Can I Trust You?
That’s the right question to ask whenever you are given an amazing sales pitch. The past few weeks we’ve been working our way through John chapters 20 and 21, talking about Jesus rising from the dead. We’ve said that we won’t get to see Jesus alive for ourselves, so we are going to have to trust him based on the fact that his first disciples did see him alive. We’re going to have to take their word for it.
So there was Mary at the empty tomb, very early on the first Easter morning — she met Jesus alive. Then later that day the ten disciples, gathered together behind locked doors, met Jesus alive. One week later those same ten plus Thomas met Jesus alive. And then last week we had the story of how Peter, Thomas, Nathaniel, James, John, and two other disciples went fishing and met Jesus alive. We have to take their word for it.
But the question we quite naturally and quite rightly ask is: can we trust them? As they claim to lead us to Jesus, and so bring us to life, are they reliable guides? We’ve had the analogy last week of their work as being a bit like serving up food. So as we eat the meal that they bring to us, are they being Michelin-starred chefs serving what is on the menu, or are they in fact serving us poison and not what they’ve promised? Can we trust them?
Now, besides the fact you should always check whether you can trust somebody when they offer you the world, there’s a specific reason to check these guys out, and that reason has a name: Simon Peter.
When we looked at Thomas a few weeks ago, we said how refreshing it is that the gospels are so honest in their portraits of the disciples. We discover with great candour the way that they took a long time to understand what was happening before their eyes, to come to believe for themselves. We read of their tremendous blunders and failings, and we said it in passing that this is another sign of the authenticity of the accounts of the four gospels. If they had made the whole thing up, surely they wouldn’t write themselves into the story as such spectacular dullards and failures. So sure, that’s another pretty commending reason to take these accounts at face value.
But whilst it’s also refreshingly honest, it is also — is it not — a little worrying, because these are the people through whom we have the only access to Jesus that we have. We have no other way to know about Jesus other than through this motley group, and therefore the question “can we trust them?” is indeed a good one.
It’s been local election week across the whole of the UK. Imagine there’s an election coming up for somebody at some level of government, and through your door comes a leaflet inviting you to vote for the person who was put into office at the most recent election, to give them another term of office. And this leaflet reminds you of the three pledges they made the last time they were elected. It then goes into great detail about how they have broken and failed to deliver on all three of those pledges, and even a couple of times when they had the opportunity to vote for precisely the things they promised, they actually voted against those pledges. And on the basis of that track record this leaflet says: “Please vote for this person again. Give them another term.” Doesn’t exactly build confidence, does it?
Or: a company wishes to raise some fresh funding for the next stage of their growth by attracting some new investment, so they publish a document called a prospectus that outlines what the company does and what exactly they intend to do with this new money. And in there there’s a section talking about the board of directors, and it spends four or five pages talking about the chair of the board and their string of previous business failures and insolvencies and their own moral collapse as well. Now, in law they would be required to mention any companies they’ve been a director of before, but they wouldn’t be required to spend five pages ladling on thickly just what a failure the chair of the board is — and they wouldn’t do it, because doing that doesn’t exactly build confidence.
And yet in these four gospels — Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John — we see precisely that with the disciples. And yet we’re meant to trust them.
Now, all the disciples failed in some way, but there are two in particular that come to mind as being a problem. The most obvious is Judas. Judas — in case you’ve forgotten the story — betrayed Jesus in a way that led to his arrest, trial, and death, in exchange for the payment of some money. Now I don’t want to talk at great length this morning about Judas, because he doesn’t actually come up in the story. If you want to know about Judas, you might find it helpful to listen to the talk I gave here on Good Friday, and if you weren’t here on Good Friday, it’s on our church YouTube channel. We saw how, from John chapter 19, Judas’s betrayal of Jesus is actually predicted in great detail in the Old Testament, and therefore far from being a reason not to trust Jesus, Judas’s betrayal is actually a sign that everything is going exactly according to plan. And Judas betraying Jesus as he does commends Jesus to us as being exactly the Messiah and the Saviour that we need. Besides that, the other thing about Judas is to say that by this point — John 21 — he’s completely off the scene. He’s actually died, and therefore as John commends us to trust the testimony of the disciples as they saw Jesus risen, Judas is not one of those that we are being asked to trust. So I think we can safely discount Judas at this point.
But the other individual that we need to deal with is Simon Peter. Peter made lots and lots of blunders in the gospel — he tends to go in feet first, brain later, and not get things right. But his biggest blunder: we will find it in John chapter 13, and I’m going to read from verse 36.
This is the night before Jesus dies.
“Simon Peter asked him, ‘Lord, where are you going?’ Jesus replied, ‘Where I am going, you cannot follow now, but you will follow later.’ Peter asked, ‘Lord, why can’t I follow you now? I will lay down my life for you.’ Then Jesus answered, ‘Will you really lay down your life for me? Very truly I tell you, before the cock crows you will disown me three times.’”
And then we pick up the story in John 18, from verse 15.
“Jesus has been arrested. Simon Peter and another disciple were following Jesus. Because this disciple was known to the high priest, he went with Jesus into the high priest’s courtyard, but Peter had to wait outside the door. The other disciple, who was known to the high priest, came back, spoke to the servant girl on duty there, and brought Peter in. ‘You aren’t one of this man’s disciples too, are you?’ she asked Peter. He replied, ‘I am not.’”
And then skip down to verse 25.
“Meanwhile, Simon Peter was still standing there warming himself. So they asked him, ‘Aren’t you one of his disciples too?’ He denied it, saying, ‘I am not.’ One of the high priest’s servants, a relative of the man whose ear Peter had cut off, challenged him: ‘Didn’t I see you with him in the garden?’ Again Peter denied it, and at that moment a cock began to crow.”
You can imagine how Peter felt then. After the resurrection, he’d blown his chance. He wouldn’t be part of not just the twelve disciples, but the kind of inner circle of three — Peter, James, and John, the three who went with Jesus when he wanted to take only a tiny group with him: in to raise the dead girl, up the mountain of transfiguration, into Gethsemane to pray. Peter plus two others. And suddenly he’s blown it. Jesus is never going to want him back. He’s never going to get back into the twelve, never mind the three. And after Peter betrayed him, Jesus caught his eye through the window of the high priest’s courtyard, and Peter wept. He knew he’d blown it.
So you can imagine how he felt. You can imagine how the ten disciples must have felt as well — the other ten. Is Peter now disqualified from being a disciple? Should we even have him as one of us? He’s our friend, but is he a disciple, or has he abandoned us? And Jesus predicted that the world would hate the disciples, that things would hot up, that there would be some really nasty persecution and difficult times coming. When it really comes to it, is Peter going to stand with us, or is he going to just betray us and sell us out? Can we trust him? Can we rely on him?
And you can see how we feel too. If Peter was that unreliable, then can we trust his testimony, or might he, in the decades ahead, colour his account as he testifies to suit his own agenda or to feather his own nest?
Well, John wants us to believe, and so to have life, and therefore John wants us to know that we can trust these disciples. And therefore he tells us three things about Peter.
1. Peter was forgiven
“When they had finished eating, Jesus said to Simon Peter, ‘Simon son of John, do you love me more than these?’ ‘Yes, Lord,’ he said, ‘you know that I love you.’ ‘Feed my lambs.’ Again Jesus said, ‘Simon son of John, do you love me?’ He answered, ‘Yes, Lord, you know that I love you.’ ‘Take care of my sheep.’ The third time he said to him, ‘Simon son of John, do you love me?’ Peter was hurt because Jesus asked him the third time, ‘Do you love me?’ He said, ‘Lord, you know all things; you know that I love you.’ Jesus said, ‘Feed my sheep.’”
Jesus asks Peter three times. Now, Jesus knows that Peter loves him — in fact, Peter knows that Jesus knows that Peter loves him, because he says, “Lord, you know all things; you know that I love you.” But Jesus wants him to say it. He wants him to say it three times. And that’s what hurt Peter. Peter was hurt because Jesus asked him the third time. Peter knows what he’s doing. Jesus is reminding him of the three betrayals — not to rub his nose in it, but to give him the chance to undo them. Just as Peter said three times that he never knew Jesus, so he’s being given the chance to say three times that he loves him. To reverse the damage. He’s being forgiven. He’s being restored.
And note that the question is “Do you love me?” John’s taught us that in order to have eternal life, all we need to do is to know Jesus and to trust him. To love Jesus goes beyond that — it’s a bigger thing. And Jesus doesn’t ask Peter “Do you know me?” or “Do you trust me?” He wants to know: “Do you love me?”
And Peter’s restoration is public. So verse 15: “When they had finished eating” — there they are, sat round the campfire, stuffed full of their fish finger sandwiches — and while they’re all sat there, Jesus turns to Peter and has this conversation. He doesn’t take him off to a quiet private room away from earshot; he deliberately does it with the others there. And he asks him, “Do you love me more than these?” Now, we can’t be exactly sure what Jesus refers to — what are “the these”? — but the best guess is that it’s the other disciples. So: “Peter, these other ten, they love me. Tell me not just ‘do you love me?’ but ‘do you love me more than they love me?’” It’s public.
And then at the end of the conversation — as we see it heading into the passage we’ll look at next week — the conversation carries on as Jesus and Peter walk down the beach together, but with the disciple John following just a few paces behind and within earshot, which is how he came to know the story to write it down.
Jesus publicly forgives Peter, and he wants the others to know it. It’s a forgiveness to match the betrayal. Peter is forgiven.
2. Peter is faithful unto death
Verse 18: “Very truly I tell you, when you were younger you dressed yourself and went where you wanted; but when you are old you will stretch out your hands, and someone else will dress you and lead you where you do not want to go.” Jesus said this to indicate the kind of death by which Peter would glorify God.
Jesus is describing crucifixion. When the Romans crucified somebody, they did not only stretch their hands out and attach their arms to the crossbeam of the cross on which they would be crucified — they made you carry that crossbeam through the streets of the town to the place of your execution, so that you could be exposed to public ridicule and humiliation. But sometimes they would actually attach you to the crossbeam before that, so that that procession through the town had you already attached to the piece of wood. And so what Jesus is describing here is someone being led somewhere they do not want to go, with their hands stretched out. And John tells us this was to tell us the kind of death that he would die.
Peter’s death will be like Jesus’s — both in the manner in which he died (Jesus was crucified; Peter will be crucified), but also in the purpose of his death. So in John 12 we learn that Jesus’s death was the moment he brought great glory to God the Father, and in verse 19: “Jesus said this to indicate the kind of death by which Peter would glorify God.”
In fact, many of the first disciples were killed for their faith. For example, James — brother of John, son of Zebedee, fisherman James — was killed just in the year AD 44, not much more than a decade after this, by Herod. It’s recorded in Acts chapter 12.
This is another strong reason to believe their testimony that Jesus was alive. Why would they go to their own death for something that they knew was a lie? It would make no sense. But it’s an especially strong reason to trust Peter, because the night before Jesus died, Peter was frightened. He was frightened that following Jesus might lead to him being killed too. And so he looked at the dilemma before him and he chose to deny Jesus to make sure that he survived with his life. And what this is telling us is that several decades later he would be faced with that same choice — but he would choose instead to remain true to Jesus, even though it cost him his life.
You can trust Peter. He will stick to the truth even if it leads him to his death. Peter was faithful unto death.
Forgiven. Faithful unto death.
3. Peter was commissioned by Jesus
(Sorry — I couldn’t think of a synonym for “commissioned” that starts with the letter F.)
Every time Peter tells Jesus he loves him, Jesus commissions him. Verse 15: “You know that I love you.” Jesus said, “Feed my lambs.” Verse 16: “Lord, you know that I love you.” Jesus said, “Take care of my sheep.” Verse 17: “Lord, you know all things; you know that I love you.” Jesus said, “Feed my sheep.”
Now, don’t worry about the exact words here. John loves synonyms. Those with primary school children probably know what synonyms are, but for the rest of you: synonyms are where you have two different words that mean the same thing. “Cook,” “bake” — they’re not exact synonyms, but you could use them interchangeably. John loves synonyms, especially in this chapter. So when he says “you know that I love you,” there are two different words for “know” that John uses, for variety. There are two different words for “love” here. And so when Jesus says “feed” and “take care of,” those are just two different words to convey the same idea. Or “lambs,” “sheep” — not different groups of people, just different words for the same group of people, for a bit of variety.
But the question is: what’s the picture language referring to? Who are Jesus’s sheep, and what does it mean to feed them, to take care of them?
Well, who are the sheep? We are — Jesus’s people who love, trust, follow him. We are his sheep. This is Old Testament language. Some of you will know Psalm 100 quite well, one of the better-known psalms. Psalm 100 verse 3: “Know that the Lord is God. It is he who made us, and we are his; we are his people, the sheep of his pasture.” And then, as the human leaders of ancient Israel failed to serve the people they were asked to lead well, and looked after themselves instead, God predicts that he will step in and he will lead his people for himself. And in Ezekiel chapter 34 verse 11: “This is what the Sovereign Lord says: I myself will search for my sheep and look after them.”
And then Jesus comes on the scene. He tells the parable of someone who had a hundred sheep and lost one. But he also says, in John chapter 10 verse 14: “I am the good shepherd” — that promise from Ezekiel, that’s talking about me — “I know my sheep and my sheep know me, just as the Father knows me and I know the Father, and I lay down my life for the sheep.” Jesus is the good shepherd and we are his flock, his sheep, his lambs. And Peter is to take care of, to feed, Jesus’s sheep — us.
So what is this feeding? Well, last week we had the story of a miraculous feeding where Jesus fed them fish, and I showed how that ties back to John chapter 6 and all the feeding miracles in the gospels, which symbolise the fact that we need Jesus. You can’t live without food, and you can’t live without Jesus. Food brings you life; Jesus brings you eternal life. Now, when you eat something, what you eat becomes part of you — it becomes totally assimilated, it becomes part of you. And so Jesus calls us to feed on him, to eat him, which means to take him in deeply, until he becomes part of you, until his life becomes the source of your life. And so Jesus commissions Peter to feed his sheep — to teach Jesus’s people about Jesus, to bring them to him, to lead us to trust him, to depend on him, to feed on him.
Conclusion
So: can we trust these flawed disciples as they share their eyewitness testimony about Jesus, as they teach us of him, as they write the New Testament? Well, let’s look at the dodgiest example we can find — the one that you are most likely to find excuses not to trust. Let’s look at Peter.
Jesus knew how Peter had failed him three times, and with his eyes wide open Jesus forgave him and restored him. The others knew Peter too — they welcomed him back, because Jesus invited them to do just that. Jesus gave Peter the chance to declare three times that he loved him. And Peter became a changed man. When faced with the same frightening choice several decades later, he chose to be faithful to Jesus unto death. Peter was crucified in Rome in the sixties. Peter would be faithful to Jesus no matter what it cost.
Which means we can trust him to fulfil the work that Jesus gave him to do: to feed his lambs, to take care of his sheep, to feed his sheep. And we should let him — and the other disciples who wrote the New Testament — feed us with Jesus, so that we can eat, feed, trust, follow, and so enjoy the eternal life that he came to bring.