Jeannie, Do You Love Me?

One day along the seashore a disciple prepared some fish for his Rabbi.  As they were eating, the disciple said:  "I love this fish!"  To which the Rabbi replied:  "If you really loved the fish you would not have caught it, killed it and put it on the grill.  What you love is how the fish makes you feel."

It's a small story but it makes me stop and think - is that how my love is for Jesus?  Is it all about me and how He makes me feel?  During this Season of the Cross I am reminded of our Savior agonizing in the Garden the night before He died.  Through His excruciating physical and emotional pain He was able to say:  "Not My will but Yours".  In that statement Jesus was loving the Father and loving me, loving you.  It was not about feelings, it was an act of the will:  "Not mine, but Yours."

Shortly after there would be another disciple at the seashore with his Rabbi.  Only this time instead of the disciple preparing the fish, it was the Risen Rabbi preparing it for the one He loved; the one who denied Him 3 times on the night of the Crucifixion. On the shore the Rabbi asked Peter twice: Peter, do you love Me?  Twice Peter said, "Lord you know that I love you".  But we miss something in our English translations.  In the original language of the Bible there are different words for 'love'.  Jesus was saying to Peter:  do you love me with the same type of love I had for the world when I struggled in the Garden?  Do you love me with your active will, desiring My best even if it costs you everything? (we call this 'agape' love)   And Peter, humbled because of his recent denials of his Lord, could only answer using the word for deep affection, brotherly love. ('phileo' love)   The third time Jesus asked if he loved Him, Jesus used the same word that Peter did:  deep affection, brotherly love.

Much has been made of what could it mean that 2 different words for 'love' are used in this conversation.  I think the answer to that discussion will be something I find out in heaven.  But I believe Peter  knew that his love fell far short of what the Lord was asking him.  And our Lord, ever gracious, condescended to accept what Peter was able to offer at that time.

 Later in these verses we read about what type of death Peter would die.  Tradition says that when Peter was taken to be crucified, he asked to be crucified upside-down because he was not worthy to die as His Lord had.  Something happened during the meeting with the Rabbi and the disciple on the seashore.  When the God of the Universe accepted the little that Peter could offer, I think Peter realized that in himself he could not 'give his all'; that he would try and fail, but with God all things are possible.  Even a love that would say:  Not my will, but Yours; a love that would take him to a cross too.

And those words echo down through time: 
"Jeannie, do you love Me?"

(I encourage you to read the passage in John 21)