Follow Me

Hearing today’s gospel reminded me of the last time I read this passage of John.  I was in Lectio when I realized just how important it was that Peter went back to fishing after the Crucifixion.  This epiphany led to a rather vivid imagining on my part of the entire scene, which I present to you all here.  

After they finished eating breakfast, Peter bent down to pick up his nets. It made sense to him to return to fishing; it was the life Peter always knew, after all. As he stood with the nets in his hands, intending to return to the boat, he met the gaze of the Lord Jesus standing before him. “Simon, son of John," He said to Peter, "do you love me more than these?”

He squeezed the nets tightly in his hands and swallowed hard. “Yes, Lord,” he answered, his voice cracking and low. “You know that I love you.” 

Jesus said to him, “Feed my lambs.”

Peter nodded, then turned toward the sea, focusing once again on gathering up his nets. 

Jesus placed his pierced hand on Peter’s shoulder. “Simon, Son of John,” He said, turning Peter back around to face Him.  Looking earnestly into Peter’s eyes, Jesus asked him again, “Do you love me?” 

Peter tightly closed his eyes for a moment and answered, “Yes, Lord, you know that I love you.”  He gripped the nets tighter, afraid to let it go, afraid to disappoint his Master once again. 

“Tend my sheep.” 

He remembered with shame his arrogance in the upper room before Jesus' arrest, promising to follow Jesus anywhere, even to death. Peter stared at the nets in his hands. I'm still that same arrogant fool, he thought. He couldn't catch a fish all night, until the Lord arrived at the seashore. He needed his Master for everything.  

Everything.

“Simon, son of John.” Jesus placed his wounded hand on Peter's clenched fists and asked him a third time, “Do you love me?”

Peter’s gaze shifted from the nets to the wound in the back of Jesus' hand. Everything Jesus said, everything He predicted, flashed through Peter's mind, especially that last prediction--that Peter would deny his Master. “Lord, you know everything.”  He looked into Jesus’ face as tears quietly fell from his eyes. “You know that I love you.”

"Feed my sheep."  Peter saw that Jesus was holding in his other hand some of the bread from which they ate that morning. "Amen," Jesus continued, "Amen I say to you, when you were younger, you used to dress yourself and go where you wanted; when you grow old, you will stretch out your hands, and someone else will dress you and lead you where you do not want to go."  It was at this moment that Peter realized exactly what Jesus was asking of him.  "Follow me."


He said nothing in reply, but dropped his nets, took the bread from Jesus' hands and followed, even unto death. 

The Good Shepherd

I am the good shepherd. A good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep.

A few years ago I had the privilege of providing music for a four day mission at a local parish. For those of you who don't know, a parish mission is a several-day Lenten reflection, usually beginning Sunday evening. Priests, teachers, nuns or musicians offer an intense presentation on a specific aspect of faith to the parish, calling the faithful to deepen their faith.

Fr. Larry Richards, Pastor of St. Joseph Church/Bread of Life Community in Erie, PA, and Spiritual Director of the TEC (To Encounter Christ) Retreat Program for the Diocese of Erie, commanded the congregation with his passion for Christ and Christ’s Truth. (Check out his website here.)

In one segment, Fr. Larry recounts some time spent with a friend on a farm. He remembers going out with his friend to bring the cattle into the barn. A couple of cows, including one with a newborn, had wandered off up a hill. The calf would not have made it down the hill on his own. The farmer decided that he would round up the cows, and Larry would tend to the calf. Larry’s friend lifted the calf onto his neck and instructed him: “no matter what, don’t let go or he’ll fall and break his neck.”

The calf started out calm. But as they moved, it began to cry out. Larry tightened his grip on the calf’s legs, and the calf began to wriggle, then several times tried to jump away. Larry struggled to maintain a grip on the calf. It struggled violently against Larry's hold, kicking and bleating the whole way. Calves are much stronger than you’d imagine. It shook in fear and urinated down Larry’s back. They arrived at the barn, and he set the calf down, who ran to its mother and attached itself to her udder.

Larry suffered a few bruises, a strained shoulder and a very stiff neck. While soaking in a bath to remove the funk of calf pee, he heard his Lord. “Larry, now you understand, for this is what my flock does to me.”

A hired man, who is not a shepherd and whose sheep are not his own, sees a wolf coming and leaves the sheep and runs away and the wolf catches and scatters them. This is because he works for pay and has no concern for the sheep. I am the good shepherd, and I know mine and mine know me, just as the father Knows me and I know the Father; and I will lay down my life for the sheep.

As members of the faithful, it’s important to understand our failings, both individually and as a body (broken and scattered though it may be), so that we might grow in our relationships with God, and understand better the faith we all so deeply desire. I think of those Christians who expend hours and hours of effort repeatedly regurgitating all the past mistakes in others, for the sole purpose of tearing them down. They mean well, I’m sure, but they, too, are members of Christ's flock, and should remember that we all find ourselves crying, wriggling and trying to escape his hold out of our own fear, because we can't understand that He's just trying to carry us home.

I have other sheep that do not belong to this fold. These also I must lead, and they will hear my voice, and there will be one flock, one shepherd.

John 10:11-16