Easter Love
In one of his songs, singer Michael Bublé promises, ‘I’ll never not love you.’ It’s a lovely refrain, but is it true? Our love often blows hot and cold. Eventually, even the best love dies with us. Is there a real, ‘I’ll never not love you’ love? Yes! It’s the love of Easter.
Let me explain that love to you through the eyes of Simon Peter. At that first Easter when Jesus faces the cross, he knows the agony, sorrow, pain and anguish before him, yet all the while he relentlessly loves Simon Peter. In the exchanges between Jesus and Peter, we can learn what true Easter love is.
Easter love prays
As Jesus predicts Peter’s denial, he says:
Simon, Simon, Satan has asked to sift all of you as wheat. But I have prayed for you, Simon, that your faith may not fail. And when you have turned back, strengthen your brothers. But he replied, ‘Lord, I am ready to go with you to prison and to death.’ Jesus answered, ‘I tell you, Peter, before the rooster crows today, you will deny three times that you know me’ (Luke 22:31-34).
Jesus loves Peter. He knows that Peter will fail him and let him down, falling headlong into sin. Yet, still, Jesus loves him. Jesus will not stop loving him. He will never not love Peter. John puts it like this, ‘Having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end’ (John 13:1).
Easter love warns
Jesus is in complete anguish in the garden of Gethsemane, yet still, he loves Peter. Despite his own anguish at the cross, on which he will bear the penalty of sin for us, Jesus keeps coming back to Peter. He warns him to watch and pray:
Then he returned to his disciples and found them sleeping. ‘Simon,’ he said to Peter, ‘Are you asleep? Couldn’t you keep watch for one hour? Watch and pray so that you will not fall into temptation’ (Mark 14:37-38).
Having told Peter that he will deny Jesus three times, Jesus lovingly warns him three times. Yet even when Peter falls into temptation and ignores the warning of love, still Jesus will never not love Peter.
Easter love looks
All the gospel writers record Peter’s denial, but Luke alone records ‘the look’:
Peter replied, ‘Man, I don’t know what you’re talking about!’ Just as he was speaking, the rooster crowed. The Lord turned and looked straight at Peter. Then Peter remembered the word the Lord had spoken to him: ‘Before the rooster crows today, you will disown me three times.’ And he went outside and wept bitterly (Luke 22:60-62).
Jesus turns and looks straight at Peter the moment he denies him. What was in that look? If it were you or I catching our friend denying us, would it not be a look of anger, indignance or at best disappointment? Yet Jesus’ look led Peter to turn back in repentance. It was a look of winsome love. ‘I’ll never not love you’ love was in his eyes.
John Newton wrote a hymn about a ‘look’ from Jesus:
A second look he gave, which said,
‘I freely all forgive;
This blood is for thy ransom paid,
I die, that thou may’st live.’
Jesus’ look stings our hearts with the truth of our sin, and yet his look says ‘I freely all forgive’. It displays Jesus’ tender heart towards those who have sinned against him.
Easter love never ends
Mark records two simple yet wonderful words at the end of his gospel. An angel is sent to announce the news that Jesus has risen from the dead:
‘Don’t be alarmed,’ he said, ‘You are looking for Jesus the Nazarene, who was crucified. He has risen! He is not here. See the place where they laid him. But go, tell his disciples and Peter …’ (Mark 16:6).
Did you notice those two words, ‘and Peter’? Broken and bereft, Peter had disowned the Lord but those two words show that Jesus will never not love Peter. I don’t know what you have said or done in your life, the sins you have committed or the regrets you still have. I don’t know if you have ignored any warnings or looks from Jesus but I do know that you can put your name in the place of Peter’s, by faith today. What precious words they are! Jesus loves you by name. Sin does not stop Easter love.
Easter love is one-to-one
In 1 Corinthians 15, Paul writes that Jesus ‘appeared to Cephas [Peter], and then to the Twelve’ (1 Cor. 15:5). Luke records this moment too: ‘The Lord has risen and has appeared to Simon’, Simon being Peter’s other name (Luke 24:24).
We know nothing of what passed between them in that first resurrection one-to-one but we do know that when Jesus was raised from the dead, he made a beeline for Peter, the one who denied him. Jesus sought him out. He went to Peter in his brokenness, his sin and his tears. Jesus wiped away every tear with a love that will never stop.
Jesus can do the same for you. In the face of our nail-hammering, tongue-wagging, self-obsessing sin, if we turn back in tears of repentance, we see by faith a beeline of Easter love in Jesus.
Easter love restores
Peter had denied the Lord three times, Jesus says, ‘Watch and pray,’ three times, and then he asks Peter, ‘Do you love me?’ three times. The answer that Peter feels leaping out of his heart is, ‘You know that I love you!’
The unbreakable, unrelenting love of Jesus does not just pay the penalty for our sin. This ‘I’ll never not love you’ love, draws Easter love out of our hearts.
Jesus asks us the same question, ‘Do you love me?’ Despite our sin which denies, mocks and spits at Jesus, he offers us mercy.
Jesus knew that Peter would deny him, yet he prayed for him, lovingly warned him, gave him a look of love and went ahead of him to Galilee. There Jesus appeared to Peter and restored him to follow Jesus. This is Easter love. It’s unstoppable, unbreakable, unending love. We all, like Peter, have fallen short in our sins, ‘But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: while we were still sinners, Christ died for us (Rom. 5:8).
I pray that you would truly know the Saviour’s limitless love this Easter. A love that would stretch out his arms on a cross, suffer and die in your place, and rise to life again. A love that is making a beeline for you right now. The ‘I’ll never not love you’ love of Jesus.
