It is recorded in John 21:15-17 that after his resurrection, while sharing breakfast together, Jesus asked Peter three times if he loved him. It is obvious that to Jesus, it was extremely important that Peter expresses clearly and unequivocally that he loved Jesus. A positive and affirmative answer would be for Jesus a crystal-clear sign that Peter was truly ready for his future ministry.
I am certain that there are scripture scholars who have said that asking Peter three times the same question “Do you love me?” is a way of Peter overcoming the three painful denials that Peter was so guilty of before Jesus was crucified on the cross of Calvary. Peter knew in his heart of hearts that he did consciously and purposely denied Jesus three times.
There are two words in Greek that are used for love. The first is agape love, which is the love that is unconditional. The first two times Jesus asked Peter the question, he used the word agape. So, in essence, Jesus was asking Peter if he loved Jesus unconditionally.
However, the way Peter answers Jesus the first two times, he used the word phileo, which is a brotherly/friendship type of love. In essence, while Jesus asked Peter if he loved him unconditionally, Peter answered that he loved him in a brotherly and friendly way. It was a wrong answer that Jesus got from Peter.
But the third time Jesus asked Peter the question, he used the same phileo word for love, and Peter responded by saying “Lord, you know everything; you know that I love you.” In asking Peter to love him in an agape way, he was asking Peter to stretch his love to a more unconditional kind. He couldn’t. So, Jesus, from his charitable and loving heart, came down to Peter’s level, and met him at his smallness of his heart.
Jesus was readying Peter’s heart to love his sheep in a sacrificial and effortful way.
As the programme of Marriage Encounter stresses so clearly, love is at its root, a decision. This is of utmost importance because the problem with so many people, love is much more a feeling or a sentiment, and couples in many years of married life are often yearning and searching for that sentiment they experienced when they were in their courtship years. They long to have that feeling all over again, because it was so easy and delightful to love when they had those feelings.
But the problem lies in the fact that feelings and sentiments are things that affect the very weak and momentary movements of the human heart. Every human heart has its ups and downs, and because of its fluctuations, a sentiment or feeling doesn’t last for a very long time.
But when love is understood to be a decision, it changes everything. It means that no matter what happens, no matter what pains and turmoil that the human heart can experience, the love that was declared and vowed at the wedding altar before the priest and the gathered community of family and friends perseveres and will not be shaken.
This understanding of love (that love is a decision) is what holds a married couple’s love strong and is an unmovable stalwart amidst the trials and temptations of life. But if love is only a sentiment or feeling, it can easily fall apart once the pain of trials and temptations make their unwanted presence felt.
But I do understand that arriving at this strong definition of true love is not something automatic, and that it takes time. That is why couples planning on getting married need to go for marriage preparation courses to be exposed to the critical instructions on decision-based love before reaching the altar on their wedding.
It would be extremely helpful if this was taught to us in our secondary school days, but as it is, there are so many subjects that teenagers have to learn before their very important ‘O’ level examinations at the age of 16 years. They would probably not treat this as something that is critical for their adult years later on.
If we priests base our love only on feelings and sentiments, so many of us would easily have stopped being loving shepherds to the members of our parishes. But most of us know that love is a decision, and it’s a vital part of the commitment we made on the day that we were ordained as priests by our bishop.
Ultimately, love is not a many splendored thing. Rather, love is a commitment and a decision, and we are reminded of this whenever we cast our eyes on the image of Jesus crucified on his cross on Calvary. That, dear reader, is an unmistakable display of how deep a decision it was when Jesus gave up his life to save us sinners.
