John 21: The Pilgrimage | Where the Compass Points
“Lord, you know everything; you know that I love you.”
— John 21:17
It had been a long few weeks: the arrest, the courtyard, and the Cross.
Then came the empty tomb and the news that Jesus was alive.
Peter had seen the Lord, but he still carried a burden he could not seem to leave behind. Failure has a way of staying with us. Sometimes the memory fades. Other times it follows us through life, nudging, gnawing, and haunting.
We replay what happened. We wonder what we could have done differently. We remember the person we believed ourselves to be before our actions showed us something else.
Peter thought he knew himself. He was certain he would not fail Jesus, not this time, not ever. Jesus told him that he would deny Him, but Peter could not imagine it.
“Even if I must die with you, I will not deny you.”
— Matthew 26:35
I do not think Peter was pretending. I believe he meant every word.
He loved Jesus. He believed his loyalty would hold. He believed Peter knew Peter.
Then, beside a charcoal fire in the courtyard, a servant girl recognized him.
Peter denied knowing Jesus. He denied Him three times, and the rooster crowed.
Then the certainty Peter had placed in himself collapsed.
Luke tells us that Jesus turned and looked at Peter. Peter remembered what Jesus had foretold, went out, and wept bitterly (Luke 22:61–62).
Jesus knew Peter better than Peter knew himself.
The man named Rock discovered how easily human confidence can crumble. Yet Jesus did not withdraw the name. He did not abandon the man carrying it.
John 21 begins after the Resurrection, but before Peter and the disciples fully comprehend what it means that Jesus is alive. Knowing something and fully understanding it are not the same.
Peter was lost somewhere between forgiveness and purpose.
I love that he does something unmistakably human.
“Simon Peter said to them, ‘I am going fishing.’”
— John 21:3
Returning to What He Knew
Peter does not make a speech or explain himself.
He simply says, “I am going fishing.”
Perhaps he needed to work or think. I wonder whether he returned to the water because it was the one place that still made sense.
I understand that feeling. When life becomes more than we can comprehend, we often return to what we know. We wash dishes. We work with our hands. We walk the same path. We sit in the same chair. We return to something we know how to do because so much else has moved beyond our control. I have done this many times.
Peter knew fishing. He knew the boat, the nets, and the pull of the water against the hull. He knew how darkness settled over the lake. He knew the rhythm of casting and hauling. Long before Peter became an apostle, he had been a fisherman on the Sea of Galilee. The work was part of him.
So when Peter says he is going fishing, the other disciples answer:
“We will go with you.”
— John 21:3
That small response tells me something about Peter and the men who followed him.
John names seven disciples who were together: Peter, Thomas, Nathanael, the sons of Zebedee, and two others. Peter announces what he is going to do, and the others get into the boat with him.
Jesus did not create Peter’s ability to lead out of nothing. The quality was already within him. People naturally looked toward him and moved when he moved.
But that also meant Peter’s direction mattered.
Leadership is not merely the ability to get others to follow. It is the responsibility to know where we are leading them.
Peter could lead men into a boat.
Jesus was preparing him to lead people toward Christ.
They went out and fished through the night, but caught nothing.
Not one fish.
We know the exhaustion of working without seeing any result. You prepare, cast, pull, and try again. Every part of our experience tells us that eventually something should work.
Sometimes it does not.
How many of us have experienced that same feeling?
We try to make a business succeed. We try to hold a family together. We try to protect a child from every possible mistake. We try to repair a relationship. We try to restore our health. We try to manage every risk, foresee every problem, and arrange every outcome. I know this because it is me.
We cast our net as we have always cast it. We work through the night. Sometimes we come back with nothing but exhaustion.
Peter knew the sea. But he could not control it.
Peter loved Jesus. But he could not determine where Jesus’ path should lead.
Peter would be entrusted with the flock. But the flock would always belong to Christ.
I do not believe the empty night was wasted.
Sometimes we become most receptive to being taught when the nets we trusted come back empty. Our emptiness does not force God to act, but it can make us more willing to listen when He speaks.
At Daybreak
“Just as day was breaking, Jesus stood on the beach; yet the disciples did not know that it was Jesus.”
— John 21:4
Morning.
John could simply have said that Jesus appeared. Instead, he places Him on the shore as day is breaking.
Throughout his Gospel, John uses light and darkness in ways that reach beyond the time of day. His Gospel begins by proclaiming that the light shines in the darkness and the darkness has not overcome it (John 1:5). Nicodemus comes to Jesus at night (John 3:2). Judas leaves the supper, and John writes, “And it was night” (John 13:30). Mary Magdalene comes to the tomb while it is still dark (John 20:1).
Now Peter’s encounter on the shore begins at daybreak.
What does that mean?
I think about what morning symbolizes, and I wonder whether John is showing us a new beginning for Peter. The denial happened in darkness. The empty nets did not fill during the night. Jesus appears at daybreak.
Morning is the first movement of a new day. Breakfast is the meal that breaks the fast. After the darkness, the waiting, and the fruitless labor, Christ stands on the shore waiting to break the fast with them.
Jesus calls to the disciples and asks whether they have any fish.
They answer with one honest word:
“No.”
— John 21:5
There are no excuses, no explanation of how hard they worked, and no attempt to make empty nets look successful.
No fancy fish story.
No embellishment.
Just the plain truth.
The simple word: No.
When we finally admit that we are empty, we feel a small measure of relief. We no longer have to pretend.
I think of a child bringing a broken toy to a parent. The child cannot repair it, but the parent can.
When we admit our emptiness, we become more open to God’s presence and to what He can do within us. The disciples cannot offer Jesus what they do not have. But they can begin exactly where they are.
Then He gives them a precise instruction:
“Cast the net on the right side of the boat, and you will find some.”
— John 21:6
Jesus does not tell them merely to try again. He tells them where to cast.
To the right side.
I find that especially interesting. They had spent the entire night relying on their knowledge of the water. Now a figure they do not yet recognize gives them one direct instruction.
They could have ignored Him and insisted that they were the fishermen.
Instead, they cast the net.
“So they cast it, and now they were not able to haul it in, for the quantity of fish.”
— John 21:6
The net fills. Jesus’ instruction accomplishes what their experience could not. The same remains true for us.
This scene recalls an earlier miraculous catch in Luke 5. After another unsuccessful night, Peter tells Jesus:
“Master, we toiled all night and took nothing! But at your word I will let down the nets.”
— Luke 5:5
At Your word.
That was one of the first windows into Peter’s heart. He did not fully understand Jesus, but he trusted Him enough to act.
Now, near the end of John’s Gospel, Peter is in the boat again. Again, abundance meets him. The first catch marked his calling. This one renews it.
Peter had spent the years between those two catches learning what “at Your word” would cost.
John Recognizes; Peter Moves
The disciple whom Jesus loved says:
“It is the Lord!”
— John 21:7
John recognizes Jesus first.
Peter reaches Him first.
That seems true to both men. John sees. Peter acts.
As soon as Peter hears that it is the Lord, he puts on his outer garment and throws himself into the sea. The others remain in the boat, bringing the catch toward shore.
Peter is still Peter. He still moves quickly. He still loves intensely. He still goes toward Jesus with his whole body.
Grace has not erased his personality. Jesus is not replacing Simon with someone unrelated to the man Andrew first brought to Him. He is forming what was already there.
Peter’s impulsiveness could lead him into mistakes, yet it could also make him the first one out of the boat. His strength could slip into self-reliance, yet it could also serve the flock. His protectiveness could resist the Cross, yet it could also become courageous shepherding. His leadership could pull men back toward familiar waters, or it could lead the faithful home to Christ.
The clay remains clay while the Potter forms it.
The Shepherd Was Already Waiting
When the disciples come ashore, they find something waiting for them:
“A charcoal fire there, with fish lying on it, and bread.”
— John 21:9
Jesus already has food. The fire is burning. The fish and bread are prepared. The risen Lord is making breakfast.
Then He says:
“Bring some of the fish that you have just caught.”
— John 21:10
Jesus does not need their fish in order to feed them. He has already provided. Yet He invites them to bring what they caught through obedience to His word.
God provides, but He also invites us to participate.
At the feeding of the multitude, Jesus could have produced food without anyone’s contribution. Instead, a boy’s loaves and fish are brought to Him (John 6:8–13). Jesus receives what is offered, gives thanks, and feeds thousands.
Now, on this shore, the disciples again bring fish to Jesus. Their contribution matters, but it begins with His provision and direction.
We do not create grace. We respond to it. We do not begin God’s work. We enter work He has already begun.
The Shepherd prepares the meal before He tells Peter to feed the flock.
Jesus does not ask Peter to do something He is unwilling to do Himself. Before commanding Peter to feed His sheep, Jesus feeds Peter.
“I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep.”
— John 10:11
Jesus does not shepherd from a distance. He searches, calls, protects, feeds, and lays down His life.
Peter’s future ministry will not be an independent assignment. Peter will shepherd beneath the Shepherd who has already given everything for the flock.
The Charcoal Fire
John could have said there was a fire. Instead, he tells us it was a charcoal fire.
The word appears only one other time in John’s Gospel. When Peter entered the courtyard on the night of Jesus’ arrest, the servants and officers were standing around a charcoal fire because it was cold. Peter stood with them and warmed himself (John 18:18).
Beside that fire, Peter denied Jesus three times.
Now another charcoal fire burns on the shore.
We cannot know exactly what Peter smelled, remembered, or felt unless the Gospel tells us. Yet scent is deeply tied to memory, and John’s repetition invites us to hold the two scenes together.
One fire witnessed the denial. The other witnesses restoration.
At the first fire, Peter said, “I am not.” At the second, he will say, “You know that I love You.”
Peter had failed Jesus beside a charcoal fire, but Jesus did not avoid that memory. He met Peter beside another one.
“Come and have breakfast.”
— John 21:12
Jesus restores Peter in the presence of a fire that could have summoned nothing but shame. He transforms the setting of failure into a place of communion.
Grace does not always remove the memory. Sometimes it enters the memory and changes what the wound is permitted to become.
The charcoal fire no longer belongs only to Peter’s worst night.
Christ has claimed it for morning.
Do You Love Me?
After breakfast, Jesus turns to Peter. He does not call him Rock.
He says:
“Simon, son of John, do you love me more than these?”
— John 21:15
Simon, son of John.
The name reaches back to the beginning.
When Andrew first brought Simon to Jesus, Jesus looked at him and said:
“You are Simon the son of John; you shall be called Cephas.”
— John 1:42
Now, beside the water, Jesus again addresses Simon by his personal name and his father’s name.
Perhaps Peter needed to stand before Jesus without title or office.
Simply Simon.
The man Jesus had known from the beginning, the man who had failed and was still loved.
“Do you love Me more than these?”
Jesus may be asking whether Peter loves Him more than the other disciples do, recalling Peter’s earlier claim that even if everyone else fell away, he would remain. He may be asking whether Peter loves Him more than the boats, nets, fish, and former life surrounding them.
I hear it more broadly: Do you love Me more than everything you know? More than the work you understand? More than your place among the others? More than your need to be right? More than the future you planned? More than your own way of loving Me?
Peter answers:
“Yes, Lord; you know that I love you.”
— John 21:15
Jesus replies:
“Feed my lambs.”
He asks again:
“Simon, son of John, do you love me?”
— John 21:16
Peter answers:
“Yes, Lord; you know that I love you.”
Jesus says:
“Tend my sheep.”
Then the question comes a third time.
“Simon, son of John, do you love me?”
— John 21:17
John tells us Peter is grieved because Jesus asks him a third time.
Perhaps each question brings him back through the courtyard. One denial. A second denial. A third denial. Jesus gives Peter the opportunity to speak his love and show that failure was not the deepest truth in his heart.
Peter’s grief may also come from discovering that he can no longer use his own certainty as proof. Once he had declared what he would never do. Now he knows the weakness of “I will never.”
Don’t we all?
His third answer is different:
“Lord, you know everything; you know that I love you.”
— John 21:17
Peter does not say, “I know myself,” or “My future actions will prove it.”
He places the answer in Jesus.
Peter removes himself from the equation.
He makes Jesus the answer.
His confidence no longer rests in Peter’s judgment of himself. It rests in Christ’s complete knowledge of him.
Before the denial: I know what I will do.
After the denial: Lord, You know everything.
My Sheep
After each declaration of love, Jesus gives Peter responsibility.
Feed My lambs.
Tend My sheep.
Feed My sheep.
One word deserves our attention:
My.
The sheep are not Peter’s. The Church is not Peter’s possession. The people entrusted to him do not become objects for him to manage, control, or use to build his own importance.
They remain Christ’s sheep.
That small word protects both the flock and the shepherd.
Peter will lead with true authority, yet never his own. He will feed others because Christ first feeds him, and he will guide the flock because he himself is always guided.
This is where Ezekiel 34 gives John 21 a deeper weight.
Through Ezekiel, God condemns the shepherds of Israel who have fed themselves instead of the sheep. They failed to strengthen the weak, heal the sick, bind up the injured, bring back those who strayed, and seek the lost. The flock scattered because there was no faithful shepherd (Ezekiel 34:1–6).
Then God makes a promise:
“Behold, I, I myself will search for my sheep, and will seek them out.”
— Ezekiel 34:11
He continues:
“I myself will be the shepherd of my sheep, and I will make them lie down.”
— Ezekiel 34:15
God Himself will seek, rescue, feed, and shepherd.
In John 10, Jesus takes that divine shepherding language upon Himself:
“I am the good shepherd; I know my own and my own know me.”
— John 10:14
Then, in John 21, the Good Shepherd entrusts His flock to Peter. Peter does not replace Jesus.
He serves beneath Him.
This is not simply a title.
It is a sacrifice.
When I read Ezekiel, I noticed that a faithful shepherd cannot pasture himself at the expense of the flock. He must learn to care for those at every stage: lambs and sheep, the weak and the strong, those beginning in faith and those who have walked for years. The flock must be nourished, guarded, guided, and loved.
Years later, Peter writes to other shepherds:
“Tend the flock of God that is your charge, not by constraint but willingly, not for shameful gain but eagerly, not as domineering over those in your charge but being examples to the flock.”
— 1 Peter 5:2–3
Peter learned Ezekiel’s warning through Christ’s example. He understood that shepherding is not domination. It is service.
He also understood that every human shepherd remains accountable to another:
“And when the chief Shepherd is manifested you will obtain the unfading crown of glory.”
— 1 Peter 5:4
The Chief Shepherd continues shepherding both the flock and those entrusted to care for it.
None of us carries another person alone. Parents are shepherds. Priests and pastors are shepherds. Teachers, political officials, business owners, and managers are shepherds to those whose lives are affected by their decisions. Friends may shepherd one another. Writers carry a responsibility toward the people who receive their words.
Yet none of them belongs to us.
Our children, employees, readers, and communities are His.
Even our own lives are His.
We are not asked to guarantee the ending. We are asked to be faithful with those He places before us.
I have spent years trying to guarantee my children’s futures, my business’s success, and my family’s security. I have planned for every variable, managed risks, and tried to prepare for every possibility. Trust me when I say I try to plan for everything.
I have tried to be the answer instead of pointing to the Answer.
Peter’s story reminds me that love does not give us ownership.
Sometimes love must release control.
The Life He Would Offer
After asking Peter three times about love and entrusting him with the flock, Jesus tells Peter what following will eventually cost.
“When you were young, you girded yourself and walked where you would; but when you are old, you will stretch out your hands, and another will gird you and carry you where you do not wish to go.”
— John 21:18
Then John explains:
“This he said to show by what death he was to glorify God.”
— John 21:19
In Matthew 16, Peter tried to prevent Jesus from going to the Cross. He loved Jesus, but he believed love meant protecting Him from suffering. He tried to rewrite the redemptive plan because he could not accept a Messiah who must suffer and die.
Jesus rebuked him:
“You are a hindrance to me; for you are not on the side of God, but of men.”
— Matthew 16:23
Peter’s heart belonged to Christ, but his mind was still being renewed.
Now, in John 21, Jesus tells Peter that his own path will include suffering and death.
Peter does not argue.
Something within him has changed.
Peter still loves Jesus completely, but he is learning to love without controlling the ending.
As I read this, my mind returned to a story Peter would have known from childhood.
Abraham and Isaac.
In Genesis 22, I see a pattern that helps me understand surrender.
Abraham climbs the mountain with Isaac, the wood, and the fire. He is asked to entrust to God the son through whom the promise was supposed to continue. Abraham cannot reconcile every detail or control the outcome. He only knows that he must trust the One who made the promise.
God stops Abraham’s hand and provides the sacrifice (Genesis 22:9–14).
Peter’s surrender is different. He is not being asked to offer another person.
He is being asked to offer himself.
His plans.
His will.
His self-reliance.
His need to protect Jesus in his own way.
Eventually, his life.
Jesus is not asking Peter to earn redemption through his death. Christ’s sacrifice is complete and sufficient. Peter’s martyrdom will not add to the saving work of the Cross.
Instead, Peter’s life will become a response to the love he has received.
Paul expresses this calling in Romans:
“Present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship.”
— Romans 12:1
A living sacrifice is offered in ordinary faithfulness: feeding the lambs, tending the sheep, surrendering control, and accepting that obedience may lead where we would not have chosen to go.
Peter’s offering did not begin on the day of his death.
It began when he stopped telling Jesus what must happen and began trusting Jesus with what would happen.
The Fire and the Altar
During Mass, I watched the priest lift the thurible, the censer holding burning charcoal and incense.
As he swung it, the incense rose.
Scripture often associates incense with prayer rising before God:
“Let my prayer be counted as incense before you.”
— Psalm 141:2
Revelation also presents incense with the prayers of the saints ascending before God (Revelation 8:3–4).
As I watch it rise, I see another layer.
The incense symbolizes prayer, but it can also remind us that we bring ourselves to God. At Mass, we do not repeat Christ’s sacrifice or offer a separate sacrifice beside His. We are drawn into His perfect self-offering. We place our prayers, work, suffering, love, and lives before Him.
The charcoal in the thurible brings my mind back to Peter’s charcoal fire.
Could the shore fire be contemplated as an altar?
Not literally. But spiritually, something is being offered there.
Peter offers his certainty, his pride, and his need to direct the outcome.
He offers the future he might have chosen for himself.
Then Jesus tells him that one day his very life will glorify God.
The charcoal fire does not merely restore Peter to what he was before the denial. It prepares him to become a living offering.
It is transformation.
Are we not meant for the same transformation?
Follow Me
After telling Peter how he will die, Jesus says:
“Follow me.”
— John 21:19
The call has returned to its simplest form.
Follow Me.
Not: understand everything first.
Not: guarantee that you will never fail again.
Not: control what will happen to others.
Simply follow Me.
Peter turns and sees John. Immediately, he asks:
“Lord, what about this man?”
— John 21:21
Even after restoration, Peter is still Peter. He looks around and wants to know how another person’s story will unfold.
Jesus answers:
“If it is my will that he remain until I come, what is that to you? Follow me!”
— John 21:22
Peter is not given John’s road, nor John Peter’s. The same Christ calls both, but discipleship is personal. Comparison pulls our eyes away from the One we are following.
Perhaps this is Peter’s final lesson in the Gospel: he cannot manage another disciple’s path, nor can he control his own ending.
He is responsible for one thing:
To follow Christ.
The command is not meant only for Peter. It reaches beyond the shore to the parent who cannot control a child’s future, the shepherd who cannot force the flock to listen, the business owner who cannot foresee every turn, the person whose health has changed, the person who has failed, and each of us who keeps comparing one pilgrimage with another.
Follow Me.
Where the Compass Points
Peter’s compass once pointed toward his own strength.
“I will never deny You.”
It pointed toward protection.
“This shall never happen to You.”
It pointed toward action: the sword, the boat, the nets, the attempt to fix what he did not understand.
Jesus did not destroy those qualities. He formed them.
Peter’s confidence became dependence on Christ.
His protectiveness became shepherding.
His impulsiveness became readiness.
His leadership became service.
His love learned surrender.
The name Jesus gave him on the first day had survived every failure.
Rock.
The name had not been withdrawn in the courtyard. Peter had not ceased to be the man Christ called. But his calling needed to be restored. He had to learn to live the name without relying upon his own strength.
At the first meeting, Jesus told Simon who he would become.
At Caesarea Philippi, Jesus revealed the responsibility carried by that name.
Beside the charcoal fire, Jesus restored Peter to the work.
Feed My lambs.
Tend My sheep.
Feed My sheep.
Then the compass settled upon its true direction.
Christ.
He needed to follow the Answer.
The compass never pointed Peter toward a life without suffering. It pointed him toward Christ.
In the end, that was the only direction he needed.
It is the only direction we need as well.
Continue the Reflection
Continue with the closing prayer and full Scripture references on the companion page.
Previous Post in the Series
- El primero llamado
- The Fishermen of the Sea of Galilee
- Peter: The Man Jesus Called Rock
- Thinking Like God
- Peter the Man Jesus Called Rock
- The Name Restored
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