Homily 88 — John 21, verses 15 to 25

“So when they had dined, Jesus said to Simon Peter, ‘Simon, son of Jonah, do you love me more than these?’ He said to him, ‘Yes, Lord, you know that I love you.’” [a]

There are, to be sure, many other things that can give us boldness before God and make us shine and win his approval. But what most of all brings us favor from above is tender care for our neighbor. That is why Christ asks it of Peter. For when they had finished eating, Jesus said to Simon Peter, “Simon, son of Jonah, do you love me more than these?” He said to him, “Yes, Lord, you know that I love you.”

“He said to him, ‘Feed my sheep.’”

And why does he pass over the others and speak with Peter about these things? Peter was the chosen one of the apostles, the mouth of the disciples, the head of their company. That is also why Paul once went up to consult him rather than the others. At the same time, Jesus wanted to show him that he must now take heart, since the denial had been wiped away. So he puts into his hands the chief authority among his brothers. He does not bring up the denial, or reproach him with what had happened, but says: “If you love me, preside over your brothers. The warm love you have always shown, the love you rejoiced in, show it now. And the life you said you would lay down for me, give it now for my sheep.”

He was asked once, and again, and he called as his witness the one who knows the secrets of the heart. Then, when he was asked even a third time, he was troubled. He was afraid of a repeat of what had happened before; for then he had been strong in his assertions, and afterward was proved wrong. So once again he takes refuge in Christ. For the words of verse 17, “You know all things,” mean “things present, and things to come.”

Do you see how much better and more self-controlled he had become? He no longer insists on his own way, or contradicts. This is why he was troubled: “Perhaps I think that I love, and do not love, as before, when I thought and declared a great deal, and yet was proved wrong in the end.”

But Jesus asks him the third time, and the third time gives him the same charge. He does this to show how highly he values the care of his own sheep, and that this above all is a sign of love for him. And having spoken to him about love for himself, he foretells the martyrdom Peter was to undergo. By this he shows that he had not said what he said out of distrust, but because he trusted him greatly. He wanted besides to point out a proof of love for himself, and to teach us how, above all, we ought to love him. That is why he says, Verse 18: “When you were young, you put on your own belt and walked where you wanted; but when you are old, others will put your belt on you and carry you where you do not want to go.”

And yet this was what Peter wanted and longed for, and that is why Christ revealed it to him. Peter had kept saying, “I will lay down my life for you” (John 13, verse 37), and, “Even if I must die with you, I will not deny you” (Matthew 26, verse 35). So he has given him back his desire.

What, then, is meant by “where you do not want to go”? He is speaking of natural feeling, and of what the flesh cannot help, and of how the soul is torn away from the body against its will. So even if the will were firm, nature would still be found at fault. For no one lays aside the body without feeling it. God, as I said before, arranged this fittingly, so that violent deaths would not be many. For even as things are, the devil has been able to bring this about, and has led ten thousand people to cliffs and pits. If the soul did not feel such a longing for the body, the many would have rushed to this at any ordinary discouragement. So “where you do not want to go” is the expression of one pointing to natural feeling.

But after saying, “When you were young,” how does he then say, “When you are old”? For this is the way someone speaks who is declaring that Peter was not young at the time. Nor was he; nor yet was he old, but a man of middle age. Why, then, did he call his former life to mind? To show that this is how it is with what belongs to him. In the things of this life the young man is useful and the old man useless. “But in my affairs it is not so. When old age has come, then virtue is brighter, then courage is more glorious, since it is not hindered in any way by the time of life.”

He said this not to frighten him but to rouse him; for he knew his love, and that he had long yearned for this blessing. At the same time he makes known the kind of death. Since Peter always wanted to share in the dangers faced for Christ’s sake, he says: “Take heart. I will satisfy your desire in this way: what you did not suffer when you were young, you must suffer when you are old.” Then the evangelist, to rouse the hearer, adds, Verse 19: “He said this to show by what death he would glorify God.”

He did not say, “would die,” but, “would glorify God,” so that you may learn that to suffer for Christ is glory and honor to the one who suffers.

“And when he had said this, he said, ‘Follow me.’”

Here again he points to his tender care for Peter, and to Peter’s being very closely attached to him. And if anyone should say, “How, then, did James receive the chair at Jerusalem?” I would give this answer: he appointed Peter teacher, not of the chair, but of the world.

Verses 20 and 21: “Then Peter, turning around, saw the disciple whom Jesus loved following, the one who had also leaned on his breast at supper, and said, ‘Lord, and what will this man do?’”

Why has he reminded us of that reclining at supper? Not without reason or by chance, but to show us how much boldness Peter had after the denial. At that time he did not dare to question Jesus himself, but handed the task to another. Now he had even been entrusted with the chief authority over the brothers; and not only does he not hand to another what concerns himself, he himself now puts a question to his Teacher about someone else. John is silent, but Peter speaks. Here too he shows the love Peter had for John. For Peter loved John greatly, as is clear from what followed, and their close bond is shown throughout the whole Gospel, and in Acts. [f]

So when Christ had foretold great things to Peter, and entrusted the world to him, and spoken in advance of his martyrdom, and borne witness that his love was greater than that of the others, Peter wanted John to have a share with him too, and said, “And what will this man do?” “Will he not come the same way with us?” At that other time, when he could not ask himself, he put John forward. So now he wanted to repay him. He supposed that John wanted to ask about the things that concerned himself but did not have the courage, and so Peter took on the questioning himself. What, then, does Christ say?

Verse 22: “If I want him to remain until I come, what is that to you?” Peter spoke from strong affection, not wanting to be torn away from John. So Christ, to show that however much Peter might love him, he could not go beyond Christ’s own love, says, “If I want him to remain, what is that to you?” By these words he teaches us not to be impatient, nor curious beyond what seems good to him. For Peter was always ardent, and quick to leap into questions like this; and it is to cut short his eagerness, and to teach him not to inquire further, that Christ says this.

Verse 23: “So this saying spread among the brothers, that that disciple would not die. Yet Jesus did not say that he would not die, but, ‘If I want him to remain until I come, what is that to you?’”

He says: “Do not suppose for a moment that I arrange your affairs by a single rule.” He did this to draw them away from their untimely attachment to one another. Since they were about to take charge of the world, they could no longer stay closely together; that would certainly have been a great loss to the world. That is why he says to him: “You have had a work entrusted to you. Look to it, carry it through, labor and struggle. What if I want him to remain here? You look to your own affairs, and take care of them.”

And notice here too, I beg you, how free from pride the evangelist is. Having mentioned what the disciples thought, he corrects it, since they had not understood what Jesus meant. “Jesus did not say,” he tells us, “that ‘he would not die,’ but, ‘If I want him to remain.’”

Verse 24: “This is the disciple who testifies about these things, and wrote these things, and we know that his testimony is true.”

Why is it that he alone uses these words, when none of the others does so, and bears witness to himself — for the second time at that? For this seems to grate on those who hear it. What, then, is the reason? He is said to have been the last to come to writing, Christ having moved and roused him to the work. For this reason he keeps setting forth his love, pointing to the cause that drove him to write. That is also why he mentions it again and again: to make his record trustworthy, and to show that it was from this that he was moved to take up this work. He says: “And I know that the things he says are true. And if the many do not believe, they are allowed to believe on the strength of this.” “On the strength of what?” On the strength of what is said next.

Verse 25: “There are also many other things that Jesus did. If every one of them were written down, I suppose that even the world itself could not hold the books that would be written.”

“So it is clear that I could not have written to win favor. There were so many miracles, and yet I have not even related as many as the others have. I have left out most of them, and brought forward the plots of the Jews, the stonings, the hatred, the insults, the abuse. I have shown how they called him demon-possessed and a deceiver. I certainly could not have been acting to win favor. Anyone courting favor would have had to do the opposite: throw out what brought reproach, and set forth what brought glory.”

Since, then, he wrote what he did with full assurance, he does not shrink from putting forward his own testimony, and he challenges people to inquire into the facts one by one and examine them closely. For we have this custom too: when we think we are speaking the exact truth, we never refuse to give our testimony. And if we do this, how much more would he who wrote by the Spirit! So he says what the other apostles declared when they preached: “We are witnesses of the things spoken, and so is the Spirit whom he has given to those who obey him” (Acts 5, verse 32).

Besides, he was present for everything. He did not desert Christ even while he was being crucified, and he had his mother entrusted to him. All these things are signs of his love for him, and of his knowing everything exactly. And if he says that so many miracles took place, do not be surprised; but consider the power beyond words of the one who did them, and receive what is said with faith. For it was as easy for him to do whatever he wanted as it is for us to speak, or rather much easier. It was enough for him only to will it, and everything followed.

So let us pay close attention to these words, and never stop unfolding them and searching them through; for it is from constant application that we gain some profit. In this way we will be able to cleanse our life, and to cut down the thorns. For that is what sin and worldly care are like: fruitless and painful. A thorn pricks the one who holds it, whichever way he holds it; and in the same way the things of this life, from whatever side they are grasped, give pain to the one who hugs and cherishes them. Spiritual things are not like that. They are like a pearl: whichever way you turn it, it delights the eyes. [n]

Take an example. A man has done a deed of mercy. Not only is he fed with hopes of what is to come; he is also cheered by the good things here, full of confidence everywhere, and doing everything with great boldness. He has overcome an evil craving. Even before he obtains the kingdom, he has already received the fruit here, praised and approved before all others by his own conscience. Every good work is like this, just as conscience also punishes wicked deeds here, even before the pit.

For if after sinning you think about the future, you become afraid and tremble, though no one is punishing you. If you think about the present, you have many enemies, and you live in suspicion, and from then on you cannot even look in the face those who have wronged you — or rather, those who have not wronged you. For we do not reap as much pleasure from those evil deeds as we reap dejection: conscience cries out against us, people outside condemn us, God is angry, the pit is straining like a woman in labor to receive us, and our thoughts are never at rest.

Heavy, heavy and burdensome is sin, harder to bear than any lead. Anyone who has any sense of it at all will not be able to look up even a little, however dull he may be. So it was with Ahab, for instance. Though he was very ungodly, when he felt this, he walked bent over, crushed and afflicted. That is why he clothed himself in sackcloth and shed fountains of tears (First Kings 21, verse 27). If we do this, and grieve as he did, we will put off our faults as Zacchaeus did, and we too will obtain some pardon (Luke 19, verse 9).

It is as with tumors and running ulcers. If a person does not first stop the discharge that overflows and inflames the wound, then however many remedies he applies, as long as the source of the trouble is not stopped, he does it all in vain. In the same way, if we do not hold back our hand from greed and check that evil inflow of wealth, then even though we give alms, we do it all to no purpose. For what almsgiving has healed, greed coming after it usually overwhelms and spoils, and makes harder to heal than before. So let us stop our plundering, and then give alms.

But if we throw ourselves toward the cliffs, how will we be able to recover ourselves? Suppose one party — almsgiving — were pulling a falling man up from above, while another was dragging him down by force from below. The only result of such a struggle would be that the man would be torn apart. So that we do not suffer this, and so that almsgiving does not leave us and go while greed weighs us down from below, let us lighten ourselves and spread our wings. Then, made perfect by getting rid of evil things and practicing good ones, we may obtain the everlasting blessings, through the grace and love for humankind of our Lord Jesus Christ, with whom be glory, dominion, and honor to the Father and the Holy Spirit, now and always, and forever and ever. Amen.