In the play My Fair Lady the heroine sings: “Don’t talk of love
Lasting through time Make me no undying vow Show me now.” Something similar seems to be going on in the post-Resurrection encounter between Peter and Jesus at the Sea of Tiberius. “Simon, son of John, do you love me?” Simon Peter answered him, “Yes, Lord, you know that I love you.” Jesus said to him, “Tend my sheep.” No doubt Peter thought that he loved Jesus when they were walking the dusty roads of Galilee. But as Eliza Doolittle reminds us talk is cheap. Let’s see some action. If Peter truly loved Jesus it would be shown in how he cared for the face of Christ that he saw in “the sheep,” the people woven into his life. (Remember Jesus said “Whatsoever you do to the least, that you do unto me.”) There is an old spiritual with the refrain, “Is there anybody here who loves my Jesus?” we answer that question not by having warm, fuzzy feelings in our hearts but by acting for the benefit of others.
