Year 5, Day 269: John 21

Theological Commentary: Click Here

Discipleship Focus: Forgiveness

• Forgiveness: Forgiveness is when our sins are absolved by God.  We do not deserve this forgiveness, but God grants it to us anyway.  We cannot earn forgiveness, but God gives it to us anyway.  As we are forgiven by God, He also asks us to forgive others.  In fact, Jesus Himself teaches us to pray for our forgiveness in the Lord’s Prayer when He says, “Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.”

This passage has been my favorite passage of forgiveness since the time that I went to seminary and studied it in depth.  Here we see Jesus appear once more to His disciples.  Here we see Jesus continue the post resurrection teaching.  These are the same disciples that fled when Jesus was arrested in spite of their declaration that they would never abandon Him.  Jesus had every right to carry a grudge but He doesn’t.

But there is more to it than this.  Jesus takes an opportunity to sit down with Peter.  Jesus knows that when Peter was left to himself that he denied Jesus three times.  Left to his own strength, Peter wasn’t willing to give up his own life.  So Jesus sits down with Peter.  He personally eats with Peter.  He has a loving moment between disciple and mentor.

Three times Jesus asks Peter if he loves Him.  Three times Peter asserts that he does.  Jesus is giving Peter an opportunity to assert his love for Jesus for each time that Peter denied Jesus.  That’s forgiveness.  That’s what Jesus is about.  He isn’t one who holds onto grudges.  He is one who looks beyond our mistakes and seeks opportunities to give us another chance.

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