This post is based on Week Eight of An Ignatian Prayer Adventure.
I find myself drawn to the post-Resurrection scene in John, chapter 21. Peter, resignedly returned to his old life, sees Jesus on the shore making breakfast of all things. This is God showing up in the ordinariness of human experience. Impulsively Peter jumps out of the boat to join Jesus on the lakeshore. Jesus is recognizable but different after the Resurrection and is now cooking fish over a fire. Like Peter, I can hardly believe that Jesus is alive!
I feel a great reluctance to approach at first, as I, like Peter, feel responsible for betraying Jesus in some way. I also feel the draw of my old, familiar patterns. Yet I also feel the pull of this extraordinarily attractive person, and, like Peter, feel like doing something rash on impulse to be with him. However, I’m a bit sheepish as I approach, feeling a mixture of trepidation and anticipation. I almost instinctively know that Jesus is going to ask me if I love him—the one penetrating question I would rather avoid.
What gets me most about this scene, apart from the visceral smell of the fish, the fire, and the peaceful setting, is simply the way Jesus looks at me. That penetrating gaze shows compassion after his Passion. My imagination brings this scene to life and speaks to all the senses: sights, sounds, and smells. To be held in Christ’s gaze is really to be seen, to have my soul looked into, and to see compassion embodied. This is the person who has walked though the fire for me, took on the world for me, overcome death for me, and now sits before me, inviting me to have breakfast with him. I feel unworthy but secretly delighted to get this second chance.
Immediately I am invited into conversation. Jesus asks me if I love him, and helplessly I have to admit that I do, knowing what he has been through for love of me. He asks me three times in what is a bittersweet reunion, and he asks me to help spread his message. Amazingly there is no rancor in his questioning, but only a renewed invitation to join him in his vision for the world and remain in his love.
Clearly, he is asking me to share in his mission, to carry on his work, and to be an agent of God’s love. I can hardly believe I am reinstated so completely. I know this means accepting my own brokenness and even using it in the service of others. My heart surges with gratitude upon being forgiven and given a second chance!
The prevailing emotion is joy: joy that Jesus has overcome death, that I have been forgiven and missioned, and that through the Spirit, Jesus is always available to me (and everyone else). This is a great source of hope and courage for my journey going forward. I do not walk alone, and with God’s help, I can face anything that life throws at me.
How is it to feel Jesus’ compassionate gaze on me? What conversation would I have with Jesus? How can I bring hope to those weighed down by life, excluded, or abandoned? How can I bring to hurting neighbors a sense of peace that our God of compassion walks with them and suffers with them?
Image: “John 21:1–14. Once more Jesus showeth himself to Peter and others by the Sea of Galilee,” by William Hole.
