Love and Love

 John 21:1-19 / Easter 3 / April 19, 2026

The Great Catch
John August Swanson

 

Have you ever promised 

to do something and then failed at it?

A diet, losing weight, eating clean,

getting and keeping a certain job, getting a degree,

going to the gym, quitting smoking or drinking,

praying, meditating, not yelling.

Maybe it was a project you didn’t complete,

or it didn’t end up the way you wanted.

Maybe something more consequential than those even.

 

We’ve all had this experience of letting others down—

or letting ourselves down—at one time or another.

Some of us to more serious degrees than others.

I think it’s a feeling we’ve all had at one time or another.

I know I have.

 

Peter knew that feeling that day on the lake.

Peter had made a promise to Jesus in front everyone

at that last meal they had together. Proudly, confidently,

he said he would lay down his life for Jesus.

 

I’m sure he meant it when he said it.

His head and his heart were filled with

bravado and security in his own will and courage.

I’m sure he felt the loyalty and dedication to Jesus

and he felt gratitude to Jesus for trusting him.

 

Jesus had picked Peter out. He called him

out of the monotonous, soul-crushing

and debt-ridden life of commercial fishing and

called him into a life of abundance, grace, risk,

spiritual depth, wonder, and service to others.

I’m sure that Peter was feeling gratitude about that

when he made that promise to Jesus.

I’m sure that he meant it when he said:

“I will follow you to death.”

 

Of course, Jesus knew better.

Jesus knew human frailty and fear, and he knew Peter.

He told Peter that he would deny even knowing Jesus.

Not once or twice, but three times before the cock crowed.

 

And sure enough, that’s what happened.

After Jesus was arrested, when Peter was identified

as one of Jesus disciples, Peter denied it three times.

 

He didn’t follow Jesus to his death,

even at the threat of merely being identified,

he ran he hid, he denied.

He wouldn’t even admit he knew Jesus to a powerless servant girl.

 

And this whole thing was probably

running through Peter’s head when he saw

the risen Jesus in that upper room.

 

Sure, at first he was excited about seeing Jesus,

but he was probably also thinking later:

“Jesus knows how I failed him and everyone.

Jesus knows what a chicken I am.

Jesus knows how I don’t deserve

the life and the responsibility and position he gave me.”

 

So Peter and the others decided to go back to fishing.

Back into the soul crushing, dead-end life that they came from.

With Jesus dead and them all failures at following,

what else were they supposed to do?

It was all Peter knew how to do

It’s probably all he thought he deserved.

 

And they’re in the middle of returning to that life

the risen Jesus calls out to them from the shore again.

 

Jesus tells them to fish over the other side of the boat.

and they catch a lot of fish.

And the disciples recognize Jesus.

They go to him and have breakfast with him.

And after that, Jesus talks to Peter alone.

Surely, the weight of Peter’s failure was hanging between them.

 

Notice that when they talk, Jesus doesn’t call him “Peter”,

the name Jesus gave him when he became his disciple.

he calls him by his given name,

“Simon, son of John” his name in his old life,

the life that he’s decided to return to.

 

He asks him a loaded question,

“Simon, son of John, do you love me more than these?”

Now if we only read this in English, we miss

some of the meaning of this exchange.

 

In Greek, the language John’s Gospel was written in,

there are many different words for love.

There is agape, which is sacrificial, unconditional,

almost divine love. It’s the love we hear about mostly when

we talk about in the gospels. How God loves, it’s

the love that “bears all things, believes all things,

hopes all things, endures all things.”

Love that gives without expecting anything in return.

 

Another word for love is phila, which is friendship, fondness

Brotherly or sisterly love.

Where the name Philadelphia comes from.

 

There are also different words for love like romantic love,

flirty love, short-lived, long-term, instinctual love like a parent for a child, the list is long.

But the ones we’re focusing on is Agape and Philo.

  

Jesus’ first question to Peter uses the word agape.

“Simon, son of John, do you agape me?”

 

But Peter answers Jesus.
“Lord, you know that I philia you.”

 

Phila can be real and deep. It’s Affection. Loyalty. Care.

But it’s not self-sacrificial like agape.

It’s as if Peter is saying:
“I do love you, Lord… but after how I behaved, 

when the chips were down, 

I don’t know if I can claim that kind of perfect, 

self-giving love.” All Simon Peter can say is that he is fond of Jesus.

 And in response Jesus says to Peter, “feed by lambs”

 

A second time Jesus asks, “Simon son of John, do you agape me?”
And again Simon Peter answers, 

not able to say that he loves Jesus sacrificially. “Yes, you know that I phila you.”

And Jesus tells him to tend his sheep.

 

And a third time Jesus asks Simon Peter.

But this time he asks him:

“Simon, son of John, do you phila me?”

 

Simon Peter can’t bring up the hubris

of his previous claim to undying loyalty he had before.

Peter doesn’t trust himself or his ability anymore.

So Jesus asks: “Okay Peter if that’s all you can promise,

do you love me as a friend?”

And finally, Peter can agree to that.

 

And then Jesus still gives him the same request:

The same call: Feed my sheep.

 

Jesus meets Peter where he was.

Just like Jesus met Thomas where he was

in the last encounter when he was full of doubt.

 

And when he finds Peter there, realizing that he could not

give all that he hoped to Jesus, Jesus still commissions him,

he still gives him a mission and a calling.
Jesus does not reject Peter’s imperfect love.

It is still good enough. Jesus will use it, bless it, send it into the world.

Feed my sheep. Tend my lambs. Feed my sheep.

 

I think many of us live somewhere in Peter’s answer.

We want to love deeply.
We want to be faithful.
We want to give ourselves fully.

But we all have limitations.

We have other priorities, we have fears, we have caution,

we have apprehensions, and self-preservation.

 

We know our shortcomings.

The times we’ve turned away.

The times our love has fallen short.

If Jesus were to ask us,

“Do you love me with everything you are?”

if we were honest with ourselves we might say,

“Lord… you know I love you… but not perfectly.”

 

And the good news is that Jesus meets us there.

He speaks to us in the language we can answer.

He receives the love we are able to give.

And then—amazingly—he entrusts us with his work anyway.

“Feed my sheep.”

And by the way, there is the second mission as a church that we

are given by the risen Jesus: feeding people 

in all the ways that means. Forgiveness, and feeding others.

 
 We are all as fallible as Peter,

we have been scarred, and broken, and lost.

We’ve all gone smugly into something, just to fail,

or get scared, or become disillusioned, or bored, or cynical or weak.

 

We might think that the best thing for God to do

would be to let us go, let us go away

and find someone else who’s better or more qualified.

But the truth is, we are God’s entire ministry plan

We are it. There is no back up.

There is no other option for God.

There are no alternatives.

No other less-fallible super-humans waiting in the wings.

 

God has put all his trust into people like Peter.

And God has bet everything on us.

We are God’s whole plan. All God has are

fallible, weak, fearful, often selfish humans.

 

And we are called back into service again and again.

Called to care for this world and the things in it.

To feed the lambs and the sheep.

We are called to forgive others and to forgive ourselves too.

 

As broken and as faulty as we can be, God will use us.

God needs is our love, however much we can muster.

And everything else will come out of that.

 

As many times as we mess up

and don’t live up to our own expectations,

though we love with an imperfect love

we are called to a life of abundance, depth and service to others

We are called over and over into a new life with God.

 

Feed my lambs, tend my sheep, feed my sheep.

Jesus says, follow me.