Day 9 | Grace Resets the Scene

Have you ever had one of those meals where it's a little awkward because you and your friends or family are sitting there with an elephant in the room? Everyone knows there’s a ‘thing’ but no one is really talking about ‘the thing.’ This is the vibe of the Scripture reading today where we find Jesus, Peter, and some of the other disciples eating breakfast a short time after Peter’s denial. The Scripture seems to imply that they ate the whole breakfast without talking about ‘the thing.’ The tension is palpable. 

When they finish eating, Jesus breaks the silence and asks Peter three consecutive times if he loves him. The text says that by the third time, Peter ‘felt hurt’ by Jesus asking him the same question three times. But how many times was Peter asked if he knew Jesus? Three. How many times did Peter deny Jesus? Three. So could it be that Jesus, full of grace and mercy, wasn’t trying to hurt Peter with his three questions, but that he was trying to heal him? It leads us to ask ourselves: Who do we have in our lives asking us the hard questions—not questions that hurt us but questions that heal? 

There are all types of fires in the Bible, but there were only two that were distinctly called “charcoal fires.” One was the fire around which Peter denied Jesus. The other fire was the fire that Jesus made on the shore that morning, where Jesus redeems Peter. Jesus resets the scene of Peter’s denial, and it is in this place that he restores him. What could have been a reminder of Peter’s greatest failure was reclaimed by the grace of God, and from then on, every time Peter would stand around a fire, it wouldn’t have triggered the shame of his past but rather the activation of God's grace in his life. If we are willing to meet Jesus in the places that we were wounded the deepest, we can see God perform his greatest miracles. If we are willing to go back to the scene of the wound, the mistake, the failure, the sin, and allow Jesus to reclaim that space, he can turn our mess into our miracle. 

Note that Jesus never mentions Peter denying him. He never even brings it up. Jesus doesn’t point in condemnation to our past. He points with compassion to our future. For he came not into the world to condemn it, but that the world might be saved through him.

Meet with Jesus around that wound again today, around that weakness again. Perhaps that space can be reclaimed by the glory of God. Let grace reset the scene, and what was once the place where you were most ashamed can now become the place where God performs his greatest miracles in your life.