Read Today's Scripture
In the meantime
While Paul remains imprisoned in Jerusalem, there is a change in the Roman bureaucracy (similar to how ambassadors to foreign domains have a term limit): Felix is replaced by Festus. And now Festus has to figure out what to do with Paul and his witness regarding Christ, a case that he seemingly has little to no knowledge of. So, to help him decide, he deliberates with Agrippa, all this time while Paul remains imprisoned on trumped up charges. This bureaucratic mess serves to show us something true about the world: with every passing generation, the world deliberates amongst itself what to do about us Christians and our testimony about Christ. But while it deliberates amongst itself, what are we to do in the meantime? Although Jesus’ interactions with Peter in today’s John’s Gospel can be interpreted as a special kind of commissioning of Peter, the passage is not in Scripture just as a historical artifact of Peter’s leadership for our sakes. Rather, it is the Church’s spiritual instruction for what we are supposed to do in these days. Jesus’ threefold questioning to Peter, “do you love me?” is a redemptive reversal of Peter’s threefold earlier denial of Jesus, “I do not know the man!” (Jn 18:15-18, 25-27). Every denial and reaffirmation is a kind of re-denial of the three entities that seek to destroy us—our fleshly and sinful desires, the world, and allegiance to the devil; and our reaffirmation of our love for Christ. But notice that Jesus follows every response of Peter with this command: “feed”. Thus, in the meantime, while the world deliberates our witness and Christ’s lordship, we are still commanded to faithfully feed those that Christ loves. Through our actions, our generosity, our prayers, our kindness, we feed those that Christ loves. And in the meantime, this is all that matters.
Collect
O God, who by the resurrection of thy Son hast given unto us a new birth into eternal life: Lift our hearts, we beseech thee, to our Savior, who sitteth at thy right hand, that, when he shall come again, we who have been reborn in Baptism may be clothed in a glorious immortality; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.