Journey to Jerusalem: That Look In His Eyes
By Dr. Tom Pace
April 9, 2017
Luke 22:54-62, John 21:15-17

As we head into our scripture today, let me just say a word about it because I want to give you the framework. I don’t want you to read along in your bulletin. I’ve never said that until today. Here’s why: we’re going to do the reading from the two Gospels in parallel. There are two scenes. The first scene is Jesus has left the Lord’s Supper. He’s gone to the Garden of Gethsemane and he prays all night long. In the middle of the night they come and arrest him and they take him to the House of Caiaphas. Caiaphas was the High Priest. It’s at the House of Caiaphas that he meets with the Sanhedrin. This was the council of Jewish leaders of that time. Mostly High Priests but also scribes and elders of the town are at the House of Caiaphas. Out in the courtyard outside of Caiaphas the disciples follow and they are in that courtyard. The first scripture you’ll hear is from that scene. The second one, though, is a week and a half later and it’s after the resurrection. It is what’s called the restoration of Peter. It is a conversation that the resurrected Christ has with Peter and I hope you’ll catch on to the parallel. Let’s listen as we hear the scriptures read this morning.
⁵⁴Then they seized him and led him away, bringing him into the high priest’s house. But Peter was following at a distance. ⁵⁵When they had kindled a fire in the middle of the courtyard and sat down together, Peter sat among them. ⁵⁶Then a servant-girl, seeing him in the firelight, stared at him and said, “This man also was with him.” ⁵⁷But he denied it, saying, “Woman, I do not know him.” Luke 22:54-57
¹⁵When they had finished breakfast, Jesus said to Simon Peter, “Simon son of John, do you love me more than these?” He said to him, “Yes, Lord; you know that I love you.” Jesus said to him, “Feed my lambs.” John 21:15
⁵⁸A little later someone else, on seeing him, said, “You also are one of them.” But Peter said, “Man, I am not!” Luke 22:58
¹⁶A second time he said to him, “Simon son of John, do you love me?” He said to him, “Yes, Lord; you know that I love you.” Jesus said to him, “Tend my sheep.” John 21:16-17
⁵⁹Then about an hour later still another kept insisting, “Surely this man also was with him; for he is a Galilean.” ⁶⁰But Peter said, “Man, I do not know what you are talking about!” At that moment, while he was still speaking, the cock crowed. Luke 22:59-60
¹⁷He said to him the third time, “Simon son of John, do you love me?” Peter felt hurt because he said to him the third time, “Do you love me?” And he said to him, “Lord, you know everything; you know that I love you.” Jesus said to him, “Feed my sheep.” John 21:17
⁶¹The Lord turned and looked at Peter. Then Peter remembered the word of the Lord, how he had said to him, “Before the cock crows today, you will deny me three times.” ⁶²And he went out and wept bitterly. Luke 22:61-62
Peter felt hurt because he said to him the third time, “Do you love me?” And he said to him, “Lord, you know everything; you know that I love you.” John 21:17

Let’s pray together, Gracious God, open us up to your word for us today. As we enter this Holy Week, God, we know that throughout the week you’ll have something to speak to us, something to speak into our lives. We pray, God, that as we gather this morning that you open our eyes that we might see, and open our ears that we might hear, and open our hearts that we might feel, and then O God, open our hands that we might serve. Amen.
When I was the minister to youth here at St. Luke’s back in the 80s, the church library had a sale of books that nobody was reading. I wanted a bigger library because it makes pastors look smart, so I bought a bunch of books for fifty cents. Three of the books I bought were by a preacher whom I knew nothing about. I’m sure many of you do, Peter Marshall, who was the Pastor of New York Presbyterian Church in New York City in the 30s and 40s, during the Second World War. He died in 1949. He had been the chaplain of the U.S. Senate and was only 46 years old when he died. He left behind a young son. There’s a movie A Man Called Peter about his life I suspect some of you have seen it.
I got the books and they sat around for a while and then picked them up and began to read them. I have to say immediately they captured my heart. He’s such an amazing writer and preacher. I found years later some records that played his sermons with a scratchy needle kind of thing and you could hear him. He’s a Scotsman and had a beautiful lilt to his voice.
What I want to do this morning is read to you a sermon in this book called Mr. Jones, Meet the Master. The sermon is called The Rock That Moved. I’m going to read just a little part of it but here’s the scene. They are in the courtyard outside the House of Caiaphas and Peter has already denied Jesus twice. Interestingly, the first denial was a servant woman who said, “Weren’t you with him?” And Peter denies it. Peter Marshall, when he reflects on it, paints it that the servant girl wasn’t accusing him; she wanted to know about Jesus. And she came to him and said, “Weren’t you with him?” He had the opportunity to tell her about it and he didn’t. There’s a second denial and since all work and plagiarism makes Tom a dull preacher I’m going to just read to you part of Peter Marshall’s amazing writing directly and then we’ll talk a little about this more.
After an hour had passed, there joined a group a soldier who had come out of the Palace. As he greeted his friends in the circle his eye fell on Peter. He scrutinized him very carefully and Peter, feeling the examination of the newcomer, looked around as the soldier asked, “Did not I see thee in the garden with him? One of his friends joined in, “Certainly he is one of the Galileans, listen to his accent.” Then the soldier stubbornly went on, “I am sure I saw him in the garden, for my kinsman Malcolm was wounded by one of them who drew a sword.” “And if I’m not mistaken it was this fellow here.” Then Peter began to curse and swear and he said, “I know not the man.” He used language he had not used in years. It was vile. Even the soldiers were shocked. They all looked at him in amazement. They did appear to notice the shuffling of feet as soldiers led Christ from Caiaphas to Pilate. The group standing round the fire was silent, shocked at the vehemence and profanity at Peter’s denial. It was a torrent of foulness. But it was his face that startled him, distorted, eyes blazing, mouth snarling like a cornered animal. It was not a pleasant sight and they kept silent. It was a silence so intent that the crowing of a distant cock was like a bugle call. Immediately Peter remembered the Lord’s prophecy. Before the cock crows twice thou shalt deny me thrice. Like a wave, there swept over him the realization of what he had done. All of the sudden he remembered what Jesus had said and with tears streaming down his face, he turned away from the fire. Through a midst of tears he saw ahead of him the doorway that led to Pilate’s palace and by a terrible providence it was just at that moment that Christ was led up the stairs to appear before Pilate. Christ paused on the stair and looked down over the rail looking right into the very soul of Peter. The eyes of the two met at that awful moment. Through his tears all else was a blur to Peter but that one face shown through the tears, that lovely face, that terrible face, those eyes sad, reproachful, tender, as if they understood and forgave. Ah how well he knew him, and how much he loved him. His tears now overflowed and ran down his cheeks, hot and scalding tears they were, with great sobs. Shaking his strong frame Peter spun round and rushed out to have the cool morning air fan his burning cheeks. He fled with his heart pounding in his breast while the Nazarene walked steadily to meet the Roman governor. Something died within the heart of Peter that night. Something was killed. That’s why his heart was broken.
That moment when Peter and Jesus’ eyes meet, when that gaze fixes on Peter, that look in his eyes. It was, I think, first and foremost that look of conviction. The moment when the reality of your actions come home to you. When the consequences of your actions come home to you. You ever remember those segments on the news, (local news does them often just to kind of get ratings up) where they go into hotels with the black light and shine stuff and show you what you can’t really see in a hotel room, and you go ooh. It’s like when that light shines on your life and you see what’s really there. The moment when a spouse who has been unfaithful realizes the pain that she or he has caused people that they love. Children, parents, friends, when that all just comes home. A moment when at the end of a life in which you’ve given yourself to making as much money as you possibly can, you’ve spent fourteen hour days working, working, working, giving yourself fully to it and then you come to realize what the impact of that was on your family and friends and the rest of your life. Maybe that moment when angry words come out of a parent to a child and you realize that those words weren’t constructive and you see the broken look at a child’s eyes looking at you. You can come up with your own, I’m sure.
Some of you may have been through recovery or in recovery and the twelve steps include step four which is called truth. It says take a searching and fearless moral inventory of yourself. Take a look. Let the light of Christ shine on you.
Step eight. Make a list of all the people you’ve hurt and seek to make amends with them. You know I guess you’re supposed to, as a Pastor, share yourself with the congregation and I’m really afraid I’m not going to do that today too much in this particular case. Because those moments are just so painful, right? Let me share one lighter moment, I feel I can open up about. We have this friend, still a good friend, who when we were young, didn’t have kids quite yet, I was a youth Pastor. This is a family in the youth group. They had kids in the youth group and younger kids. They were real active and kind of the head sponsors and they took us under their wing and let us be part of their family. I kind of knew that he was unhappy in his job and one day he got a call from someone saying they were offering him a new job. He was going to be able to be his own boss and be able to make much of his own hours and control his own future. He called me and was so excited about it. The only problem is that it wasn’t true because it was April Fool’s Day and I had set him up. I had somebody pretending to be my uncle call him and offer him this job, I thought as sure as he knew it was April 1^st and it had the name Pace involved that he would know that it couldn’t possibly be true. But it wasn’t the case. And when he called me, oh my goodness. So here’s the truth, every April 1^st it comes around and I think about that moment. Dee and I were in the car on April 1^st and she said, “I think I’m going to text him.” And I said, “Oh, don’t do that.”
There’s a great story about Arthur Conan Doyle who wrote a telegram to twelve friends and he said, “All is discovered, flee immediately.” That’s all it said. They all left town. If you got that, who knows what evil lurks in the heart of men and women. You know those moments. You know those sensitive spots. Those moments. Here’s the word – those moments of shame. When you realize, “Oh, my goodness, what have I done?” That was the look that came from the eyes of Jesus into Peter and he goes out and weeps uncontrollably. I think that’s not the end of the story though, because I think beyond that look of conviction there was more to the look than that and that there was a look of compassion as well. Jesus knew Peter. He knew and loved Peter. He knew how much Peter loved him. He had predicted that Peter would deny him. While they were still sitting at the Lord’s Table, still sharing a meal of love together, knowing that Peter would deny him. He kept him at there at the table. That look was, “I know who you are, I know your impulsiveness, I know your fear, and I still love you. With all my heart, I love you.” That compassion that is even greater than the conviction.
There’s another story that this brings to my mind always. It’s the story of the Prodigal Son, Luke 15. Jesus tells the story of two sons, one the elder and he stays with the father, but the younger son takes his share of his inheritance and he runs away. He blows his money and finds himself in a pigsty, literally in a pigsty. The verse says, And when he came to himself. That’s that moment when you realize. And when he came to himself he said, “I will rise and I will go into my father and I will say unto him, ‘Father I have sinned against heaven and before thee and am no longer worthy to be called thy son.’” So he gets up out of the pigsty and heads home and all the way home he’s rehearsing, “I have sinned against heaven and before thee and am no longer worthy to be called thy son. I have sinned against heaven and before thee and am no longer worthy to be called thy son.” Before he can even get to the house his father sees him from afar. No apology yet, no anything. And his father comes running down the road and throws his arms around him.
God’s love for us is so great. His compassion for us is so overwhelming that is bigger than his own pain. God’s love for us is bigger than even our shame. I use the word shame deliberately. There’s a difference between shame and guilt.
I’ve shared with you before, I know, the work of Brene Brown on shame. She’s written a number of books. She’s a sociologist here at University of Houston. Let me read to you what she says about shame and guilt: Shame drives two big tapes, “I’m never good enough,” and if you can’t talk yourself out of that one, “who do you think you are?” The thing to understand about shame is it’s not guilt. Shame is a focus on self. Guilt is a focus on behavior. Shame is “I am bad.” Guilt is “I did something bad.” Guilt says, “I’m sorry, I made a mistake.” Shame says, “I’m sorry, I am a mistake.” And here’s what you need to know. Shame is highly correlated with addiction, depression, violence, bullying, suicide, and eating disorders. And here’s what you need to know even more. That guilt is inversely correlated to these things. The ability to hold something we’ve done or failed to do up against who we want to be (and I’ll add who God made us to be) is incredibly adaptive. It’s uncomfortable but it’s adaptive.
When God looks at us with compassion he wipes the shame away. Yes, there’s guilt. Yes, there’s conviction about, “Yes, that’s a mistake.” But in that moment there’s this love of God that overwhelms that shame and helps us realize that we are still deeply loved by God, and nothing we can do can take that away.
The third thing that happens, happens a week and a half later. The resurrection has happened. The crucifixion. The Gospel of John says a week goes by and Jesus appears to the disciples a couple of times in that week. Then after a week has gone by the disciples, Peter, James, John, others, are out fishing on the Sea of Galilee. I don’t know why I find this scene so funny. Jesus appears to them early in the morning, at dawn, when they can barely see and he says, “Did you catch anything?” I don’t know why I find that funny. They say, “They’re not biting.” They’re using nets but I like the image otherwise. He says, “You might try throwing on the other side of your boat.” “Have you ever used one of those lures with a little spinner on it?” It’s almost like he’s giving fishing advice. They recognize him. They have breakfast together at a charcoal fire.
And then Jesus looks at Peter and says three times in a row, “Simon, son of John, do you love me?” Peter says, “Yes, of course Lord, you know I love you.” There’s a key phrase in this scripture, “You know everything Lord.” “You know I love you.” There’s no sense in which Jesus doesn’t know that Peter loves him. “Do you love me?” And, of course, him saying it three times has got to just ring … it was only a week and a half ago that Peter denied him three times. “Do you love me?” And he says, “Yes, Lord, you know I love you.” “Then feed my sheep.”
This is a word of commission. He had conviction, compassion, and now commission. This is like this conversation that happens at my house, not really but it could. “Tom, do you love me? And I say, “Yes, honey, you know I love you.” “Then take out the trash.” Right! “It’s overflowing, do you not see it?” The sense is if you really love me – yes, I know you love me - but do something with it. Use it. It is to propel us into ministry.
There’s a difference in being forgiven. Which we are. Of course we are forgiven. But we are more than forgiven. We are redeemed. Redeemed is more than being forgiven. To be redeemed says not only am I going to forgive your mistakes but I’m going to take your mistakes and I’m going to use them to accomplish my purposes in the world.
This cross that’s behind me was the biggest mistake you can imagine. And God used it to save the world. God takes even our biggest mistakes and uses them and he’s calling back to Peter’s denial. He’s calling him back to that because he wants to use that sense of contrast of Peter’s denial and his love and compassion for him on a cross. To use that sense of contrast to send Peter into ministry and to say, “I know you love me, now do something with it.”
Our mission statement at St. Luke’s is: We are one family in Jesus putting our faith to work in love. We always want to focus on putting our faith to work. Being an inside-out church. A church that reaches out, that does something in faith, not just ponder, but do something with our faith. It’s based on Galatians 5:6 where Pauls says, Neither circumcision nor uncircumcision matter. In other words religion doesn’t matter. He says the only thing that matters is faith working in love. If you wake up and say the only thing that matters you ought to pay attention. That’s what the scripture says, The only thing that matters is faith working in love.
Take this look that’s in Jesus eyes, this look of love, toward you, despite your mistakes, and use that to accomplish Jesus’ purposes in the world. To bring God glory.
I’m going to close with Peter Marshall again. He does it so well.
For every denial Jesus asked a pledge of love. Three times the question, “Simon, lovest thou me?” Three times the answer, and then the restoration. “Feed my lambs.” “Feed my sheep.” And when he had spoken this he sayeth unto him, “Follow me.” When next we see Simon he is Simon no more. But Peter, the rock. We see him fearless and eloquent, fire in his eyes, and his voice vibrant with conviction. Melodious with good news. His own will is gone, his Master’s will has taken it’s place. Peter stands up and preaches the gospel of his crucified and risen Lord. Is this Simon preaching a sermon? No, this is Peter. Simon which was - the rock had moved - but now is firmly established in the Gospel. The sinner, saint has become a witness. A pillar of strength to the brethren, an apostle to the ages. The same Jesus who called Simon is calling you. The same Jesus who saved Simon can save you. The same mighty hand will hold you up. The denials that you have made were made by Simon too. Yet he was restored. So may you be restored. Christ changed Simon into Peter. The sinner into saint. He can change your life too if you are willing.
Gracious and loving God, we confess to you. We know that you know those places in our lives when we have made such mistakes, when we have fallen so short, when we have broken your heart and the heart of others around us. People we love. Oh forgive us, God. Beyond your forgiveness we see your amazing compassion for us. And your amazing compassion for the whole world that you would redeem us and use us to share with the world to put into action your purposes to claim it again for yourself. So God, in this Holy season speak into our hearts and change us. Wipe away our shame and replace it with a confidence that comes only from your love. We pray in Christ’s name. Amen.