The Foot in the Door

The Foot in the Door--September 14, 2016

"When they had finished breakfast, Jesus said to Simon Peter, ‘Simon son of John, do you love me more than these?’ He said to him, ‘Yes, Lord; you know that I love you.’ Jesus said to him, ‘Feed my lambs.’ ¹⁶A second time he said to him, ‘Simon son of John, do you love me?’ He said to him, ‘Yes, Lord; you know that I love you.’ Jesus said to him, ‘Tend my sheep.’ ¹⁷He said to him the third time, ‘Simon son of John, do you love me?’ Peter felt hurt because he said to him the third time, ‘Do you love me?’ And he said to him, ‘Lord, you know everything; you know that I love you.’ Jesus said to him, ‘Feed my sheep. ¹⁸Very truly, I tell you, when you were younger, you used to fasten your own belt and to go wherever you wished. But when you grow old, you will stretch out your hands, and someone else will fasten a belt around you and take you where you do not wish to go.’ ¹⁹(He said this to indicate the kind of death by which he would glorify God.) After this he said to him, ‘Follow me.’” (John 21:15-19)

When Jesus stepped out of the tomb, he was also sticking his foot in the door for all of us to start over, too.  We can begin again with him, and there is the hope, too, of being able to be reconciled with people we had thought we had no hope of making up with.  That is to say, resurrection makes it possible for us to mend fences with people we did not have the chance to—or chose not to take the chance to—reconcile with on this side of death.

Jesus shows us it is possible, because he takes the initiative to do it.  He takes what would have been Simon Peter’s worst regret of his life, and he erases what Peter thought was left permanently chiseled in stone in the record of his mess-ups.  You will recall, I bet, that the last conversation Jesus and Simon Peter had had turned out to be a devastating lie… and that Simon Peter followed it up with not just one, and not just two, but THREE denials of even knowing Jesus.  The last conversation Jesus has with Peter one on one before Jesus’ arrest, betrayal, and death, is when Peter insists “Lord, why can I not follow you now? I will lay down my life for you,” and Jesus answers back that he knows Peter will deny knowing him three times before the night is out.  In some of the other gospels, Peter’s recorded words carry even more braggadocio—“even if everybody else deserts you, I never will,” and such.

In other words, Jesus lets himself be lied to, or at least lets Peter make an empty promise to him, knowing that it is an empty promise.   That says something about love, to be sure—that sometimes love lets itself look foolish, and even lets itself, knowingly, look like it is getting hoodwinked or conned.  (You give the money to the family member who swears up and down that “it’s just a loan,” but you know full well you will never see the money again… or you hear the co-worker that you just helped out say to you, “I will cover you sometime on the schedule, I promise!” when experience tells you they will forget ever making the promise before long.  Or your young child, penitent over getting caught hitting his little sister, says, “Ok, Daddy, I will never do that again!” when you know that you will likely have to deal with this same issue again before long.)  So yeah, love does let itself look like it is being taken for a ride sometimes, and Jesus does that with Peter.  He let Peter make all these big sweeping promises, knowing they would all crumble like ash from embers, and then after the denials are all past, and even after the cross, Jesus creates a moment for Peter to be restored... for a new beginning.

Grace starts over. Resurrection makes that possible.  Otherwise, Peter would have been trapped in the guilt of remembering all his life that his last words with Jesus were his self-centeredly pompous empty boasting that he would never bail out on Jesus, spoken mere hours before he did just that.

They were words that Peter regretted the moment he heard the rooster crow and realized what he had done.  They were denials he wished he could take back, or even apologize for—but after the betrayal and the arrest, the trial and the execution happened so fast that there was no time and no moment for Peter to beg forgiveness, or even approach Jesus to try to talk with him.  And before anything could be done about it or changed, Jesus had been crucified, Peter had fled the scene, and death ended their relationship.

Well… at least, that’s how Peter assumed it went.  Death does have a way of ending relationships.  But this is the gift of resurrection—not only is there the hope of life again beyond death, but of the chance to restore relationships that had been left for dead as well. 

After Good Friday, Peter could only assume that he had not only ended things poorly with Jesus as his friend, but also that he had burned a bridge with Jesus as his Lord.  We all would have assumed the same.  And then with Easter Sunday, Jesus was alive again, but Peter is left wondering if the risen Jesus still holds a grudge about Peter’s denial. 

So Jesus makes things right from his side.  Jesus takes the initiative to do what Peter was too afraid to dare to ask for.  Jesus gives the chance that Peter was sure was lost forever.  Jesus gives Peter a new beginning, or rather, another new beginning in a line of them.  Jesus not only lets Peter start over with him--all the way down to a repeat of the "Follow me" calling that began their relationship all the way back at the beginning of the Gospel--but Jesus starts the starting over from his side because he knows Peter will never dare to ask for it.  Jesus creates the space for Peter to say “Yes, Jesus, I love you”—in effect, to undo the undo-able—once for each time he had denied Jesus.  And Jesus doesn’t just leave Peter’s “I love you”s to fall flat like against a concrete wall with a cold “I know” or “Thank you” or “Message received” (all three of which are probably worse for the hearer than even just plain silence when you say "I love you" to someone).  Jesus makes a renewed relationship with Peter in the invitation, “Follow me.”

In a way, that is our hope, too.  Resurrection means that the relationships we think we have permanently ruined this side of glory may be seen in a different light and may well be repairable—not by our striving, but because of the grace which resurrection makes possible.  Jesus has wedged his foot in the door to make possible the restored relationships we had given up hope on.  Estrangement doesn’t get to be the last word.  Grace starts over with us, so that the last word can become the first word all over again:  "Follow me."

Lord Jesus, come restore the connections we have severed in this life, and make us new all over again in Christ.