THE LOVE OF JESUS
Author: Fr. Michael Byron April 30, 2022
When Jesus asked Peter after
breakfast whether he loved him “more than these,” I think he was speaking more
than about fish and bread. “Yes, Jesus,
I love you more than the groceries.” And
he was asking whether he loved Jesus more than the other disciples, he was not
doing that. “Do you love me more than
these other people on the beach that morning after Easter?” “Yes, Jesus, I love you more than Nathanael did
and Zebedee’s sons and my friends and companions.” We know that now, but it’s not so clear that
Peter knew it at the moment, because the exchange between the two of them
seemed to indicate that, as usual, there was a depth to Jesus’s words, a depth
that his friends were very slow to pick up on. None more than Peter. “No, Peter, I’m not asking whether you love
me, but whether you love me.” This is not merely about affection or preference. This is a love that
will be difficult and demanding and dangerous. “In fact it will require the sacrificing of your very life, just as it
did for me.” Jesus invited Peter to
leave everything. That’s love, the whole
of one’s existence. This is not a love
that seeks or rejoices in pleasure. Love
does not mean that which makes me happy. Love, instead, means making me faithful – faithful to the very end. That’s what Peter wasn’t willing or able to
do in the Garden of Gethsemane, or at the cross, at the moments that it mattered
most. And it’s why Jesus had to put the
question not once to Peter, after the resurrection, not once, and it’s why
Peter seems to be surprised and upset by the need to do this. Here all this time Jesus and Peter had been
using the same word, love, when they had been speaking a completely different
language one to another. It’s what
happens whenever the quality of a relationship isn’t all that you’ve been
presuming that it’s been up to now, and suddenly changes. One person has been in search of security,
here, and friendship, while the other has been seeking something quite different,
quite a bit deeper and more intimate, and therefore more risky. It still happens; we’ve all been there.
And now in this season of Easter this
is the time to re-evaluate the quality of our love with Jesus, as Peter was
forced to do. Just who is he for us, and
what does he demand? Is he only the
provider? The safety net when all else
fails? Is he something greater than the
soothing companion or the port in the storm? Is that love, really? What does
that require of us?
Or is he life itself, who expects
to get much, as deeply as he has given us? And, just to remind us, that means
nothing other than suffering unto death.
We have been told what the word
“love” means for Jesus. It is now time
for us, here and now, to do a bit of soul searching, right there at the
baptismal font, right here at the Eucharist today, in order to see whether it
means the same thing for us that it did for him. As we are touched again today by these waters,
let it permit us to call out of ourselves that which Jesus calls out of us, the
precious gift of divine love. Love - all
of it.
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