A Riff on John 21
“Peter, there is work for you to do. … I want you to feed my lambs. I want you to look after my sheep. I want you to feed my sheep. I want you to be you, because I love you and I have redeemed you; and I want you to work for me, because out there there are other people that I love, and I want you to be my word-become-flesh, my love sitting with them, praying with them, crying with them, celebrating with them. And how can you do it? By coming the way I came. You’ll have to suffer a lot, because you will have to share the pain of the world if the world is to be healed through you, through me-in-you. You’ll have to learn to listen to the pain of the world, to hear its silent crying as well as its strident and angry crying, and it will break your heart day by day as it broke mine. But I have sheep out there, and they need feeding, Peter, and I want you to do it for me. And don’t worry about knowing how to go about it. All you have to do is follow me.”
— N.T. Wright, The Crown and the Fire