Rector’s Daily Reflections Tuesday 17th May 2022
Thought for Today
This week I’m sharing some reflections on a passage from John’s gospel, which I think has much to teach us when it comes to thinking how we might refresh our Christian life. It’s the conversation between Simon Peter and the risen Jesus found in chapter 21 of John’s gospel. The conversation starts with Jesus asking Simon Peter the following question : “Simon, son of John, do you love me more than these?” Let us look carefully at this question.
To start with, notice that Jesus asks his question directly of Simon Peter : Simon, son of John, do you love me? Jesus could have kept the question quite general and asked something along the lines of “Simon, son of John, do you think that my disciples love me?” or “Simon, son of John, do you think that people in general love me?” Instead, Jesus focuses on one single individual : Simon Peter himself. At its heart, our Christian faith is about our personal relationship with God in and through his Son Jesus Christ. It’s not about what other people might or might not believe. It’s about ourselves. I wonder : how is your relationship with Jesus ? That’s your relationship; not someone else’s.
The second question arises around the object of our love. I think everyone would agree that love is a good thing, and that it’s good to be loving towards others. Similarly, I think most people would say that loving others is central to the Christian life. But notice that Jesus asks his question of Simon Peter in a very focussed way. He could have asked him something along the lines of, “Simon Peter, do you love your family?”; or, “Simon Peter, do you love your neighbours?”. But instead, Jesus asks Simon Peter : do you love me? Of course we try to show love towards others- to our families, our friends, our neighbours, perhaps even our enemies. But do we love Jesus?
And this leads into the third question. We might well say something like this : “Yes, Jesus, of course we love you”. And it would be a true statement. But how meaningful a statement is it? Jesus saw that if Simon Peter were to grow as a disciple, he needed to be faced with a more challenging question : not whether he loved Jesus (of course he did), but to what degree did he love him? So Jesus asked Simon Peter whether he loved him “more than these “ – more perhaps than the other disciples, or more than the other things that mattered to him in his life. I wonder : how much do we love Jesus? Might we wish that we loved him more?

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