Jesus Restores Peter

Then Jesus tells them to grab a few fish and come to the barbeque and have breakfast.

At this point they’ve all figured out that it is in fact Jesus there on the shore.

Jesus took the bread that was there and the fish that were cooked and he gave it to them. This was the third time the Jesus had appeared to the disciples after he was raised from the dead.

So they are sitting around having breakfast with Jesus. But Peter’s restoration has already started. Jesus meets Peter here in the identical way that he first met Peter three years earlier.

Luke 5:1 One day as Jesus was standing by the Lake of Gennesaret, the people were crowding around him and listening to the word of God. 2 He saw at the water’s edge two boats, left there by the fishermen, who were washing their nets. 3 He got into one of the boats, the one belonging to Simon, and asked him to put out a little from shore. Then he sat down and taught the people from the boat. 4 When he had finished speaking, he said to Simon, “Put out into deep water, and let down the nets for a catch.”5 Simon answered, “Master, we’ve worked hard all night and haven’t caught anything.But because you say so, I will let down the nets.” 6 When they had done so, they caught such a large number of fish that their nets began to break. 7 So they signaled their partners in the other boat to come and help them, and they came and filled both boats so full that they began to sink.

So now, here on the beach with Jesus and the other disciples, Jesus has just repeated, acted out, the very scene of Peter’s first calling where Jesus had said to Peter: Matthew 4:19 “Come, follow me,” Jesus said, “and I will send you out to fish for people”, or as the King James Version says, “I will make you fishers of men”

At the very least, this must have been a déjà vu moment for Peter. And although he clearly would have felt the shame and embarrassment of his own denial of Jesus before this moment, I think here we begin to see Hope being restored to Peter.

Not just hope in a general sense, but some deeper hope found in the mystery of what is happening in the moment with Jesus.

And then John 20:15 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.” Jesus said, “Feed my lambs.”

It's worth noting HOW Jesus addresses Peter here, Peter who was also called Simon but to whom Jesus gave the name Peter, which meant "the rock"; Jesus addresses Peter as Simon son of John, the way he was known before he encountered Jesus, and he does so three times.

Jesus knows exactly how Peter feels. And he meets Peter exactly where he is in the moment, Peter having lost all faith in himself, he is, in his mind, no longer what he was when he was with Jesus. Now he's just Simon son of John.

Peter feels, I think, that although Jesus once called him to be among his disciples, and then among his disciples Jesus gave him the special responsibility or title of "the rock", now, because of his denials of Jesus, because of his failings, all that is in the past.