This sermon was preached on Sunday 4th May 2025
Bible Reading: John 21.1-19
‘Do you love me?’ To clarify, I don’t mean me, though I admit it wouldn’t go unappreciated. ‘Do you love me?’ This is the question that Jesus was asking Simon Peter. It’s a simple question, but boy, is it deep, and it is an incredibly raw and vulnerable question.
Think about it. When you look into someone’s eyes and ask them, ‘Do you love me?’, you are opening yourself up in such a vulnerable way. There is nothing more powerful or amazing in this world than for someone to say, ‘I love you.’ It’s the pinnacle of any story. The moment when the hero or heroine finally says, ‘I love you,’ having been waiting the whole story for them to answer the oldest question in the world: ‘Do you love me?’
Last Sunday afternoon, I took Cecily to a 20th Anniversary showing of Keira Knightley and Matthew Macfadyen’s Pride and Prejudice. Yes, it is twenty years old, and it is so good. When I watched it when it first came out, I was pretty lost on what all the fuss was about. Period dramas were this mystery genre that I remember my aunts used to rave about, but I was just lost and confused about what was going on (if anything was going on at all). There is a lot of talking and not much moving or doing anything. Like, what was the whole story even about? And to clarify, I knew the story of Pride and Prejudice before I watched the film, but I was still lost as to what was happening. In my defence, twenty years ago, I was nine.
But now, watching it again as an adult, it is so good. The cast is brilliant, but the acting, which as a child I thought was wooden, I now see brilliantly captures the tensions, frustrations, and longing of Elizabeth and Mr Darcy, who dearly love each other yet find themselves unable to say it to one another. You spend the whole movie wondering when they will finally realise how they feel and gain the courage to say those magic three words. Then, towards the end of the film, when Elizabeth finally realises that she is in love with Darcy, but worries that she has realised too late, Darcy comes early at sunrise whilst the mist is still settled on the ground. Mr Darcy approaches Elizabeth and says:
You must know… surely, you must know it was all for you. You are too generous to trifle with me. I believe you spoke with my aunt last night, and it has taught me to hope as I’d scarcely allowed myself before. If your feelings are still what they were last April, tell me so at once. My affections and wishes have not changed, but one word from you will silence me forever. If, however, your feelings have changed, I will have to tell you: you have bewitched me, body and soul, and I love–I love–I love you. I never wish to be parted from you from this day on.[1]
Wow, right! It just gets you there, doesn’t it? There is nothing more powerful, more moving, or heart-racing than this moment when love given is matched by love received. Their wondering ‘Do you love me?’ is met with the greatest relief and joy to this heart-yearning question: ‘I love you.’
After having breakfast on the beach, Jesus calls his disciple Simon Peter aside. They walk, just the two of them, along the sand. As they walk, Jesus reaches out to his closest friend, looks him in the eye to ask the deepest and most intimate question of all: Simon, do you love me?
Jesus wants to know if his love is reciprocated. Jesus wants to know if Peter wants to love him as much as he loves Peter. Jesus knew there was love from Peter before, but then Peter denied him three times and turned his back on him. When Jesus needed his best friend the most, as he was crucified, Peter was nowhere to be seen. As Jesus was pouring out his love for Peter, his friends and the whole world, Peter wasn’t there loving him back. He pretended like he didn’t even know him. Jesus would have been crushed.
But now Jesus was back with Simon Peter. They were together on a beach after a miraculous catch of fish, like the first time that they met. As they talk, Jesus calls him ‘Simon,’ his birth name, rather than ‘Peter,’ the name Jesus gave him as the rock upon which he would build his church. I think this is significant for two reasons.
First, Jesus is calling him Simon, his birth name, not Peter, the name Jesus gave to his closest disciple who would follow him and lead his church in his name. It represents part of the void cast by Simon Peter, who denied Jesus three times and turned himself away from being a follower of Jesus to be instead a deserter. Without saying it, Jesus is asking, ‘Will you come back to me and be my disciple Peter? If you want to be Simon and walk away, you can be, but I want to know, will you come back to me, to be my Peter?’
The second reason it is significant that Jesus calls him Simon is that it takes us right back to three years before when Jesus first called the disciples. They are back in the same place, by the same lake, on a beach, with an identical miraculous catch. It is the same place where Simon got on his knees and said to Jesus, ‘Go away from me, Lord; I am a sinful man.’[2] But Jesus doesn’t mind about that. Again, Jesus is making the same offer to Simon, ‘Don’t be afraid; from now on you will be catching people.’[3] Will you tend and care for my people like I asked you all these years ago? Will you be my Peter again? Jesus asks Simon Peter this question three times to redeem each of Simon Peter’s three denials. As he says I love you once, twice, three times, Peter finds forgiveness and reconciliation for each act of denial.
One could accuse me of over-romanticising the love between Jesus and Peter, but what I am trying to get at is that the love going on here wasn’t surface-level acquaintance stuff. It wasn’t an ‘I love chocolate cake’ kind of love. It was the deepest of loves. It was a love that said I love you so much that I will die for you and give everything for you. That’s how much I love you. This is the kind of love that Jesus has for you, and this is the kind of love he wants to share with you. Jesus asks us, ‘Do you love me?’ Will we respond with the greatest three words in the English language, ‘I love you’?
If we say ‘I love you’ to Jesus with all sincerity and conviction, that this is the basis for the deepest and most intimate love in the world, between us and God. There is nothing greater. This is the love that set Peter off on a journey to do amazing things to spread the good news of Jesus and his kingdom.
As Peter affirmed his love for Jesus, Jesus instructed him, ‘Take care of my sheep.’ This is our call as Christians, as those who love Jesus and follow him. Take care of other people, love them with the love and care that Jesus, the great shepherd, loves the sheep. In doing so, we are living in God’s love and sharing it with others so that they, too, may know the love of Jesus. So that they, too, would hear the question from Jesus, ‘Do you love me?’ And in they too reply, ‘I love you.’
Once Peter has been forgiven and redeemed for each of his denials, and he has made things right with Jesus, Jesus says one last thing to him: ‘Follow me!’ This is where this love leads us: to follow Jesus.
When Jesus first called the disciples, it says in Luke’s gospel that the disciples ‘pulled the boats up on the beach, left everything, and followed Jesus.’[4] They left everything to follow him. If we love Jesus, will we commit our love to follow him, to give everything of ourselves to make Jesus the one we follow, rather than our own personal goals or ambitions or what the world might tell us to follow? If we love Jesus, will we follow him?
As Peter comes afresh to Jesus, by a beach on the same lake, he is called again to take up the call to follow him. Maybe you have felt distant from God. Maybe you have betrayed Jesus and feel far from him. But I want you to know today that Jesus is calling out to you: ‘Do you love me?’ He just wants to hear those three words. ‘I love you.’ Will you love Jesus and, in your love, give everything to follow him?
[1] Pride and Prejudice (Working Title Films, 2005).
[2] Luke 5:8 [NIV].
[3] Luke 5:10 [GNB].
[4] Luke 5:11 [GNB].
Shakeel Nurmahi 