“It was cold, and the servants and officials stood around a charcoal fire they had made to keep them warm. Peter was also standing with them, warming himself.” (John 18:18)
“When they landed, they saw a fire of burning charcoal there with fish on it, and some bread.” (John 21:9)
I came across this thought in a recent sermon from Darrell Johnson titled Jesus the Healer: He Gives Us a New Past. It’s a well documented observation concerning the literary design of John’s Gospel, in this case narrowing in on the explicit use of the term “anthrakia” (the Greek word for “charcoal fire.”). As Johnson states, wherever John is specifically naming a person or thing we are supposed to take notice.
There are only two places in the NT where this word is used, both in the Gospel according to John (see the above verses) and both in relationship to Peter. Both instances are framed by the pattern of 3, in chapter 18 Peter denying his association and friendship with Jesus 3 times, and in chapter 21 Peter affirming his love for Jesus 3 times.
Reading through these chapters this morning, I was struck by another set of three that bridges these two scenes in chapter 20. It concerns the initial question raised following the discovery of the empty tomb-
‘They have taken the Lord out of the tomb, and we don’t know where they have put him.” (20:2).
he text tells us both that the proper burial practices relating to Jewish Law remained important;, but equally states that they had no sense that they might encounter their resurrected Lord instead. The assumption upon encountering an empty tomb is that the body was taken and that they desired to recover it, something that meets the urgency of Mary Magdalene running to find the disciples.
It is here where we then get three seperate responses to encountering the appearance of a resurrected Jesus. The first is the beloved disciple, whom I argued in my recent blog post (A Fresh Perspective on the Beloved Disciple) is a resurrected Lazarus. The text states that upon finding the burial cloth, the same burial cloth that we find mentioned one other time in relationship to the raising of Lazarus, that the beloved disciple “believes.” The second account is of Mary. Here Mary believes upon hearing her Lord “speak her name.” The familiarity of a voice that, when placed within this specific narrative, calls us back to earlier chapters which establish this notion of “listening” as central to her relationship to Jesus. The third account is Thomas, whom, the text describes, will only believe when we he has been given tangible and physical evidence of Jesus’ scars and holes. Being given this evidence, he then believes.
Three very different ways in which three very different people come to believe that the resurrection of Jesus is indeed true. This reflects the different ways each of us encounters such a truth, even where we might remain unaware of precisely what we need and require to believe in such a truth.
It’s also significant to find that Chapter 20 ends with the summarizing statement, “these (words) are written so that YOU may believe.” (20:31) An invitation to see and encounter the same truth from the vantage point of our differences. It could be said that the question itself taps into something universal: “where is God.” And yet the ways we engage this truth contains a certain dynamism and particularity. We engage this truth with our own and full distinct selves in tow, and what leads one person to believe will look completely different than the next.
Which brings me back to Peter’s story in chapters 18 and 21. By the time we reach chapter 21 Peter believes the resurrected Jesus to be true. So much so that upon hearing his Lord’s voice echoing from the shoreline he jumps in the water fully clothed (let’s not bypass the apparent customary practice of being in the book completely naked- different times) and swam to him. A powerful picture that conjures up the story of Peter both walking on the water and similtaneously sinking, the image of Jesus reaching out His hands to grab Peter now being set within a larger and more comprehensive picture of Jesus’ denial and now restoration.
Not inconsequetionally, this is stated to be the third time Jesus has appeared to His disciples.
The important observation here- the question doesn’t stop at a matter of “belief.” Here it pushes further to the necessary question that follows an encounter with the resurrected Jesus- “do you love me.” This question of love sits at the heart of the Gospel according to John, and however it is that we find ourselves coming face to face with the truth of Jesus, this is the much more difficult thing to grapple with.
As Jesus’ repeated question posed to Peter around this charcoal fire indicates, it is difficult precisely because of the demands belief makes to actually live in and take up faithful residence in this reality that sits between the two polarizing forces at play in creation- death and resurrection. While Peter’s three denials of knowing Jesus comes in the face of Jesus’ own crucifixion, Jesus pointedly sets Peter’s three repeated confessions of love against the reality of Peter’s own death. I wrote about this in my previous post regarding the beloved disciple being Lazarus, but once again that basic observation helps to illuminate this particular text and give it a fresh relevance. What is Peter’s response to Jesus’ claim that he will die? He points to Lazarus and asks, “but what about him?” Jesus’ reply: this is about you, not him. You, Jesus says, must follow me.
What struck me about Peter’s reaction is two essential things, both of which speak into my own life in very particular ways. First, we, or I, often see belief as the hardest part of faith. Perhaps this is born from a modern context that has now reduced belief to scientific knowledge. Since, as the sentiment often goes, there is no scientific evidence for God’s existence, belief must be relegated to the arena of faith. This is even valorized to a degree: to believe is to have faith in the absence of evidence. This is the core purpose of the Christian Tradition. To be otherwise would mean it is not faith.
And yet, not only does the 3 fold witness of different paths to belief in chapter 20 undercut this, but Peter’s own story challenges this notion by saying actually, belief is a doorway into the much more difficult part called faith- living our beliefs. This is, it would seem, a truer understanding of what faith was to the world behind the text. To believe is something we cannot help. We cannot force ourselves to believe or not to believe. It is a result of a truth intersecting with that part of ourselves that then reformulates this from an uncertain question into basic intuition.
In the case of chapter 20: I know this cloth. I know this voice. I know these holes and these scars.
To love though is something entirely different. To love is to follow. It is to live that belief in the space between those two realized tensions- death and resurrection.
I can’t help but think of this now through the lens of Peter and Lazarus- the statment that these words are written so that WE might believe becomes the invitation to live between the tension of Peter (death) and Lazarus (resurrection). How? By following Jesus, the one who embodies both of these things as the resurrected one who also ascends to the throne. The one who participates in both of these things to their fullest ends, and whom brings about the promised transformation and the coming kingdom. What Jesus inaugerates in his death, resurrection and ascencion is, according to the Gospel of John, the express invitation to live (or to love) in the overlap of the ages. The inbetween space. How? Through the powerful truth that Jesus has sent His Spirit to dwell with us in this tension filled space.
The second essential thing is simply this. The raising of Lazarus is commonly seen and cited as Jesus’ greatest miracle. Certainly in the Gospel of John it stands at the center of this narrative about the Word made flesh. How often do we, or I, want to exchange our present reality for such a miracle? When asking that dangerous question, “do you love me,’ confronts the nature of my own belief, is my tendency to retreat back into that belief where such tensions can be shoved under the rug, to keep on asking the same questions over and over again (Paul uses the analogy of milk instead of solid food), or is it to step into a life of faith where the tension can and must be embraced?
I admit, for me I do the former far more readily than the latter.
Further yet, how much more difficult is this quesiton when I’m looking acrosss the room at someone elses evidenced miracle and asking “but what about them?” Why do they get that miracle and I don’t? Here’s the irony of such a tendency, which is only far too real- but of course, such a question quickly forgets what brought us to believe in the first place.
Here’s where my thought process is at in this- belief is challenged not by the lack of whatever it is that we need to believe, rather it is challenged by the subsquent call to love in that space where the tension between death and resurrection becomes all too real. I am reminded of those words, “What is that to you? YOU must follow me.” I can imagine the words “where you are” helping to capture the weight of this sentiment.
To imagine Peter looking across that fire into the face of Jesus’ death is, in the narrative interest of John, to equally find himself looking across that fire into the face of His resurrection. In this space inbetween, one of the most powerful things that emerges from these two contrasting portraits is the way the first is framed by retreat and fear of judgment and the latter is framed by liberation and grace. Which is to say, the tension is real, the tension is difficult, but love is more powerful precisely because it liberates us from the trappings of belief apart from a life of participation. As Johnson so articulately puts it, love does not judge our belief for its natural resistance to the tensions of life, rather it is the thing that always makes another fire no matter what and continues to persist in posing that fresh question.
We find this in our participation in the eucharist as well. The memory that calls us back to that place of belief, but which never leaves us there. The culmination is always found in the sending, in the charge. Go in love. Go in the freedom to love.
The Stories of my Life 