Third Sunday of Easter

May 4, 2025

John 20: 1-19

Do you think it is possible that Peter went out to cast his nets that night out of love? Peter very well could have been fishing because he missed Jesus; after all, Peter had first met Jesus while casting his nets with his brother on a day that, at the time, did not seem so different from any other day. In fact, it was a day that would change Peter’s life forever, just as this night of fishing would also.

It has been some period of time since the disciples saw Jesus in Jerusalem; Mark tells us that Jesus had told them to go to Galilee where he would appear to them. So, no doubt, Jesus was heavy on their minds. Peter and the others must have felt the need to go to places where they had first experienced Jesus who had changed their lives totally. They went from being fishermen, tax collectors, ordinary people, to those specially charged with following Jesus. They grew not only to respect and believe in him; they grew to love him. Love is what drew them on in this difficult shadow time. They must have said, “Let us go to where we first met him.”

Notice the trust and love among the disciples: as soon as the beloved disciple recognized Jesus and told Peter, “It is the Lord,” Peter jumped in feet first to get to the one he loved and was missing so much. Even though Peter did not at first recognize Jesus, he was ready to see and know him. 

Then Jesus asks the question, “Do you love me more than these,” and twice more “do you love me?” Peter answers, “Lord, you know everything, you know that I love you.” Now Peter sees with certainty that Jesus believed in his love, and that he had believed in it even since Jesus had first met Peter on that same shore. But now after living with Jesus for three years, seeing him suffer and die following Peter’s denial, only at this point did Peter discover that Jesus also needed his love too. Jesus said, “feed my sheep,” and Peter knew that the only mission he had left in life was that of loving Jesus Christ, and responding to that love that Jesus had given by living and spreading Jesus’ message to the whole world.

That is our mission too. We also take comfort and courage in the fact that Jesus’ love and mission to give his love to the world was entrusted to women who did not recognize him in the garden; to the two men on the road to Emmaus who could not reconcile Scripture and Calvary; to send a friend who denied him three times. Jesus gave this love and mission to us who are sinners, betrayers and weaklings, provided only that we love God. We are sent to give the life of the Risen Lord to all the world by means of the daily bread of our human love, a love that Jesus so valued that he died and rose for us to give us new life. What has been my response to the love Jesus has given, and to the love he seeks from me?

Fiddler on the Roof is a musical by Sheldon Harnick. It is based on the book Tevye and his Daughters by Joseph Stein, set in Czarist Russia in 1905. The story centers on Tevye, the father of five daughters and is forced to leave his village by the Czar. One day Tevye comes into the house and asks his wife, “Golda, do you love me?” “Do I what?” “Do you love me?” Golda looks at him and then responds: “Do I love you? With our daughters getting married and this trouble in the town, you’re upset. You’re worn out. Go inside, go lie down — maybe it’s indigestion.” Tevye interrupts and asks the question, “Golda, do you love me?” Golda sighs as she looked at him and says, “Do I love you? For 25 years I’ve washed your clothes, cooked your meals, cleaned your house, given you children, milked the cows. After 25 years, why talk of love right now?” Tevye answers by saying, “Golda, the first time I met you was on our wedding day. I was scared, I was shy, I was nervous.” “So was I,” said Golda. “But my father and my mother said we’d learn to love each other,” Tevye continued, “and now I’m asking, Golda, do you love me?” “Do I love him?” Golda sighs. “For 25 years I’ve lived with him, fought with him, 25 years my bed is his! If that’s not love, what is?” “Then you love me?” Tevye asks. “I suppose I do!” she says. “And I suppose I love you too!” he says. “It doesn’t change a thing, but after 25 years it’s nice to know.” “Do you love Me?” is the same question Jesus is asking Peter in the closing scene of the Gospel of John. Peter must have been a little shy after his denials of Jesus, but Jesus knows that Peter and the other disciples love him because they show him by going to Galilee and seeking places they had been with Jesus. They witness to Jesus in the face of opposition and persecution they accept martyrdom out of love for him. “If you love Me” Jesus had said “keep my commandments.” Show Me by loving others “as I have loved you.” That is how we show Jesus our love for him: “I give you a new commandment, love one another as I have loved you.”

Fr. John Tran