21 May 2021
Friday of the Seventh Week of Easter
Today we leave the Last Supper and come to the First Breakfast, after which Jesus and Peter go for a walk. Surely Peter knows what’s coming; surely seeing a charcoal fire on the beach brought back the shameful memories of the last charcoal fire near which he stood. As though reading his heart, Jesus asks Peter three times if he loves him. Three times Peter is given the opportunity to undo the knots of his threefold denial of Jesus just days before, and with the undoing of these knots Jesus charges Him with a task: to feed His lambs, to shepherd and feed His sheep. For He is preparing to return to His Father, and having promised never to leave us orphans (John 14:18), He leaves us a shepherd after His own Heart: Peter.
Jesus chose Peter not because he is perfect but perhaps because he, of the eleven remaining apostles, could identify most closely with the sheep he would be tending. For not only did he abandon Christ in His most desperate hour, but he publicly denied Him; yet, now, he has experienced firsthand the tender mercy of God. What surely seemed to Peter to be an unforgivable sin has been forgiven; Jesus has taught him, more in this moment than ever before, how to shepherd His flock and how to gather in even the most wayward lambs.