422 LOVE AND SERVICE
and succour in all difficulty ; He will guide with His counsel, and afterwards receive to glory, every meek soul that utters it. The profession of love to Christ is painful to hear. It is full of danger ; it is boastful, self-confident. He who makes it will have, by many a sore trial, through many a bitter experience of failure, to come to a humbler mind. ( It is not in what we are to Christ, but in what Christ is to us, that our rest and security lie. j
^ Observe the period of Peter's life when this confession is made. It is not his earliest confession ; he has been brought to it through painful self-knowledge ; it is the utterance of a tried maturity. It is a custom among many Christians to demand this as a pass-word to Christian fellowship ; to refuse the recognition of discipleship to all who cannot utter it. I cannot think that this is wise. To set young converts on an estimate of their feeling towards the Saviour, instead of encouraging them to trust in Him, is full of peril. Christian discipleship sometimes begins with love to Christ ; and singularly blessed are they with whom it does. But in other ways souls are drawn to Christ : the weary go to Him for rest, the guilty for pardon, the helpless for succour ; the dissatisfied, who long for a better life, seek the life that is in Christ. Such will say, " I trust in Christ," " I have found Christ," " I am following Christ " ; but the words, perhaps, halt on their lips, " I love Christ." It is not for us to insist on their utterance. They are not for our ears, but for His, And He knows how, from the trusting, the obedient, and the earnest, to draw at length the full confession, "Lord, thou knowest all things; thou knowest that I love thee." ^
(3) "Feed my lambs." There is variation in Christ's thrice repeated charge — " Feed my lambs," " Shepherd my sheep," " Feed my little sheep." All were to be cared for, and all modes of watchfulness and help were to be displayed. Fold as well as feed them ; guide and guard and heal them ; keep them from straying, strengthen the feeble, bind up the bruised, bring again that which is driven away, seek that which is lost.
3. Three questions, three answers, and three commands. — In this story St. Peter has been already three times the foremost. To him the Lord speaks, now not for the first time singling him out.
(1) The first question is, "Lovest thou me more than these ? " These words refer to an earlier time, the time when He had said to
> A. Maokennal, Chria's Hecdvng Touch, 178.
ST. JOHN XXI. 15-17 423
the disciples, " All ye shall be offended because of me this night," and St. Peter had replied, " Though all men shall be offended because of thee, yet will I never be offended." Yet he had fled with the rest. And when he came back to the house where his Lord was being tried, he three times denied Him. Was this like loving Him more than the rest ? Yet, again, his recent act might be looked at as a sign of his character, his leaping from the ship into the sea, and dragging the net alone. These words therefore did not convey a real reproach, but a lesson : the love might be the greatest, yet also the least to be trusted. There was a good beginning, but it had not ripened into its proper nature. St. Peter had learnt something by those humbling days. He answers " Yea " ; he could do that unflinchingly ; but he dares not claim to be above his brethren ; he drops, in answering, all allusion to them. Christ simply replies, " Eeed my lambs." He craved no personal cleaving to Himself, as man cleaves to man. He spoke only as the shepherd of the sheep, whose whole care was for the sheep for whom He had died. Such also must be the care of those who love Him. Henceforth St. Peter must show his love by his anxiety to sustain the life of other men ; that was to be the test of his love.
(2) A second time Christ repeats the question ; but now He needs not to recall the old boast ; He leaves out the words, " more than these." He would ask, putting aside all comparison with others, " Canst thou say that thou lovest me ? " The answer is the same as before — a full acknowledgment that He is Lord, a firm persuasion that his Lord knows him. Again Christ replies, slightly altering the expression, " Tend my sheep." Not only the lambs, the weak and ignorant, had to be fed, but even the strong and wise ones, the full-grown sheep, had to be ruled and guided. Mere pity for the helpless lambs was not enough. St. Peter must not think that there were any to whom he owed no duty.
(3) Once more Christ renews the question. Three times St. Peter had denied Him, and three times his love is to be proved. St. Peter's impatience breaks out. He thought it enough that Christ should try him once or at most twice. " He was grieved " ; he exclaimed at the seeming needlessness of the question : " Lord, thou knowest all things ; thou knowest that I love thee " — Thou canst find out .whether I love Thee or not. This is but a small