How God’s Healing Love Restores Us After Failure

The Purpose of Seeing Jesus Clearly

Any preacher who climbs into the pulpit of the chapel of the college where I and your chaplain Mark studied will get up there and will find these words etched into the edge of the pulpit: Sir, we would see Jesus. Those are words taken from John Chapter 12, where we read that a group of Greeks had come to the disciple Philip and said, Sir, we would see Jesus.

And we read that Philip went to Andrew, and then Philip and Andrew went to Jesus and presumably said to Jesus, We’ve got some guys here who really want to meet you. And it was a great challenge to any preacher that the purpose of opening God’s word is that we see Jesus more clearly. And my prayer is that those of us who were gathered together last week saw Jesus—the risen Jesus—just a little more clearly as he gathered with the disciples in that locked room recorded in John chapter 20.

Returning to Familiar Waters

And this evening we’re going to move on in John’s story, John’s gospel story, into chapter 21, and again be with the disciples who seem to have decided to move north to their home region of Galilee in the north. And we’re told that the group of them included Peter and Nathaniel and Thomas and James and John. And then, out of the blue, quite late in the day, Peter announces that he wants to go fishing.

Now, did Peter just want to get on with his old life? After all, fishing is what he knows. Fishing is where he probably feels quite comfortable. Of course, it would feel very strange going back after all these years. Yes, they had families, and I imagine the families were all a bit bemused suddenly to have their guys back home after they had been off on their adventures for three years. And perhaps they were hoping that at last they’d start bringing in some money.

But certainly the other disciples can’t think of anything better to do, so they agree to tag along with Peter. After all, many of them were old hands. They knew the sea; they knew the habits of the fish. They were fishermen. But right through the night, they kept repeating that familiar ritual of lowering the net, and time after time, they hauled it in empty.

The Stranger on the Shore

Now the sun is just popping over the horizon. They’re packing up their fishing gear. And then they spot a stranger on the shore. And then it comes—that question that no unsuccessful fisherman wants to hear: Have you caught anything? And of course the answer is no. Nothing at all. And then, to make it worse, the stranger on the shore wants to give them some advice after they’ve been fishing all night: Well, drop your net on the other side of the boat; you’ll find fish there.

Now, I haven’t got a clue why they bothered to do that, but they did. And of course, very quickly they began to struggle with the weight of fish that were caught in their net. And then there is this amazing moment when John knows who it is, and John says to Peter, Peter, it’s the Lord. And typical Peter doesn’t wait a moment—he jumps overboard and he starts swimming to the shore.

Breakfast Where God’s Healing Love Begins

Now this time, the other disciples don’t follow him immediately. They decide it’s better to bring the net of fish to shore, which they do. And when they do so, they find the stranger already cooking fish on a charcoal fire. Jesus asks them to bring some of the freshly caught fish, and they have breakfast together.

Can you imagine what that must have been like? So surreal, but so incredibly special. I don’t know about you, but I think breakfast is actually my favorite meal—when you’re not in a hurry, when you can really enjoy it.

And for a couple of years before the outbreak of Covid, Elna and I used to open our home on a Sunday morning and just lay out a really nice breakfast for anybody who wanted to come by. And we did church—we didn’t call it church, we called it Mosaic. We did it in our home. And lots of local people would come in, and we’d spend an hour having a lovely breakfast together. We’d talk about life. We would talk about how we can become better versions of ourselves, how we can love God and love God’s world better. There were some very special times. It was real church, but around breakfast. And we did promise them no sermons and no hymns, and people came.

Unfinished Business and God’s Healing Love

Anyway, that’s a little aside, because after breakfast here, Jesus turns to Peter because they’ve got some unfinished business. Now, Peter, of course, did not need reminding of the fact that on the night that Jesus was arrested, he had fallen apart. When armed guards arrived, he panicked. He grabbed a sword. He slashed off somebody’s ear—so much for all the things that Jesus had been teaching them for three years. And then later that night, Peter was warming himself by a charcoal fire outside the high priest’s house. And he denies even knowing Jesus. And not just once, but three times. So much for that boast about how loyal he would be. And to think that Jesus had renamed him Peter the Rock—what a joke.

But did you notice that Jesus doesn’t rub it in? He goes back to his original name and says, Simon, son of John, do you love me more than these? Do you find yourself wondering what does Jesus mean, more than these? More than these other disciples there? Does he mean more than the boat and the nets and the fish and his old way of life?

Three Questions, Three Commissions

But Peter’s response is immediate and it’s clear. He says, Yes, Lord. You know I love you. And Jesus says, Feed my lambs.

And then, as if he’s not quite convinced by that first reply, he asks again, Simon, son of John, do you love me? And Peter replies in exactly the same way: Yes, Lord, you know that I love you. So Jesus says, Take care of my sheep.

And then the question comes a third time, echoing surely in Peter’s mind and also in the minds of the disciples who must have been listening—the three times that Peter had denied Jesus. The pain and the shame are still raw. They’re still real. As Peter replies even more strongly this time: Lord, you know everything. You know that I love you. To which Jesus again says, Feed my sheep.

Past Failures Melt Away in God’s Healing Love

And that was it. By the warmth and the smell of a different charcoal fire, all of Peter’s failures melted away into the past, rather like a bad night of fishing melts away when you’ve just had a great morning catch. The past, with all its failures, didn’t count anymore because what counts is love—God’s healing love for us and our love for Jesus and for his flock.

And then Jesus says something rather cryptic about the way in which Peter is going to die. And then he wraps it up by saying, Follow me. And that is, of course, how the whole story began. The whole adventure three years earlier had begun with that all-or-nothing invitation: Follow me. And it’s the same today. It’s about that one essential thing of following Jesus. That’s what the word disciple means. It means to be a follower, to be a student, to be an apprentice—someone who learns by imitating the master.

Called to Continue the Movement

And judging by their immediate response to that initial invitation to follow, the first disciples regarded it as an enormous privilege to be discipled by this great teacher. And now they have an even greater honor—to be sent out to train others in this new way of kingdom living. Empowered by the spirit of Jesus, they were to go out and to embody the message and the values of this Jesus movement.

And so we find ourselves many generations down that road, still apprentices growing and learning from Jesus, and in turn inviting others to follow, encouraging and mentoring them in the way.

Perseverance Through Dark Nights

I wonder if Jesus chose fishermen for a reason—that for his movement to succeed, he needed people who are willing to fail but keep on trying. He needed people who would face long, dark nights with nothing apparently happening, but never giving up hope.

I wonder whether you’ve been experiencing one of those long, dark nights, feeling that you’re getting nowhere, waiting perhaps for some breakthrough, some tipping point, some answer to prayer, the healing of a relationship—whatever. I don’t know what it might be, but I want to encourage you tonight to look up and to watch for the breaking of the dawn and see the stranger standing on the shore, because he’s preparing breakfast for you. He’s wanting to draw you into the net of his love. He wants to restore and to refresh you with that love.

A Personal Encounter with God’s Healing Love

Let me just lead you in a very short meditation. I wonder whether we might just close our eyes, and I want you to imagine that you are one of those disciples. You’re sitting in the boat. You can perhaps feel the boat just moving up and down with the swell. You’re feeling very tired. You’ve been working all night, and you’re feeling frustrated because you’ve caught nothing.

I want you to just think about the emotions that you are feeling. Maybe you’re disappointed with God; you’re confused by something that’s happened. Maybe you’ve been struggling for a long time with some project and it’s not borne fruit.

Lift up your eyes and see the risen Jesus on the shore, inviting you by name to come and have breakfast, to warm yourself by the fire that he’s prepared. He wants to wrap you in his healing love. He wants to refresh your life and give you fresh hope. He wants to commission you. He’s still got work for you to do. And he says, Follow me.

Maybe tonight is a fresh opportunity to say, Yes, Lord. I do want to follow you.