Compassion & ForgivenessBy the Revd David Burgess
There are times when I just know that someone’s going to tell me bad news. It’s something in the way that they take you aside or do little things for you that usually they wouldn’t before the conversation starts. Perhaps there are times when you simply know that you’ve done something you shouldn’t and the other person knows it to.
Peter must have known what was coming when Jesus took him aside over a breakfast at the beach a couple of weeks after the Resurrection – you can read the episode in chapter 21 of John’s Gospel.
If you know the story you’ll also know what Peter had done; when Jesus needed him most, when he had been arrested and was about to be taken away, Peter ran away and hid, and later claimed that he didn’t even know Jesus. And he didn’t do this just the once, but rather three times – bare-faced lies to save his own skin.
Meeting Jesus back from the dead on several occasions must have been a real mixture of joy and anxiety – it was great to see him again, but if you’ve made some major mistakes in your life you normally don’t expect to be reminded of them by someone who’s died. Peter was probably expecting a roasting; but Jesus simply asks him “Do you love me?”
It seems that everything’s happy again; Jesus has forgiven and forgotten, and he even says to Peter that he can carry on with the job of being a disciple.
But there’s a sting in the tail. Jesus asks the same question, not once, but three times. Perhaps Peter felt that he had got away with it; but by the time the third question came, he must have realised the point Jesus was making; the three questions matched the three times that Peter had denied Jesus on that evening a couple of Thursdays beforehand.
By doing this, Jesus is showing something very special to Peter. It was compassion – a thorough, sympathetic understanding of someone, being able to see things from their point of view, and still loving them in spite of all that’s wrong with them.
And we know that Peter did get on with his life in a big way. He was one of the leaders of the first Christian church and made such an impact on his society that, eventually, he was put to death because his faith and the faith of others made so many people so uncomfortable. But he wouldn’t have been half the Church leader or half the man he became if he hadn’t been shown compassion and forgiven by Jesus on the beach during that morning of nearly 2000 years ago.