between Peter and every Pope to follow; but for the earliest believers, who believed in large part based on the testimony of Peter, they needed to know that Peter had been forgiven and commissioned by Jesus. The Bible, to its credit, does not hide the flaws of the people it describes, but it also shows God’s grace in the face of their failures.
And so, the first lesson for us is that Jesus' call is to follow despite previous failure. We too have mistakes and sins in our past. We all can bring to mind times when we failed to live up to our testimony as Christians. Times when we denied rather than modeled our allegiance to Christ.
But God’s grace is marvelous, and His forgiveness is free. When we are prone to beat ourselves down for our failures and feel useless in our guilt, Jesus is there to lift us up and restore us to usefulness.
Stretched Out Hands
Which brings us to verse 18:
18 Very truly I tell you, when you were younger you dressed yourself and went where you wanted; but when you are old you will stretch out your hands, and someone else will dress you and lead you where you do not want to go.” 19 Jesus said this to indicate the kind of death by which Peter would glorify God. Then he said to him, “Follow me!”
After restoring Peter, Jesus goes on to make a prediction about the end of Peter’s life. It would, perhaps, be a difficult prediction to understand, except the gospel writer tells us straight away that it is a reference to the kind of death Peter would experience.
By the time this gospel was written, this prediction was already fulfilled. We don’t have a first hand account or a precise historical record, but it is generally believed that Peter was martyred in Rome, under the emperor Nero, sometime around 64 to 67 AD. This passage is one of the strongest testimonies we have that the manner of his death was crucifixion (that is, having his hands stretched out.) Again, we don’t have a first-hand account, but church tradition says that when Peter was sentenced to death on a cross he declared he was unworthy to die in the same manner as his Lord and begged to be crucified upside down. Given what I preached about a few weeks ago when I described the way crucifixion strangled a person to death, I’m not even sure if upside down crucifixion would work. But what is undisputed, as scholar D. A. Carson puts it,
Is that the indelible shame Peter bore for his public disowning of the Lord Jesus Christ on the night he was sentenced to death was forgiven by the Lord himself, and subsequently overwhelmed by the apostle’s fruitful ministry and martyrdom. (The Gospel According to John, p. 680)
In a strange way, then, this is the best news Peter can hear. It’s both gnarly and glorious. Jesus is telling him that he will get another chance to take a stand for Jesus and, more importantly, that when that time comes Peter, by God’s grace, won’t back down.
Then Jesus says: “Follow me!” Big picture, that’s an echo of Jesus’ first call for His disciples to cast down their nets. Small picture, it may be a simple invitation to take a walk on the beach that sets up verses 20 and 21:
20 Peter turned and saw that the disciple whom Jesus loved was following them. (This was the one who had leaned back against Jesus at the supper and had said, “Lord, who is going to betray you?”) 21 When Peter saw him, he asked, “Lord, what about him?”
Here’s some of Peter keeping in character as the disciple whose tongue is always running ahead of his mind.
Throughout the gospel there has been a disciple who has been referred to as “the one that Jesus loved.” Notably, as it says here, the one who was closest to Jesus on the night of the Last Supper. Also, on Resurrection Sunday, it was the disciple whom Jesus loved who raced Peter to the empty tomb (this unnamed disciple won the footrace, though it was Peter who entered the tomb first). We are about to find out, in verse 24, that this disciple is the author of this gospel. A careful reading of the clues in the gospel and the historical record lead us to believe that this is John, the younger brother of James, one of the so-called “Sons of Thunder.”
At any rate, Peter, recently forgiven and given the tremendous and terrible news that he will have another opportunity to stand up for Jesus by facing death, now notices this disciple walking behind him and impulsively blurts out: “Hey Jesus, what about him? Is he going to get crucified too?” Verse 22:
22 Jesus answered, “If I want him to remain alive until I return, what is that to you? You must follow me.”
It was a silly question, but Jesus gives a serious answer. And here’s the second lesson for us: Jesus’ call is to follow a unique path. The path of discipleship walked by John might not follow the same path as Peter’s, and that’s OK. Not everyone is given the same call. Some are called to be missionaries, some to be housewives. Some honor God through writing, others serve Him by working the fields.
Sometimes we have a tendency to read the Bible for other people. That can be a problem for me, almost a symptom of my job. I read the Bible and then I think, who in the church needs to hear this. How does this apply to Gary, or Ken, or Robert? It’s easy to come to church and listen to a sermon and kind of duck out of the way so that it can hit the person sitting behind us.
But, of course, before I worry about what the Bible says to someone else, God wants me to pay attention to what it is saying to me. Instead of us all thinking about how other people should follow Jesus, we need to do so ourselves.
But that’s not the only reason this exchange is included in the story. Verse 23:
23 Because of this, the rumor spread among the believers that this disciple would not die. But Jesus did not say that he would not die; he only said, “If I want him to remain alive until I return, what is that to you?”
Here’s that rumor I alluded to earlier. Tradition tells us that of the original 12 disciples, only one died a natural death. Judas, of course, took his own life shortly after betraying Jesus. 10 others died in circumstances similar to Peter, executed by government officials for their insistence that Jesus is King. Only John lived into old age.
And so, as the years went by–as the 70s became the 80s became the 90s–and John remained alive, a rumor started to spread–based in part on the retelling of this story–that maybe John was going to live until Jesus returned. And maybe, as John’s health began to fade, people began to get even more excited that Jesus needed to return soon. Until, finally, John himself needs to set the record straight and say, in essence: “That’s not what Jesus meant. He was just using a ‘for example.’”
The Ongoing Story
Which leads to verse 24:
24 This is the disciple who testifies to these things and who wrote them down. We know that his testimony is true.
Here’s the claim to authorship. If you hadn’t figured it out already from the context clues, the one referred to throughout the book as “the one whom Jesus loved” is in fact your narrator. This is the testimony of the Apostle John.
In addition, there is an interesting pronoun change here as well. “We know that his testimony is true.” Who is “we”? It’s possible that these final verses were not written by John, but rather by friends of his. Perhaps his editor, or what we might call his publisher.
Perhaps–and this is speculation–what happened was that John had died. The last of Jesus’ apostles passed away, and it created some concern among the believers because they had become convinced that John would still be alive when Jesus returned. But now John was dead, and Jesus obviously had not yet come back. And so those who cared for John collected his writings–his testimony to Jesus–and made some copies and began distributing it to the church. And that’s how we got the gospel.
At any rate, the final verse is one which echoes the final verse of chapter 20:
25 Jesus did many other things as well. If every one of them were written down, I suppose that even the whole world would not have room for the books that would be written.
There is clearly some hyperbole being used here. Jesus’ public ministry lasted about 3 years. Even if there were a detailed, minute-by-minute log of those three years, the resulting books would still fit comfortably in a medium-sized library.
Except, perhaps this verse isn’t talking just about what Jesus did during those three years. As I’ve been saying the last few weeks, part of the point of Easter is that Jesus is still alive. And He’s still at work in the world. At work in the lives of the billions upon billions of people who have followed him in the 2000 years since His incarnation, the well over a billion people who are alive today and call Him Lord. And if that’s the case, then maybe there isn’t enough paper on the planet or enough ink in the world to record all that He has done.
Which brings me to our final lesson this morning: Jesus’ call to follow is open-ended. That is to say, it is ongoing. It’s a call for you, and for me.
To me, it’s pretty cool that the final words the gospel of John records Jesus saying are “Follow me.” That invitation and instruction remains in place. Jesus restores for a purpose. He calls us to follow in spite of past failures. He calls us to follow a unique path. And He continues to call us to follow Him.
