Without doubt, Peter is the best known of the twelve disciples. In the Gospel pages, you see and hear twice as much of him as of all the rest put together. And that in itself is enough to tell you the sort of man he was. In any group of twelve he'd have stood out like that, head and shoulders above the rest: the sort of man who hauls ashore the biggest catch of fish in living memory single-handed while the others stand and watch.
A big man - big in body, big in heart. A rumbustious man, full of vigour and enthusiasm, altogether without subtlety. He was an action man - what you'd call a man's man.
This is the man whose wholehearted devotion Jesus captured! What sort of a man must Jesus have been?! Jesus won his open-hearted admiration … and kept it.
But there was one thing about Jesus that puzzled Peter. There were times when he couldn't make his Master out. All His talk about suffering and death. Peter couldn't understand it. It didn't fit the man Peter had chosen to follow. What had gotten into Jesus?
It was typical of Peter that he should have taken Him aside once and tried to talk Him out of it (at Cæsarea Philippi). "Look here, Master, you mustn't talk like that. Nobody around here is going to suffer and die, you least of all. The people love you ... the Kingdom of Heaven's going to come, and you're going to bring it in. Now don't go on like this - it's bad for morale."
In his big-hearted, unsubtle way, Peter, I'm sure, thought he was doing Jesus a favour that day. Never in a month of Sundays could he have foreseen the fierceness with which Jesus rounded on him then. "Don't you block my path, Peter. That's the devil in you talking. That sort of talk is in flat opposition to God's way."
That was the sort of no-nonsense talk Peter admired in Jesus, but he must have felt bewildered by it that day. What did Jesus mean?
He could command the wind and the sea. He could multiply bread with a word and heal at a touch. He could face a mob ugly with menace, and not a man dare lay a finger on Him. He could bring God near and alive and real to you. What was all this defeatist talk of death, then? There was no need for Him to suffer - He was a conqueror, this man; He was invincible. And yet He talked of His suffering as if in some mysterious way it was to be a huge triumph.
"Well," Peter would say to himself, "it's beyond me!" And like a St. Bernard dog, he'd shake himself and follow his master anyway, though he'd lost all idea where they were supposed to be going. "Lord to whom else can we go?" he asked once … an expression at the time of baffled loyalty.
Then they came to that last week in Jerusalem. Peter had never thrilled to Jesus nor been so proud of Him as he was that week. He'd never forget the sight of Jesus storming through the Temple court, magnificent in His anger, condemning priest and people alike for turning God's House into a thieves' kitchen. And when the next day every major party in Judaism sent a deputation to discredit Jesus in the public eye with their clever talk, Jesus ran rings round them.
But Peter knew the hatred was being stoked up; soon there was bound to be the most almighty crisis. And sure enough by the Thursday night, everything had changed. The bomb was going to go off at any minute.
But strangely Jesus was doing nothing - nothing at all but wait for it to happen. There was something unnerving about that night. The feet-washing episode thoroughly unsettled him - he'd put his big foot in it again; and the business with Judas was a mystery; Peter just wasn't subtle enough to understand. Most of what Jesus said went over his head, except perhaps the bit about the sword … and he got that wrong!
In the garden the terrible stress that Jesus was under troubled Peter so deeply he couldn't cope with it, and he just went to sleep.
When he woke to find the place full of silent, sinister men with torches and weapons, and Judas selling Jesus out with his black treachery, it was too much for him to take. He was so outraged - the protest that rose up in him so huge - that he simply reached for his sword and lashed out in a blind fury. Let no man call Peter a coward; they were outnumbered probably ten to one there in the Gethsemane garden, but Peter, undaunted, was ready to take them all on.
But again Jesus rebuked him for it. Nobody but Jesus could have subdued Peter in that moment - no-one in the world. True to his word, he'd have died fighting. But Jesus wouldn't let him do it.
What was a man to do? It was too much; altogether too much.
There in the garden, all the steam went out of Peter - he just didn't understand what was happening, or why.
By now, all sign of the mental torment Jesus had been suffering when Peter went to sleep was gone, and though Jesus was being led away bound, there was no hint of defeat or resignation in His bearing. Peter felt finished, but Jesus looked as though He was just beginning. He had ensured the safety of the eleven, He'd healed the wound Peter had inflicted on the High Priest's servant Malchus, and somehow, though it all looked ominous, Peter had the feeling that Jesus was doing something better - finer - than anything he could comprehend.
So when John suggested to him that they follow and see it out to the end, Peter was only too willing. On the way he'd have had time to reflect that it was a member of the High Priest's personal bodyguard he had struck, and it was to the High Priest's house they were going now. He'd be a marked man there; he'd better be careful.
When they reached the house (it was more like a palace), John got in, because of his family's business connections, while Peter waited outside ... long enough to feel his loneliness there in the dark … long enough for ignorance of what was going on inside to breed anxiety for Jesus as well as for himself. Then to his surprise, the door opened and John appeared, and beckoned to him to come in. Peter knew he was going in to the lions' den, and perhaps for an instant, the thought flashed through his mind that this might be a trap. Had they got John too, and were using him as bait to lure Peter in? As he slipped through the door, the maid - whom till that moment he hadn't seen - said to him, "You're another of this fellow's men, aren't you?"
"Me? No!" says Peter. Quick as that! No warning. The question took him completely by surprise in a moment when fear was high. It was his fear that said "No"; his love would have said "Yes." But suddenly ... in an instant … the first denial just leapt out of him.
And having said it, he was trapped in it.
Now Peter has to take in the situation in front of him. As the door is shut behind him, and he moves forward through the archway he sees in front of him the square courtyard open to the sky, a charcoal fire burning in it, and on the far side, he sees Jesus. The Lord's back is to Peter, lit by the firelight, and he sees His hands are tied.
A guard flanks Jesus either side, while beyond, on a raised seat, sits the High Priest, facing him. Was this the moment Peter heard Jesus saying, "I've spoken openly to the world - I've always taught in public places, never in secret. Ask those who've heard me - ask those who've been with me these three years. They know what I've said."
If so, a fresh fear seizes hold of Peter - now he's going to be dragged into it. The High Priest only has to look past Jesus to see him there. He's in it now, up to his neck. Just then one of the guards struck Jesus in the face. "Is that how you speak to Israel's ruler?"
That was the moment when someone standing by said to Peter, "You're one of them!" He was recognised, and that meant he'd be dragged over to stand beside Jesus, made a prisoner and interrogated.
"No! No! Not me - never seen the man in my life."
And he reaches out his hand over the charcoal fire because he's shivering with cold and fear and shame for what's happening.
A few minutes pass and when he dares to lift his eyes again and look, he finds himself looking straight into the face of a man who was with the servant he'd struck in the garden with his sword. The man peers into his face across the flickering light of the fire, while Peter's heart thumps against his ribs, his mouth dry, and the man says, "Didn't I see you in the garden with him?"
"No!" And the violence of Peter's fear rips out of him in a torrent of swearing. Just then, the trumpeter on the nearby temple walls sounded the "cock-crow" - the changing of the watch.
They've finished with the Master over there - they're leading Him by. Jesus turns and looks at Peter. Just for an instant their eyes lock and hold, and the look in Jesus' eyes holds not a hint of rebuke in it. If they carry any message, it seems to be "Remember what I said, Peter - remember all I said."
If a look could save, Jesus gave him such a look in that moment.
But Peter then couldn't remember all Jesus had said - he could remember only the one thing: "Before the cock-crow, Peter, you'll deny me - three times over."
In that moment, Peter's whole life collapsed. His personality tumbled into ruin, and he stumbled out into the night, a broken man, his big frame shaken with racking sobs. "I've let Him down … and He knew I would."
Peter would spend the days that followed in an agony of remorse, convinced that he'd helped send his Master to His death. He'd meant to do so much … and he had! But the much he'd done was not good. And Jesus had known he would do it. Jesus knew him better than he knew himself.
But then, as Peter's grief spent itself and gave place to a dull and empty quiet, the memory of that other thing Jesus had said would steal back into his mind:
"... but when you have turned back to me, you must strengthen your brothers."
If what Jesus had said had seemed a cruel thing to him before, this was the one thing that gave him comfort now.
"He knew me through and through - fear, failure and all. But He saw something else, something deeper even than all that - that I would turn back to Him in the end. He was ready to bear all that He knew I would do to Him, and still believe in me.
"But where is there to turn back to now?" ... the Master dead and gone, and all the splendid memories of the Galilee days wiped out by the memory of his black denial there by a charcoal fire. For as long as he lived, Peter would never again be able to face a charcoal fire.
And then it all started happening. The women said he was risen, and Peter heaved his big frame through the dawn after John to the tomb and found it empty.
Then the Lord appeared. They had Him back.
And the strange days followed till that night when they fished the empty lake again, and some fellow on the shore hallooed to them cheerily in the dawn and told him - him! - Peter, the fisherman - where to cast his net. But they did, and they fished up the biggest catch in living memory.
And suddenly Peter knew. It was the Lord.
Impulsive as ever, he dived into the sea and swam to shore, and then, realising he'd left the others to struggle with the catch, dived back into the sea again to swim out and help, and finished up dragging the huge net-full in himself.
Then he strode up the beach flushed with pleasure, to find himself confronted with ... a charcoal fire!
That was hard. He hadn't expected that. Didn't Jesus understand what a charcoal fire meant to him?
But Jesus didn't seem to understand at all. He seemed insensitive to Peter's sudden gloom; and that wasn't like Him.
That repeated question, "Simon, Son of John, do you love me?" - three times over. Didn't Jesus know how that hurt? ... till Peter was reduced to utter helplessness, and there was nothing left in him that he could keep hidden any more, and the last bit of him was dragged out pitilessly into the open.
"Lord, you know me - I can't keep anything hidden from you - not anything. You know I love you."
"Yes, Peter, I know. I want you to know. Not your fear, but your love - that's the truth. Three times over you've said it, when there was nothing else left in you to say. I know you love me; now you know it too. Three times over you've avowed it - once for every time you swore you never knew me - here, over a charcoal fire."
All the bitter memories were transformed: the old ones buried, and new ones born, you see? The past wiped out, expunged - and a new beginning made. Charcoal fires would remind him of his restoration now, not his denial. The Lord's love was as personal as that.
"Your love for me, like mine for you. That's
the truth of it Peter.
"Now - there's work to be done: lambs to be fed, and sheep, silly
sheep, who'll go astray, as you did, who'll have to be shepherded and
brought back, as I've brought you back. And there's much pain to be
borne, and disappointment and black betrayal to be suffered.
"But beyond all that, there's a triumph awaits you, a victory that
can be come at only by way of suffering - the victory of love …
like mine for you. Are you with me, Peter? You know the way now, you
know the price that has to be paid. The end won't be like the
beginning. You were a big, powerful fellow once, with the world at
your feet, and nothing could stop you. But the end won't be like
that. You'll come to it in weakness with the world on your back, and
it won't be your strength but my love in your heart they won't be
able to stop, even though they kill you; for I'm risen now - my love
is let loose in the world, and nothing can stop its coming to
victory, through you and countless others like you, till the end of
time.
"Follow me, follow after me in the way, and help the others
along."
And he did.
What He did for Peter, He can do for you ... will do!
The fear, the failure, the defeat - these things are not the final truth. There's something deeper, something truer Christ can fashion in you. Your heart may be a poor thing. But open it to Him, and there's no limit to what He can make of you, even yet.
As to the mystery of suffering that had baffled Peter once … that was all made clear, till what had been a dark mystery became a shining secret that lit up the whole meaning of life. For love is the meaning of life, and love is only as strong as its capacity to suffer, and not change.
Read I Peter for yourself, and see.
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