3rd Sunday Easter - Year C

Feed my lambs. Tend my sheep.  Feed my sheep.  With this triple imperative, the risen Jesus opened the way for Peter to come out of his despair and experience redemption.  He who had vehemently denied his discipleship (Jn. 18:17, 25-27), as well as any association with Jesus, was given the opportunity to renew his love for Jesus.  Jesus’ words to Peter not only helped to assuage his guilt, but they also set the agenda for the rest of his life - and ours.  “Feed my lambs” would become the agenda of the post resurrection  church.

Feeding Jesus’ sheep would challenge Peter to abandon his ancestors’ centuries–old practice of remaining separate from non-Jews and to accept all people as belonging to the one flock of Christ.  That would challenge Peter, as is illustrated in today’s Gospel (Jn. 21:1-19), to welcome all into one boat (bark of Peter) and the one net of salvation.  Feeding and pasturing Jesus’ sheep also meant that Peter and others would work so that John’s vision of the Lord, as shared in today’s second reading (Rev. 5:11-14) would eventually be realized and that the voices of every creature would unite to render praise and honour and glory to Jesus and to God forever.

Feeding Jesus’ sheep would soon find Peter exercising a healing ministry in the same manner of Jesus.  For healing, teaching, and preaching in Jesus’ name, i.e., for feeding the hungers of Jesus’ sheep, Peter and the other disciples would incur the wrath and the hostility of the authorities, first of Jerusalem and then of Rome.  Their bravery and boldness in the face of such personal danger is evidenced in today’s first reading (Acts 5:27-32).

While contemporary believers can readily appreciate the challenge of Peter’s agenda, what are the ramifications of that agenda for us today?  For the answer to that question, Henri Nouwen says, first we have to ask ourselves Jesus’ question: “Do you love me?”  Perhaps another way of asking that question would be, “How do you love my least ones?”  Jesus equated loving him with feeding and tending his sheep.  Therefore  let us, as church, be renewed in our resolve to make our love for Jesus real by feeding and tending others.