One Way Love: Inexhaustible Grace for an Exhausted World (9 page)

This is important. As Paul Zahl writes, “One-way love is inscrutable or irrational not only because it is out of relation with the intrinsic circumstances on the part of the receiver. One-way love is also irrational because it reaches out to the specifically undeserving person. This is the beating heart of it.”
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The Gospel is addressed not to the godly but the ungodly (Rom. 5:6), not just those who are down on their luck or brokenhearted and suffering, but to perpetrators themselves—tax collectors, prostitutes, murderers, adulterers. Not just theoretical sinners, but actual flesh-and-blood repeat offenders like me. We celebrate this aspect of one-way love when it is directed our way, but like the Pharisees, we hate it when it is directed at our enemies.

No one in the Bible is more of a repeat offender than the apostle Peter, the so-called “rock” upon which the church is built. His consistent ineptitude is almost comic, or at least it would be, were he not also the one who Jesus appointed to be their chief representative. As you may remember from Sunday school, Jesus called Simon Peter (and his brother Andrew) while they were fishing by the Sea of Galilee. He immediately left his family business and followed the Lord. After he answered Jesus’s famous question, “Who do you say that I am?” correctly, Jesus changed his name from Simon to Peter, which means
rock
. Peter lived with Jesus for three and a half years, witnessed many miracles, and heard his teaching. He was part of Jesus’s inner circle of three (Peter, James, and John) and was clearly captivated by the Lord and his teaching. Peter was the one who asked Jesus to explain parables, the one who asked for more clarification about forgiveness. He had given up everything for the Lord he deeply loved (see Matt. 19:27), and he loved his Savior more than he had ever loved anyone.

And yet, his track record was abysmal. A few bullet points from his spiritual resume:

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When Jesus told him to walk on water, Peter was afraid and sank. (Matt. 14:22–33)

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Peter tried to persuade Jesus that he would not have to die and received the following reply: “Get behind me, Satan! You are a stumbling block to me; you do not have in mind the concerns of God but merely human concerns.” (Matt. 16:23
NIV
)

•
He fell asleep in Gethsemane three times, despite the explicit instructions of his sorrowful Lord, who asked him, “Could you not watch one hour?” (Mark 14:32–42)

•
When the guards came to arrest Jesus in Gethsemane, Peter drew his sword and Jesus rebuked him for it. (John 18:11)

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After Jesus was arrested, Peter denied him three times, after being told by Jesus—in no uncertain terms—that he was going to do so. (Mark 14:26–31, 66–72)

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When he and John got word that Jesus had risen, they both ran to the empty tomb. It was a race Peter lost. (John 20:4)

Apart from his being the first to acknowledge that Jesus was the Christ, the son of God, almost everything he did in the Gospels ended in a correction, a rebuke, or just simple failure. It is hard to imagine how to be a worse disciple than Peter, short of rejecting the faith entirely, once and for all. He could be relied upon to
fail
at doing God’s bidding, with one or two salient exceptions. Yet these exceptions were enough for Jesus to proclaim that he was the rock. Why?

It is no coincidence that Peter was both the weakest and the one who recognized who Jesus was. He could recognize the Savior, because he knew how much he needed one. His faith was directly tied to his failure. As Richard Rohr once wrote, “The great and merciful surprise is that we come to God not by doing it right but by doing it wrong!”
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BREAKFAST ON THE BEACH

It gets better though. After the resurrection, the disciples left Jerusalem to return to Galilee. There, by the Sea of Tiberius, Jesus appeared once again to seven of his fearful disciples, but not in anger, disappointment, or judgment. He came to cook breakfast for them:

Just as day was breaking, Jesus stood on the shore; yet the disciples did not know that it was Jesus. Jesus said to them, “Children, do you have any fish?” (John 21:4–5)

Consider how the Author of one-way love addressed his unbelieving disciples, those who deserted him during his greatest time of need, those who struggled to believe he had risen from the dead. He called them his “children.” This word can, of course, be used for one’s biological children, but it was also used for “a person of any age for whom there is a special relationship of endearment.”
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He called them his
dear children
.

Jesus then asked them whether they had caught any fish during their night of labor, although he already knew they hadn’t. “Cast the net on the right side of the boat, and you will find some,” he said. The understatement is astounding. You can almost see him smiling to himself, knowing that they won’t just find some, they will be so overwhelmed with fish that their nets may break. Given their dismal performance in Jerusalem, the disciples had every reason to expect punishment, but Jesus had other plans. He knew they were hungry after fishing all night, so he had a charcoal fire ready with food cooking on it. He cared about their hunger, their need.

If you believe that Jesus loves and blesses only “good people,” those who stand faithfully in times of trial, never deny him, and always trust and obey, then you’ll have a hard time explaining Jesus the short-order cook. If we believe in tit for tat, then what these men had earned was to be shunned and shamed. Where were they when Jesus was in need? When he was hungry and thirsty? When he was in agony? Instead of leaving these turncoats to themselves and finding others who would be more faithful, he gave them yet another gift—not just the disciples in general, but Peter specifically:

When 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.” He said to him, “Feed my lambs.” He said to him a second time, “Simon, son of John, do you love me?” He said to him, “Yes, Lord; you know that I love you.” He said to him, “Tend my sheep.” He said to him the third time, “Simon, son of John, do you love me?” Peter was grieved 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 21:15–17)

Again, consider the scene: Peter’s stomach was full. His Lord, whom he loved, had returned, yet the awkwardness of Peter’s failures hung in the air. Jesus took him aside for a private stroll down the beach (see John 21:20). Maybe he walked off with him so Peter wouldn’t be humiliated in front of the others, who knows? But their conversation was one for the ages.

Three times during this interaction, Jesus addressed Peter as Simon, his “old” name (Matt. 16:14–18). It was in the context of Peter’s proclamation of Christ’s identity that Jesus gave him his new name. Jesus called him by that old name, Simon, to remind him of his identity outside of Christ: Simon the Poor, Simon the Fisherman, Simon the Loser, Simon the Coward. The word
Simon
, in this sense, is a word of Law.

Jesus asked Simon if he loved him, not once, but three times—the same number of times that Peter had denied him, a coincidence that was clearly not lost on Peter. He realized that the Lord saw him as he was, and whatever sham facade he had been parading in those intervening weeks and months was shattered. Jesus knew Peter’s heart better than Peter did himself.

Once Peter was completely dressed down, instead of stripping him of his “post,” Jesus did the opposite: he gave him
more
responsibility. Peter had been spectacularly unreliable, and yet Jesus reinstated him as “rock.” Irrational, inscrutable, the opposite of a good idea—this is how Christ chooses to work in the world. The wonderful truth is that Jesus doesn’t need perfect vessels to accomplish his will. He needs broken ones—men and women who have been slain, humiliated, disillusioned of all their “I can do it, really I can!,” “This time I’ll try harder!,” “Just give me a little more time and some secret steps, and I’ll get it together!” self-deception.

Peter was an utter failure on every level, but Jesus commissioned and used him anyway. Why? Because the success of the church doesn’t rest on Peter’s good—albeit deluded—confessions. It does not rest on us, on our collective abilities or progress
at all
.

The feeding and tending of Christ’s flock wasn’t contingent upon Peter’s abilities, his track record, or even his love for Christ. Jesus didn’t need Peter any more than God needed Jonah. Christ’s overflowing love restores Peter
for Peter’s sake
. He met Peter’s failure head-on, in the full light of a morning by the shore, restored him, and commissioned him three times. Remember: Jesus is the one doing the feeding here, not Peter. Did he spend the night fishing? Sure. But how did that work out? They’d caught nothing! So Jesus built a fire and directed fish into their nets and fed them. Then he told Simon, “Feed my sheep.” How could he do that? Only because Jesus already had all the feeding that needed to be done well in hand.

Right on the heels of Peter’s most disqualifying behavior, Jesus commissioned him. Human wisdom—the wisdom of this world—has no system or plan for dealing with the mistakes of yesterday. What does the wisdom of this world have to say to you and me in the darkness of night, when we are feeling overwhelmed and guilty about yesterday’s failures? When we have done the one thing we told ourselves we would never do? Sure, it can assure us that we’re not so bad, that these failures are not our fault, but the world’s hollow assurances do nothing to assuage the knowledge of our utter failure to palliate our guilt and shame. All the world can do is hand us over to the assaults of conscience or, when our conscience has been so repeatedly bruised and seared, to the dreary deadness and dullness of living life detached from hope. I know firsthand what the world has to offer us in terms of yesterday’s failures and the guilt we own: get drunk, fall in love with yourself, buy more things, work harder, tell yourself you’re really okay after all.

TOO GOOD TO (NOT) BE TRUE

The one-way love of God meets us in our failures. Our failures make His one-way love that much more glorious. What qualifies us for service is God’s devotion to us—not our devotion to Him. This is as plainly as I can say it: the value of our lives rests on God’s infinite, incomprehensible, unconditional love for us—not our love for Him. Such relief! We can finally exhale!

When Kim and I took such a right turn all those years ago, and I embraced the faith I had so publicly walked away from, I remember being asked, “What was it about God that was finally so attractive to you? That drew you back to Him?” The answer is a simple yet radical one: God had given me so much—a loving family, a remarkable heritage. I had squandered it all, and He had continued to come after me. His forbearance and His kindness, in the midst of my open rebellion, was just too magnetic in the long haul. It is, after all, the kindness of the Lord that leads to repentance (Rom. 2:4). I didn’t deserve it then, and I don’t deserve it now.

But wait. Does this mean our failures are somehow victories? That Peter’s weakness was a good thing? That my scandalous behavior was any less shortsighted, wrong, or hurtful? No!

This is an extremely important point. The one-way love of God is restorative and reconciling because in the mystery of His cross, God has neutralized the effects of sin, forgiven its offense, blotted out its stain, expiated its guilt, and created a new beginning. “As far as the east is from the west, so far does he remove our transgressions from us” (Ps. 103:12). Thanks to Jesus’s sacrifice on my behalf, the sins I cannot forget, God cannot remember. Jesus is not waving some magic wand or being dishonest about who Peter was (or who we are). He is acting on the firm foundation of what his death on our behalf has accomplished. There is nothing cheap about the grace he offers repeat offenders. On the contrary—it cost him everything!

The Gospel announces that Jesus came to acquit the guilty. He came to judge and be judged in our place. Christ came to satisfy the deep judgment against us once and for all so we could be free from the judgment of God, others, and ourselves. Jesus came to unburden us of our efforts at trying to deal with judgment on our own.

In his letter to the Colossians, the apostle Paul announces, “And you, who were dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made alive together with him, having forgiven us all our trespasses, by canceling the record of debt that stood against us with its legal demands. This he set aside, nailing it to the cross” (Col. 2:13–14).

The Gospel declares that our guilt has been atoned for, the Law has been fulfilled. In Christ, the ultimate demand has been met, the deepest judgment has been satisfied. Jesus took on himself all the judgment we deserve from God, so we can be free from the paralyzing fear of judgment. There are no ifs, ands, or buts. We no longer need to live under the burden of trying to appease the judgment we feel, full stop.

In fact, the judgment we feel is just that: a feeling—no longer a reality. We may judge others, and they may judge us; we may judge ourselves, but God does not. His love is one-way, and it is inexhaustible. This is not just good news, this is the
best
news: the assurance that in our darkest moments, when you and I, as a last resort, come knocking on “heaven’s door,” the voice that greets us is the same one that met Jean Valjean that fateful night:

You are suffering; you are hungry and thirsty; you are welcome. And don’t thank me; don’t tell me that I am taking you into my house. This is the home of no man, except the one who needs a refuge. I tell you, a traveler, you are more at home here than I; whatever is here is yours. Why would I have to know your name?… Your name is my brother.
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NOTES