THE DECLARATION
On Thursday night, while they were celebrating the Passover, Jesus told the disciples He would be leaving them. Peter remembers what happened:
Jesus told them, “I am so sorry to tell you. The world will rejoice and you will be sad. Worse, already tonight you will fall away from me. All of you, just as it is written.”
I shouted, “No Lord! Though they might, I will never fall away from you! I am ready to go to prison with you!”
Jesus looked sadly at me, “Oh, Peter, this very night before the first rooster crows twice, you will deny me three times.”
But I raised my arm and declared, “Even if I have to die with you, I will not deny you, Lord.”
THE DENIAL
After Jesus was arrested, all of the disciples abandoned him just as he said they would. As the soldiers took Jesus away to stand trial, Peter and John followed behind at a distance to see what was going on. Eventually, Peter and John became separated. Peter remembers what happened:
John left me alone. He disappeared. I had no idea where he went.
A servant was opening the gate, and she kept staring into my face. Then she said, “Aren’t you one of that man’s disciples?”
That took my breath away! I had just gotten there. “What man?” I said.
“You know,” she said, “The man they arrested.”
“No,” I said. “No, I’m not.”
I brushed past her and since John was nowhere in sight, I went to the fire in the middle of the courtyard—as if I had business in that place and knew exactly where I was going.
It was a common fire on a cold night. Officers of the Temple guard were warming themselves. Servants, too. I put out my hands and ducked my head down. Jesus was somewhere in the palace. I meant to stay. But that maid wouldn’t leave me alone! Soon I felt that people were looking at me. I glanced up, and there she was, talking to the officers. “This is one of them,” she said. “He’s a disciple of the Nazarene.”
“Woman,” I said, “I don’t know and I do not understand what you’re talking about.” But I moved to the forecourt, away from the fire, where it was darker.
I love Jesus. I loved Jesus then—desperately. That whole night it was hard for me even to breathe, because I kept seeing him tied up. He was somewhere in the high priest’s house, with people who wanted to kill him. How could I leave? I kept wringing my hands. Helpless! I wanted to throw my body at the doors and burst in and beat them all with clubs!
I don’t know how long I paced in that dark place. An hour, maybe. But then—I’ll tell this part as truthfully as I can—then three things happened, one right after the other.
First, the shouting. All at once there came from an upper chamber the slurred shouts of many men. They were laughing as if they were drunk. I went back into the courtyard to see what was happening—
But a soldier blocked my way and said, “You are one of them!”
I said, “No.”
He said, “Don’t lie to me. You’re a Galilean.”
I said, “No,” and tried to push past him.
But he struck my chest and said, “Don’t you recognize me?” He struck me again. “I was there when he was arrested. I saw you there!”
“NO!” I yelled. “NO!” People started to look. Two guards reached for their weapons. I raised my right hand and screamed, “I swear by the city of Jerusalem that I know nothing of the man! I do not know—!”
Then this is the second thing that happened.
Jesus came out of the upper chamber, his arms bound behind him. He turned and looked down at me. He saw my hand in the air.
And this is the third thing.
Somewhere in the night a rooster started to crow.
I lowered my hand and covered my mouth and turned away from Jesus and ran out of the courtyard. I ran out into the city. I ran down a dark alley and fell to the ground with my face in my hands and I burst into tears. I cried and I cried and I could not stop.
This is the whole truth.
THE GRACE
After the trial came the sentence; after the sentence came the crucifixion; after the crucifixion came the death; after the death came the resurrection. Then Jesus began to appear to His followers: first to the women, then to the disciples. Peter remembers what happened:
I let my beard grow back. The first days I was too sad to shave. Didn’t think about it. But then the Lord Jesus rose from the dead exactly as he said he would—exactly, you see, as he said, which is part of the problem, because I never really paid attention to that saying, because I didn’t believe he would die, so how should I even consider that he could come back to life again?—but he did, exactly as he said he would, rise up from the dead and he appeared in person before us, and I was astonished, I was speechless, I was so glad for him and so overjoyed for the whole world, but yet at the same time I was sick inside myself. I can’t describe this. It’s impossible. Nothing is greater than this. God is here. God is in Jesus. The kingdom of God begins in Jesus! And as much as I know that, as much as I love and believe it, that’s how much I loathe myself. That’s how horrible I feel. Because I’ll never enter that kingdom. I don’t deserve to. I gave up my right. I denied my Lord. I rejected him to save myself. Do you understand this? It’s at the time of crisis that the truth comes out, and I…I’m the one who swore he didn’t know Jesus. So after the first days I let my beard grow again. It would be hypocrisy to think that I could be like my Lord anymore.
I said, “I’m going fishing,” and I took off for the sea.
The others came after me. We didn’t talk. We just worked. It didn’t bother me that we caught nothing. In the gray light of the morning, I saw a stranger on the shore. He called out to us, “Have you caught anything?”
We held up our empty nets to show him that we had caught nothing.
The man on the shore called, “Cast your nets on the other side and see what you catch!”
John and I looked at each other. Who was this man on shore, telling fishermen how they should fish? But we stood up and cast out the nets. Immediately the water came to life and the net was filled with fish!
Then John looked at the man on the shore and gasped, “Peter! Peter, it’s Jesus! That is the Lord on the shore!”
I didn’t wait. I threw myself into the sea and swam for shore. But when I came up out of the water I couldn’t think of anything to say. I stood there feeling wretched.
Jesus had kindled a charcoal fire. Bread and fish were already laid on it, breakfast for one. He didn’t look at me. He looked to the boats still struggling shoreward. So there were those who belonged to him, working and worthy—and here was I, idle and unworthy.
The others reached the shore and began to drag the nets onto dry land. Jesus said, “Bring some of the fish. Come and have breakfast with me.”
We sat. Jesus sat among us. He served us one after the other. He served me last. I couldn’t eat. Neither was he eating. He kept looking at me. I wanted to crawl away. And I would have, but he opened his mouth and spoke to me.
“Simon son of John,” he said, “do you love me more than these?”
“Yes, Lord!” I think I shouted the answer. “Yes, Lord, you know that I love you.”
He neither smiled nor blinked. Solemnly he said, “Feed my lambs.”
Did he mean it? Was he granting me a place with him? I could hardly breathe.
Again, Jesus spoke, “Simon son of John, do you love me?” The same words. The second time.
Carefully—because I meant it and I wanted him to believe that I meant it—I said, “Yes, Lord. You know that I love you.”
He said, “Tend my sheep.”
Even then this wasn’t over. He kept looking at me. And now I knew what was coming and it did come. For the third time he said, “Simon son of John, do you love me?”
I bowed my head and started to cry like a child. He was asking—and he was telling, both. He knew. He knew. He knew how many times I said I did not even know him. He knew.
I couldn’t raise my face to him. I said, “Lord, you know everything. You know that I love you.”
There was a great silence after that. And then I felt his hand on my shoulder. Jesus was kneeling in front of me. He crooked a finger beneath my chin and lifted my head, and I looked through my tears and saw his eyes filled with such kindness that I only bawled the harder.
“Feed my sheep.”
Jesus was offering me a place in the kingdom.
Be a shepherd of my flock.
Yes, Lord! Yes!
And then he was telling me what was ahead for me, even what kind of death I would die. I nodded. I understood.
So then he stood up, and he said to me all over again what he had said at the very beginning.
He said, “Follow me.”
Exerpted and adapted from The Book of God, Walter Wangerin, Jr.
