Do You Love Me?

Friday, June 6, 2025

Acts 25:13b-21; Jn 21:15-19

Today’s Gospel highlights that the forgiveness of God is greater than human shortcomings. 

The Gospel wherein Jesus makes Peter declare his love thrice is often read from the angle of correction or punishment. Does Jesus make Peter feel guilty about his mistake? I do not think so. Jesus’ intention in making Peter declare his love thrice is not to give him guilt but to get rid of it. He does not want his apostle to suffer from needless guilt for an ‘impulsive error.’ Hence, Jesus replaces Peter’s ‘triple denial’ with his ‘triple affirmation’ of love. Thus, it becomes clear that it is with love that Jesus pardons. That is his style. 

Though Jesus’ action is filled with meaning and love, some questions still linger in our minds. Why is only Peter forgiven and not Judas? In what sense was Judas’ betrayal graver than Peter’s denial? 

The answer to this question calls for Peter’s portrayal in the Gospels as an impulsive man. At one moment, Peter thrives; at another, he falters. Even in the instance of his triple denial, we find him being caught unawares. Though he was strong enough to say, ‘Even if I have to die with you, I will never disown you’ (Mt 26:35), the terrorizing situation rendered him weak. It is because such denial came from an impulsive man whose denial was affected by the terrifying circumstances that we understand that Peter’s denial of Jesus was just momentary (so that the Gospel describes that Peter wept bitterly – Lk 22:62). 

Whereas the sin of Judas was a premeditated plot to betray Jesus in exchange for money. He was bent on handing Jesus over to his haters, as the Gospels would describe his strange behaviour (Mt 26:25) and suspicious movements (Jn 13:30). However, that is not all. Judas would have been forgiven had he wanted it or sought it. But he committed yet another sin by concluding that he committed a sin that was graver than even God could forgive. Thus, he betrayed Jesus in the first; he undermined God’s forgiveness in the next. 

This is how we may approach Peter’s triple affirmation of love. Towards the end of the Gospel text, we find Jesus telling Peter, ‘When you were younger…you used to go where you wanted… but when you grow old, someone will lead you where you do not want to go.’

When Peter ‘went’ his way, he denied Jesus, but when he was ‘taken’ as a prisoner for the Gospel, he died as a martyr. 

Let us pray that, like Peter, we may cherish God’s forgiveness and mend our lives. 

Fr. Dhinakaran Savariyar