A Word in Season: A Confession of Love (John 21:17)

Our Grief Over Failing to Love Christ

Every honest Christian, I think, will confess that we do not love Christ as we should, and that perhaps very often we grieve him by our lack of love toward him. We may not have reached the point that Peter did, when he denied his Lord three times.

Christ was on his way to the cross for Peter, and three times the man who had boasted that whatever anybody else said or did, he would be faithful. He said that he had nothing to do with the Lord Christ.

And we can too often speak in the same spirit and travel in the same direction. Because of the fear of men's faces, because of the pressure that we're under, we deny our Lord, we don't stand upon his truth, we don't want to confess that he is ours and we are his.

And like Peter, afterwards we feel that profound sting in our conscience, that the opportunity is now past, that the necessity of that moment to honour Christ by our attachment to him, and our identification with him, has now passed us by.

Peter's Threefold Denial and Christ's Threefold Question

And so it's striking that in John's Gospel in chapter 21, when the Lord comes again to Peter, he deals with this broken-hearted disciple, asking him first of all, Simon son of Jonah, do you love me more than these?

Now that's important because Peter had first of all told the Lord Christ that if everybody else departed, then he himself would not. And now Christ asks him whether or not he's going to again promote himself above the others.

Peter says, Lord you know that I love you. Christ challenges him a second time, and then a third time, Simon son of Jonah, do you love me? And on this occasion there in verse 17, Peter is grieved because Christ said to him the third time, do you love me?

And he responds, Lord you know all things, you know that I love you. It's striking again that here Peter does not make reference to any of the other disciples, his boasting has been stripped away. The chances are that he is grieved because that third question is an echo of his third denial.

Having spoken three times that he has nothing to do with Christ, now he is being challenged three times whether or not he has any affection for the Lord Jesus. And just as with us, when we think of him who loved us and gave himself for us, and how little we have loved him, still it pains us because we are so feeble and so frail.

Casting Ourselves on the Lord's Mercy

And so Peter casts himself upon the Lord's mercy, and there's a beautiful sweetness in the way that he speaks to him. Lord you know all things, you know my failures, you know my denyings, you know my weaknesses, you know my empty boasts, you know everything that has happened and is happening, my heart is open before you, there is no corner of it hidden from you.

And therefore as well as all those things, you know also that I love you. Peter as it were puts himself entirely in the hands of Jesus Christ. He's hiding nothing, he knows that there's nothing that can truly be hidden, and so he simply and humbly confesses that there is in his heart this deep and true affection to the Lord Christ, that for all his weakness, for all his foolishness, for all his sinfulness, nevertheless his heart is bound to the Lord Christ.

Can We Honestly Say, "Lord, You Know That I Love You"?

Now can you and I say that? Honest yes about our foolishness and our weakness and our sinfulness, perhaps grieving over the times when we will have disappointed our Lord Jesus, when we have in word or in deed denied him or distanced ourselves from him, when we have despite the love that he has shown in sacrificing himself for us, we have failed to love him as we should.

But can we as it were look our Saviour in the eye and say, Lord you know all things, you know the truth about me through and through, for better and for worse, but you do know this, that despite everything I am and ought not to be, and everything that I am not that I ought to be, yet you do know that I love you from my heart and that I am willing to serve you.

Are we then like Peter, ready to confess our love for him who loved us and gave himself for us?