I love when a book that I’m reading includes an epilogue. In the last chapter of Louisa May Alcott’s novel, Little Women, the March sisters are reunited, minus dear Beth who had recently passed away. Amy, the youngest, had married their wealthy neighbor, Laurie, while in Paris and had arrived home uncertain of how this news would affect Jo. Jo, or Josephine March, had left New York City and returned home to Concord, when she heard that Beth was terribly ill. Following Beth’s death, she stayed at the March family home, to help her older sister, Meg, give birth to twins and to adjust to motherhood. But before she left NYC, she left a manuscript with Friedrich Bhaer, her love interest, who had encouraged her to write from what she knew and not stories filled with blood and gore.
Friedrich had passed on the manuscript to a publisher friend of his who loved it. He wanted to give this good news to Jo in person. However, when he came to the door and asked for Miss March, he was told that Miss March and Mr. Laurie were recently married, thinking he was asking about Amy and Laurie! When Jo saw the typed manuscript and realized it was her book, Little Women, by Josephine March, she ran down the lane in hopes of catching Friedrich before he left forever. There he was, in the rain, walking towards the train that would take him out west where he would try his luck at teaching. Jo calls for him and he stops, surprised, confused and disappointed that this young woman he had come to love and respect had married her childhood sweetheart. Jo sets him straight, explaining that it was her sister Amy who had married Laurie. She remained quite single and was actually in need of someone to help her with an idea to turn her great Aunt March’s vast estate into a school for children. And that’s where the story ends. What? No! That can’t be the end! What happens to the remaining March sisters?
We turn the page and the epilogue fills us in on what happens next: Jo runs Plumfield School with Professor Friedrich Bhaer, having inherited the estate from Aunt March. Meg is happily married with twins, and Amy is married to Laurie, focusing on art and charity. The family gathers, honoring Beth’s memory, concluding with a “happy ending” where Jo finds fulfillment in her family, school, and writing.
So much has happened in John’s gospel, especially since Jesus’ arrest in the Garden of Gethsemane. He was tried, unjustly condemned to die, was brutally scourged and nailed to a cross. Placed in a borrowed tomb, on the third morning Jesus rose from the dead and appeared to Mary Magdalene, then to the disciples that very same Resurrection Day as well as a week later, as the Passover Festival was coming to an end. John seemingly ends his narrative with his purpose for writing: “That you may believe that Jesus is the Messiah, Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name.” (Jn 20:31)
But that isn’t the end of the story. John is kind enough to include an epilogue for us.
Read John 21
Several of Jesus’ disciples had returned to Galilee, post-Passover and two interactions with Resurrected Jesus, one of which He breathed the Holy Spirit on them. What were they to do now? They had left everything behind to follow Jesus. Their leader was alive, but they had no idea when, if ever, they would see Him again. Simon Peter figured he’d do what he knew to do and that was fish.
Everyone got into the boat but the fish weren’t biting. They were left with memories that seemed to flood their minds, of the many times they had transported Jesus across the Sea of Galilee during His ministry. Of the time that the Sea was stirred up, the waves tossing and turning, ready to capsize their vessel. They looked up and there was Jesus walking towards them on the water! But Jesus didn’t walk to them on the water that night and by morning their nets were still empty.
Then a man on the shore called out to them, “Cast your net on the right side of the boat…and you’ll find some.” (v 6) They were about 100 yards away from the shore, so they couldn’t quite make out who it was, but then John said to Peter, “It is the Lord!” (v 7) Peter jumped into the water and swam to shore. Once there he was greeted by a charcoal fire on the beach, with fish and bread cooking over it. I imagine that Peter’s memory took him right back to another charcoal fire he had warmed himself by not two weeks earlier, in the courtyard of the high priest, where he denied even knowing Jesus not once, but three times.
Now Jesus asks him three times to reaffirm his love for Him and recommissions him. Jesus’ question, “Do you love me?” (vv 15, 16 and 17) grieves Simon, son of John. “Lord, you know everything; you know that I love you.” (v 17) Taken in its full sense, Peter is affirming Christ’s omniscience, consistent with his deity. If he knows everything, then of course he knows Peter’s heart. Peter is instructed to feed Jesus’ sheep and lambs. Jesus as the true shepherd appoints Peter and other apostles to be undershepherds to the soon-to-be-formed church. Peter will demonstrate his love for Jesus by loving God’s people and feeding them with His Word.
Jesus lets Peter know that when he is old, he will suffer a death similar to His - crucifixion - but that he is to follow Jesus at all costs. Peter is given a second chance! He would be allowed to follow Jesus to death after all. Imagine how full and free Peter must have felt in that moment. Jesus had forgiven him. They were reconciled and back on track.
And then, Peter looked over at John, the disciple Jesus loved, and asked, “Lord, what about him?” (v 21) to which Jesus replied, “What is that to you?” (v 23) In other words, (and this is purely my translation) “Buddy, I need you to keep your eyes on Me and Me alone. Don’t give into the temptation to compare yourself or My love to others. Eyes right here. Let’s go.”
John ends this epilogue by admitting that the things he included in his narrative are just a fraction of all that Jesus did for us. In fact, “If every one of them were written down, I suppose not even the world itself could contain the books that would be written.” (v 25)
What a great ending!
Big Picture Questions for Today:
* Though sinned against, Jesus initiated reconciliation with Peter and offered tender mercies. How can you love extravagantly? Perhaps emulating Jesus is simpler than we think. Initiate reconciliation through simple acts of connection, offering grace rather than blame, love and forgiveness rather than the warranted anger and need for restitution to be made. Freely give, as God in Christ, has freely given.
Pray and thank God for this long, slow season of Lent and for all that He has worked in you through our time in the study of John’s gospel.
