Summary
The One-on-One Ministry of Christ
Jesus was no stranger to crowds. He fed the five thousand, taught from a boat as the multitudes pressed in, and drew throngs wherever He went. Yet alongside that public ministry runs another thread just as vital: the one-on-one. Nathanael under the fig tree confessing Him as the Son of God, Mary at Cana hearing that His hour had not yet come, Nicodemus learning of the new birth by water and the Spirit, the Samaritan woman receiving the promise of living water—again and again, the Lord meets individuals personally.
In Luke's account of the road to Emmaus, this pattern surfaces in a striking way. After the two disciples recognize the risen Christ in the breaking of the bread, they hurry the seven miles back to Jerusalem in the dark, undeterred by danger, and find the eleven gathered together. Before they can even share their news, they are greeted with another report: "The Lord has risen indeed, and has appeared to Simon" Luke 24:34. Two messages of resurrection meet in one room, and the rumor that had earlier seemed an "idle tale" Luke 24:11 is now confessed with confidence.
What is remarkable is what Scripture does not say. Unlike the detailed exchange with Mary Magdalene in John 20:15-17, no details are recorded of the risen Christ's private meeting with Peter. We know only that it happened. And we know what came before it: Peter's threefold denial, the Lord's piercing look Luke 22:61, Peter's bitter weeping, his absence from the cross, and his bewildered glance into the empty tomb without yet understanding the Scriptures. Whatever was said in that hidden one-on-one, it produced the man who would later write that God "has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead" 1 Peter 1:3.
The Lord was not yet finished with Peter. By the Sea of Tiberias, after a delay between resurrection appearances, Peter announces, "I am going fishing" John 21:3—a quiet drift back to the old life, the very scattering Jesus had foretold in John 16:32. There the risen Christ asks him three times if he loves Him. The first two times Jesus uses agapē—total, self-sacrificial commitment—and Peter can only answer with phileō, the love of friendship. The third time the Lord Himself drops down to Peter's word: "Do you phileō me?" John 21:15-17 The threefold denier is honestly exposed, and yet, astonishingly, given a threefold commission: feed my lambs, tend my sheep, feed my sheep. That is grace.
This is the heart of the matter explored in "One On One" 5-14-23: the risen Lord does not abandon those who have failed Him, drifted from Him, or settled for a smaller love than He deserves. He comes personally, and He restores. And these one-on-ones have not stopped. He still comes—in the waters of Holy Baptism, where He names us in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit; in the word of absolution, where He says individually, "I forgive you"; and at the Supper, where He places into each mouth, "This is my body, given for you." To every Peter who has wept, denied, or quietly gone back fishing, the message remains the same: the Lord is risen indeed, and He has appeared also to you.
Video citations
- "One On One" 5-14-23 — Would you open your Bibles, please, with me, to the 24th chapter of the gospel of St. Luke, if you're using a few edition of Holy Scripture this morning, you'll find that page 78 in the New…