Ascension : From St Mary's Church
Submitted by The Islander (Clive & Jenny Duncan) 26.04.2007 (Article Archived on 10.05.2007)

Dear All, There are two calls of Peter related in the Gospels. Last Sunday we were told about his second calling.

Peter's first call occurred at the start of Jesus' ministry when he and his brother Andrew were fishermen and his second when Jesus appeared to the seven disciples by the Sea of Tiberias.

What we know is that there was a space between these calls and a lot of things happened for Peter.  He had learnt a lot about Jesus, about the task to which he had been called and of course about himself so when his second call came he was a lot wiser.

Everything that we heard in this story would undoubtedly bring back memories for Peter, the great haul of fish, the charcoal fire like the one in the courtyard when he had denied Jesus and those three searching questions.  That was the number of times he said he had nothing to do with Jesus. But this did not affect him in any way when the questions was put to him and he had to declare his love for Christ in public and having done so he was entrusted with the care of all Jesus' flock.

Jesus commands are the same for us today as it was for Peter and that is each of us can feed his lambs with the food of his word.

Canon Clive.