Disqualified...

Peter was hurt because Jesus asked him the third time, “Do you love me?” (John 21:17)

Disqualified.  What a painful word to hear.  You stepped out of bounds, you bent, broke or played fast and loose with the rules.  Or you didn’t “measure up,” you didn’t have the qualifications, didn’t, couldn’t meet expectations.  Despite rationalizations, blame-shifting and self-justifications, you know deep down: “This one’s on me.”  Maybe, “All of those are on me.”

Disqualified.

This is the final week of our Soar series.    For Jesus, soaring means we are able to go wherever God sends us, do whatever God calls us to do, and represent our King faithfully and joyfully as we go and do.

But … disqualified.  I think that’s Peter’s situation in this week’s passage.  This story (John 21:1-19) takes place after the terrible events of Jesus’s crucifixion, death and burial, the awful silence of that Saturday -- and also after the completely unexpected, mysterious and wonderful event of Easter: the same Jesus who was crucified, dead and buried is alive again!

But Peter is sure he has disqualified himself.  In the moment of crisis, he denied, three times, that he even knows Jesus. Three opportunities to be faithful, to stand with and for Jesus despite the risks or costs – and three times, “No, I’m not one of his followers.  No, I have no connection to him.  No, I don’t know him, not at all.”

And then: Peter is a first witness to Jesus’s resurrection!  His risen Savior and Lord meets him, along with the other disciples, on several occasions!  And yet, as John opens this final chapter of his Gospel, what does Peter say?  “I’m going fishing.”  I’m going back, back to who I used to be, who I always was.  Yes, I was close to Jesus, kind of a leader.  But now?  Whatever this resurrection means, there’s no place for someone like me, someone who has disqualified himself.  A so-called leader who denies, who breaks and runs?  Disqualified.”

But Jesus is after Peter, still pursuing Peter.  “Do you love me … Do you love me … Do you love me?”  Three times, one for each time that Peter … disqualified himself.  Painful – but necessary.  Hard to hear that question, once, twice, one more time … hard to hear the same voice that had said, “No, I don’t even know him,” now say, “Yes, Lord, you know that I love you.”

“Do you love me, Peter?”  Because I continue to hold you in my love, Peter.  Your failures have not disqualified you from my love – because my love is not dependent on who you are, it depends only on who I am.    And now I say to you what I first said to you, and what I will always say: “Follow me!”

Love Jesus and follow Jesus, love Jesus and follow Jesus – that’s how we soar.

Are there places in life where you have stopped following Jesus because you’re pretty sure that that thing (or things) that you have done (and maybe continue to do) have disqualified you?  What if this story is your story, too, that Jesus is asking you, “Do you love me … Do you love me … Do you love me?”  How would you like to respond – and how do you need God’s grace and help to respond in that way? Remember: “Ask, and it will be given … seek, and you will find … knock, and the door will be opened to you.”

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