Acts 2: Why Pentecost? (Part II)

This is the second of two blog posts asking the question, “why Pentecost?”  Specifically, we are asking the question to examine how Pentecost was more than the sum of that day’s events 2,000 years ago, how it was more than a blip on the radar of history.  We are exploring how the historical roots of Pentecost actually help us point toward the brighter future God envisions for us.  In the first post I mentioned in passing how in Jesus’ time, Pentecost had become a celebration of when Moses received the Law, 50 days after Passover.  This is important to note because it links the giving of the Law of Moses on stone, to the giving of the Spirit, which writes God’s law on our hearts.      

This promise of God acting directly in our hearts was an old one.  It was perhaps most prominently stated by the prophet Jeremiah when he spoke of the new covenant between God and Israel:

“Behold, the days are coming, declares the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah, not like the covenant that I made with their fathers on the day when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt, my covenant that they broke, though I was their husband, declares the Lord. For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, declares the Lord: I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts. And I will be their God, and they shall be my people. And no longer shall each one teach his neighbor and each his brother, saying, ‘Know the Lord,’ for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest, declares the Lord. For I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more.” (Jeremiah 31:31-34)

The prophet Joel also spoke of such a time:

“And it shall come to pass afterward, that I will pour out my Spirit on all flesh; your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, your old men shall dream dreams, and your young men shall see visions. Even on the male and female servants in those days I will pour out my Spirit. “And I will show wonders in the heavens and on the earth, blood and fire and columns of smoke. The sun shall be turned to darkness, and the moon to blood, before the great and awesome day of the Lord comes. And it shall come to pass that everyone who calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved. For in Mount Zion and in Jerusalem there shall be those who escape, as the Lord has said, and among the survivors shall be those whom the Lord calls.” (Joel 2:28-32)

So there it is; the promise.  It was the promise of a day when God would relate directly with human beings, regardless of their age or gender.  It was the promise of a day when there would be no more privileged religious class.  Despite all the years spent longingly anticipating the fulfillment of said promise God still manages to surprise us in a wonderful way, as our Father seeks to do something extraordinary through his followers.  With the sound of a mighty rushing wind- which is interesting in and of itself since the Greek word pneuma means both wind and Spirit- the Holy Spirit is upon the gathered disciples of Jesus Christ.  Before we know it Peter is speaking words that are not his own, and yet they are words from the heart.  The words of John the Baptist, “I baptize you with water, but he who is mightier than I is coming… He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire” (Luke 3:16), have been fulfilled in their presence.  

If we really want to think about what this means for us today, we should consider Peter’s role in the story.  One of the first things that happens with Peter and this new gift of the Spirit is he must relinquish control.  Jesus tells Nicodemus in the Gospel of John, “The wind blows where it wishes, and you hear its sound, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit.” (John 3:8)  Here is Peter, the disgraced apostle, now boldly proclaiming the gospel just weeks after he so publicly denied his Lord in the courtyard of the high priest.  As they listen to Peter’s sermon, the people are undoubtedly asking, “Where did this come from?” and even, “Where is he going with this?”  So it is with the Spirit.  Those who are known for one thing, suddenly find themselves doing the exact opposite.  The silent begin boldly proclaiming, the selfish begin sharing, and those who hate become those who love. 

The Holy Spirit comes and does not just re-model, it re-creates.  In Genesis 2:7 the Spirit breathes life into dust and creates man, but here it does something even more remarkable, it breathes life into a disgraced apostle.  It is more remarkable because what the world needs is not more creation, but for creation to be re-created to resemble more closely God’s vision for our world.  The beauty of Pentecost is not that the Spirit was unleashed on a large group of people that day.  The beauty of Pentecost is found in the promise that God’s Spirit can, and will live inside even us, even today.   God’s Spirit is being unleashed in a broad sense, no longer reserved for kings and prophets.  Men and women, old and young, all united by their faith in God, and by God’s Spirit living inside of them. 

Why Pentecost?  First of all, because Pentecost points back: to God’s promises, to Jesus’ crucifixion, and to Jesus’ resurrection.  But mostly, because Pentecost takes salvation history, and uses that to point to the future: to redemption, to reconciliation, and to a world made in the image that God intended for it all along.  

Acts 2: Why Pentecost? (Part I)

The first question you may ask when reading Acts 2 is, “What is Pentecost?”  After you have read the passage a few times over the years, the question might evolve to, “Why Pentecost?”  I have spent most of my life knowing what God did on Pentecost, just a few short weeks after Jesus’ resurrection, but only recently have I asked the question why God chose to act at that particular time?  Of course I lack the divine perspective to answer that question with any real authority, but I think that when we consider what Pentecost meant to the Jews of Jesus’ time we can begin to see more clearly a pattern of how God has acted, continues to act, and will act in the future. 

So what did Pentecost mean to the Jew of Jesus’ day?  To begin with, Pentecost was the fiftieth day after the first Sunday after Passover, and was also known as the Feast of Weeks.  Its origins go all the way back to the Torah, where the celebration was enshrined in the Mosaic Law:

“You shall count seven weeks. Begin to count the seven weeks from the time the sickle is first put to the standing grain. Then you shall keep the Feast of Weeks to the Lord your God with the tribute of a freewill offering from your hand, which you shall give as the Lord your God blesses you… You shall remember that you were a slave in Egypt; and you shall be careful to observe these statutes.” - Deuteronomy 16:9-10, 12

One way of describing it would be as a celebration that took place when the first sheaf of wheat was brought in thanksgiving, with hopes that many more would follow.  For Jews, this festival was one that reminded them of their blessings, and God’s deliverance.  In Jesus’ day, it had also become a celebration of when Moses received the Law, a date traditionally believed to have been fifty days after Passover.  So, we have bound up in the festival the themes of blessing, deliverance, and a divinely ordained way of life.  The intent, however, was not for this to simply be a celebration of God’s past actions on behalf of Israel.  Its purpose was to use the remembrance of God’s past faithfulness as a compass by which Israel might guide its present actions.  To that point, we see that if we only look back on the day of Pentecost, we lose something vital in the formation of our faith.  While Pentecost called the faithful Jew to look back on the past, it was also an invitation for them to set their eyes forward in anticipation of what God might do in the future. 

I would suggest that Pentecost was God’s way of taking ‘salvation history’- the story of how God has brought about salvation in the past- and throwing it forward into the future, so that the church no longer fixes its gaze solely toward the past, but also looks to the future in expectation of how God will continue to act on behalf of humanity.  Take for instance the idea of Pentecost as the Feast of Weeks, complete with the freewill offering of the first fruits of the grain harvest.  Those first fruits were offered with the hope, the desire that God would grant even more.  We often look back on Pentecost and see the church’s high-water mark, though we loathe admitting it.  3,000 people put their faith in Christ through baptism that day!  What chance do we have of replicating that type of response to an invitation or altar call?  What if, instead of the pinnacle of God’s redemptive work, Pentecost was simply just the beginning?  After all, the roots of Pentecost were not in offering the entire harvest, simply the first fruits.  We are on the right track when we consider the words of Peter in this famous sermon that “the promise is for you and for your children and for all who are far off, everyone whom the Lord our God calls to himself.”  (Acts 2:39)  Peter recognizes that God will act not only in the present, but in the future; and that God will act not just here, but also in every place.  It’s the beginning of the fulfillment of something promised long before, in the words of the prophet Isaiah:

“I have seen his ways, but I will heal him; I will lead him and restore comfort to him and his mourners, creating the fruit of the lips. Peace, peace, to the far and to the near,” says the Lord, “and I will heal him.”  (Isaiah 57:19)

That is certainly how Paul saw it when he wrote his epistle to the Ephesians.  For Paul, “those who are far off” speaks not to geography, but to the chasm that stands between us and God because of our sin.  Jesus addresses not our geographical placement, but our unrighteous standing before God:

“But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ. For he himself is our peace, who has made us both one and has broken down in his flesh the dividing wall of hostility by abolishing the law of commandments expressed in ordinances, that he might create in himself one new man in place of the two, so making peace, and might reconcile us both to God in one body through the cross, thereby killing the hostility. And he came and preached peace to you who were far off and peace to those who were near.” (Ephesians 2:13-17)

The beauty of Pentecost is not in the success of Peter’s sermon that day, but in the promise that the transformed hearts of those several thousand new believers in Christ was only the beginning of the harvest that God would gather to himself.  

I Peter 5:1-11: following the leader

Peter’s final words are about both leadership and perseverance.  He knows that the church only perseveres if it is led properly, in a Christ-like fashion.  For that reason, he speaks to both how leaders should lead, and how followers should follow.

The primary emphasis of Peter’s instructions on leadership is on the ownership of the flock.  The flock belongs to God, and for that reason the sheep of the flock should be considered precious.  Peter knows this because it was told to him by Jesus Himself.  We read of a scene on the beach featuring Jesus and Peter in the final chapter of the gospel of John.          

“When they had finished breakfast, Jesus said to Simon Peter, “Simon, son of John, do you love me more than these?” He said to him, “Yes, Lord; you know that I love you.” He said to him, “Feed my lambs.” He said to him a second time, “Simon, son of John, do you love me?” He said to him, “Yes, Lord; you know that I love you.” He said to him, “Tend my sheep.” He said to him the third time, “Simon, son of John, do you love me?” Peter was grieved because he said to him the third time, “Do you love me?” and he said to him, “Lord, you know everything; you know that I love you.” Jesus said to him, “Feed my sheep.” - John 21:15-17

Do you think Peter forgot this exchange?  Do you think he forgot the look in Jesus’ eye when he asked Peter to look after the flock that he had purchased at such a costly price?  It is only when we remember who owns the flock, and what the flock cost, that we can hope to effectively lead followers of Christ.  Shepherds of the flock should be willing, not coerced, to take on the responsibility of leading the church.  The rewards of spiritual leadership are eternal, not temporal.  If church leaders are in it for the money, they need to reconsider the nature of their profession.  The luxury cars and gated mansions of today’s popular “televangelist” are repugnant when judged in comparison to the standard of true Christian leadership.  And yet, these are the people with the largest audiences, and the broadest influence.  Despite their thousands of “followers”, it is not the Creflo Dollars or Joel Osteens of the world that will influence the church most.  History has shown us that it is the Augustines, who labor for decades in an African backwater, or the Bonhoeffers who teach in “unaccredited”, clandestine seminaries in Nazi Germany, who do the most to ensure that the church maintain its cruciform character.  After all, leadership is about providing an example not issuing orders.  Peter instructs leaders not to be domineering, but to be examples.  Where did he learn this approach to leadership?  I’d venture to guess he learned it from a Messiah who didn’t just teach about suffering and sacrifice, but modeled it as He went to the cross. 

That’s what Peter has to say to church leaders, but what about the rest of us?  Does he have a word for those of us who sit in the pews, following rather than leading?  Indeed he does, and it is no less challenging than what he says to the leaders.  First of all, he challenges us to submit.  This idea of submission is especially relevant when we consider the generation gap.  The younger generation often wants to go at a pace faster than that of the leadership, or the older generation.  The younger generation should submit, as the elders have to consider the entire church body when deciding how to proceed.  Age and wisdom together provide a perspective that those of us in the younger generation often lack.  It’s one of the reasons that leaders are to be Christians of proven character and judgment.  When telling the “youngsters” to “clothe” themselves with humility, the term is stronger than when used elsewhere.  Here it refers to the garment, or apron, one ties on to prevent the spoiling or soiling of one’s clothes.  Humility can literally prevent us from spoiling our reputation and even our relationship with other Christians.  I have to wonder if Peter is thinking back here to his younger, more impulsive days.   Perhaps he is wishing that at times he had a little larger dose of humility, and a little less bravado.  His experience has taught him that leaders are grown, and not made.  Just as we would not expect to a sapling produce apples, so we cannot expect younger Christians to immediately bear the fruits, and burden, of leadership.    

He speaks this way, to the leaders and to the followers, because how they relate to one another will be crucial to their ability to persevere.  Perseverance requires alertness, watchfulness not only for the coming end with the return of Christ, but also for the situations that will test our faith in the meantime.  The testing will come because Satan is our adversary, and he wants us out of the game.  Just as a team focuses their efforts on the opposing teams strongest player, so Satan comes the hardest after those with the deepest faith.  The key to making it through it is relying on Christ, and understanding that persecution comes to all Christians throughout the world.   Those undergoing persecution must remember that they don’t face these trials alone, they haven’t been singled out.  In fact, in many ways the fact that they are being persecuted is a testimony to their faith being evident. 

When we trust in God, Peter says God will do four things: restore us, establish us, strengthen us, and settle us.  God will restore the brokenness resulting from the slings and arrows hurled at us by the world.  God will establish us, and then strengthen us so that we will no longer be moved.  Finally, God will settle us so that despite the raging of the storm, we find in our heart a “peace that surpasses all understanding.”  Peter ends this section the same way we end our prayers, with a simple “amen”.  The word itself means, “let it be so”.  Peter knew the truth of what he wrote to these Christians, because he had experienced it in his own life.  He desperately wanted them to experience it for themselves.  In words that echo Peter’s, we pray “amen”, let it be so. 

I Peter 4:12-19: what's in a name?

One of Peter’s themes in his first epistle is the reason for our suffering.  Suffering is a universal experience; it happens to us all in some form or fashion.  There is suffering whose cause is amoral.  Many diseases are not the cause of our own good or evil action, but the result of circumstance, genetics, or even just bad luck.  Peter is not talking about that type of suffering.  He’s talking about the type of suffering we bring on ourselves.  It can be the result of either our good, or our evil actions. 

Originally, the name “Christian” was most likely intended to be a slander.  Christ was reviled by most of the Roman world, or at least by those in the Roman world who had heard of Him.  What type of Christ, or Messiah, is crucified?  For that reason, followers of Christ were referred to as Christians, in an effort to identify them with someone who the world saw as a failed Messiah.  How does Peter tell them to respond to this slanderous title?  He tells them to wear it with pride.  What happens if we gladly accept such identification, and then go about doing good deeds in our community?  We need not be ashamed of such a title, and in fact the name Christian can bring glory to God if people associate our identity as Christians with good deeds.  Soon, people will forget the fact that the name was originally meant to be demeaning, and instead praise God for the good things happening in the community because of people called “Christians”.  We share in Christ’s sufferings, even if it those sufferings are as simple as being slandered a little.  If that is the case, then we also share in the pattern of His life, which includes His resurrection and glorification.  God’s glory should rest on us, because of the way we pattern our life after Christ, just as it rested on the Israelites in the Old Testament.  It might not take the form of a cloud or a pillar of fire, but it should be just as visible. 

When we decide to do good, even when it brings suffering into our life, we are placing our trust in God.  While pleading with God for deliverance, David would write “into your hand I commit my spirit; you have redeemed me, O LORD, faithful God.” (Psalm 31:5)  Even as he turns his fate over to God, David knows that redemption is already a reality.  The epitome of suffering, the cross, has Jesus echoing David’s words, making the prayer from scripture His own.  “Then Jesus, calling out with a loud voice, said, “Father, into your hands I commit my spirit!” And having said this he breathed his last.” (Luke 23:46)  Even when standing at death’s door, Jesus entrusted His spirit to God.  That faith was rewarded three days later when God vindicated Him by raising Him from the dead.  Are we making the decision every day, whether in good times or bad, to pray that great prayer of faith, “Father, into your hands I commit my spirit!”?  

I Peter 4:1-11: enduring a difficult present, for a brighter future

One of the reasons for Peter’s writing was to help a group of Christians persevere while under pressure from the world.  By its very nature, perseverance deals with the future.  If we are going to succeed in following Christ in the future, we cannot keep one foot in the past.  To put it simply, Peter tells us that we have wasted enough time already. 

It begs the question, “How exactly have you wasted time?”  All of us are guilty of being less than productive, sometimes even counter-productive.  Maybe some of the things in our past were detrimental to our spirit, and even our body.  Keep them in the past Peter warns us.  Maybe some of the things were not bad in and of themselves, but they consumed our life so as to drain us of all productivity.  Keep them in the past, Peter tells us.  We can’t go back and change all of our mistakes; we can’t redo the decisions where we could have exercised more wisdom.  All we can do, and this is no little thing, is make sure that the past does not spill over into the present, and then the future. 

Why should we care so much about changing the way we live, especially if the way we are living now is easier, and more fun than the way God wants us to live?  Again, Peter returns to the theme of the future.  What seems like the easiest path, the most fun path now, almost always leads to a difficult present and a future full of regret.  Maybe it’s the one-night-stand that was a lot of fun at the time, but that leads to chronic health problems or an unplanned pregnancy, or the college drinking binges that lead to a lifetime of alcoholism, or the extravagant living beyond your means that has you trapped now in a life of poverty.  Christians were left with difficult choices in Peter’s day.  While many of their persecutors lived a luxurious and powerful life until death, Christians often died in poverty, sometimes even violently at the hands of their accusers.  They were referred to as haters of humanity, accused of political disloyalty, and even of cannibalism (because of popular misunderstandings concerning the Lord’s Supper).  I am sure that many Christians asked themselves why they continued to put themselves at risk.  Why not make life easier and give up on faith?  Peter tells them why: The hope of a better future.    

Because we do hope for a better future, we remain clear-headed, and hard-working in the present.  It’s not that our works save us, but rather they are a testimony to our belief that what God has said is true, and that what he wills for the future will come to pass.  Peter roots this duty of the Christian in a devout and sincere prayer life.  Why?  Because in the words of Peter H. Davids,  “proper prayer is not an “opiate” or escape, but rather a function of clear vision and a seeking of even clearer vision from God.”  Prayer is the conduit through which we are reminded of God’s vision for the world.  Because of this we should be asking the question, “how much do we spend listening when we pray?”  Before we can speak and serve out of love as Peter instructs us, we must listen for God’s Spirit in prayer.  One of the ways we speak and serve in love is by showing hospitality.  Hospitality is mentioned explicitly five times in the NT (Romans 12:13; I Timothy 3:2; Titus 1:8; Hebrews 13:2; I Peter 4:9).  Furthermore, it was used as a qualification for eldership, and for being enrolled as a widow in the Pastoral Epistles.  In other words, hospitality was an expectation, not an option for a Christian.  Notice Peter does not say “when the preacher speaks”, or “when the deacon serves”.  He casts the net broadly in terms of Christian proclamation and service, stating that “whoever speaks” and “whoever serves”, should do so in accordance with God’s will, and by God’s strength.  We are stewards of the gifts that we have received through the Spirit, to speak and to serve as Christ would serve.  We will be judged not by what gifts we have, but by how we use those gifts to transform the world around us.  

I Peter 3:18-22: Noah's wasn't the only ark

In the previous post, we saw how even in the midst of suffering, we are to “apologize”, or give a defense of our faith.  The reason for this is simple: Jesus Christ did the same thing.  Peter uses some very familiar stories to help us understand what it looks like when we find shelter in God’s grace during difficult times.  Specifically, he uses the story of the ark.  The story of Noah is parallel to the situation of the recipients of Peter’s letter.  They, like Noah and his family, are an oppressed minority.  The reason for the oppression they face is their faith in God, and the trust they have placed in God, that His word is true.  They are waiting for something that has not happened yet, and the waiting is taking its toll.

Consider the parallels between Noah, and the early Christian recipients of I Peter.  Notice the similarities between the ark, the flood, and the baptism that we receive when we begin our journey as Christians. 

-          God provided an ark so that Noah’s family might pass through the destructive waters safely. Similarly, God works through baptism, leading us safely by His grace through death, and out the other side, where we enter into the life promised us in Christ. 

-          We pass through the waters of baptism, of judgment, just as the ark passed through the waters of the flood. We arise unscathed, just as those in the ark came through the waters unscathed.

How exactly does this happen?  Oh, we understand roughly what it would have looked like for Noah to build a great big ark.  We can imagine his family being tossed about inside by the waves of the flood.  We can wonder how nerve-racking it would have been to hear rain on the roof, for forty straight days!  As incredible as the story is, we can envision it in some way, but what about baptism?  What does getting physically wet have to do with our spiritual lives?  It’s hard to comprehend how God’s grace is made manifest in a very physical act. 

The waters of baptism are not magical, any more than the ark was magical.  Sometimes because it’s easier to imagine, we forget about exactly how ridiculous the ark was at the time.  Picture it, Noah and his family out there day after day, week after week, month after month, building a huge boat nowhere close to water, when it had never even rained!!  Despite all the work that Noah put in, the ark was still a result of God’s grace.  He told Noah about the flood, and because Noah believed him, he acted accordingly.  Similarly, God tells us about the coming judgment.  We might think we are doing something by wading into that baptismal pool, but our physical acts of obedience are made possible only in light of the truth revealed to us by God.  Like Noah, we believe that what God tells us about the future is true.  The real question is, like Noah, do we trust God’s word enough to find shelter in His grace?   

I Peter 3:8-17: When's the last time you "apologized"?

If you’re anything like me, apologizing is one of the hardest things to do.  That mostly has to do with the fact that in apologizing, we are admitting that on some level, in some way, we bear guilt or responsibility for whatever has gone wrong.  However, Peter would tell us that apologizing is not just something we do when we are wrong.  Before we get to that however, a quick note on the suffering that is connected to the “apologizing” Peter encourages us to do. 

 

Peter uses part of a text from the Old Testament, to help focus the minds of his readers on the importance of enduring as a righteous people before God.  In Psalm 34, sandwiched in between an invitation to “taste and see that the Lord is good” and the ending where it speaks of the redemption the righteous find in God, there is a section that heavily implies that life will not always be a bed of roses for those who seek to do the right thing.  “Many are the afflictions of the righteous, but the Lord delivers him out of them all.”  That would have been one of the next verses of that psalm had Peter continued quoting it.  Why didn’t Peter just quote it then?  Like any good teacher, I think Peter recognizes the value of helping his readers reach the answer on their own, so he leads them partially to it, and then hopes that in their mind they will hear the rest of the psalm.  It’s an old technique referred to as metalepsis, whereby an author, in our case Peter, quotes the beginning of a passage, hoping that the reader or listener will be brought to a remembrance of the entire thing.  If I said to you, “four-score and seven years ago”, what would you think of?  First of all, you would probably continue to envision the Gettsyburg address, and in your mind continue by thinking “our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation.”  By just saying a few words, your mind has been flooded with not just all the ideas in Lincoln’s speech, but you also might have imagined the tall, slender figure of our sixteenth President, adorned with a stove-pipe hat, addressing the crowd gathered for the commemoration of the cemetery on that famous battlefield. 

Just a simple quote from a famous speech can send our mind into a state of deep reflection about our past as a nation.  Likewise, for people of faith a short quotation from a well-known psalm can invoke all the promises and reassurances that psalm has to offer.  The suffering endured because of righteousness is troubling, but not expected.  And because God expects it, He has made plans to deliver those who endure it.       

That’s why Peter tells us that we should always be ready to make a defense, or to explain the hope that is in us.  The Greek term for defense is apologia, which is the word from which our words apologetics and apology come.   This is a different type of apology than the kind we are used to though.  For too long, Christians have been doing the wrong type of apologizing.  We have presented ourselves with hat in hand to society, apologizing for the absolute truth of our claims.  We have apologized for the high moral standards that we strive to attain, and that we challenge others to pursue.  We even apologize for a God who dares to not conform Himself to what society feels He should be.  I think if we look back to our own history as a people of faith, we will find examples of apologies that are altogether different from the ones we have been offering.  They are more in line with what Peter encourages here in this passage, not awkward admissions of guilt or regret for daring to proclaim the truth about a God that makes society uncomfortable.  But rather, a passionate, and yet at the same time compassionate, defense of the truth concerning who God is.  One example from the past of such a defense is that of Apollonius. Apollonius’ was a Roman citizen whose talent had caused him to rise to the rank of senator.  He was accused of being a Christian before the Pretorian Prefect Perennius.  In his trial in front of the senate, instead of defending himself against the charges, he acknowledged them, and began an impassioned defense of the nature of the Christian faith.  As a result of his acknowledgement, Apollonius was condemned to death based on the law established by the Emperor Trajan.  He endured two trials, one by the Pretorian Prefect, and the other by a group of senators and jurists.  The whole trial was conducted in a very courteous manner.  The only interruptions were pleas by Apollonius’ colleagues to temper his remarks, as they were sealing his fate.  He was “digging his own grave” with his unapologetic apologia, but that made no difference to him however; for he was not afraid to die.  According to Apollonius, "there is waiting for me something better: eternal life, given to the person who has lived well on earth."  There is disagreement among the sources as to the exact nature of his death.  Some say that Apollonius died after having his legs crushed, others say he was decapitated.  Though we aren’t sure exactly how he died, we do know how he lived.  What a marvelous life it was. 

How many of us would have acted as Apollonius did?  My guess is that many of us would have done a different type of apologizing.  But here’s the thing, does the renouncing of our faith make the truth of who God is any less true?  I think Apollonius stood there and refused to recant because he believed with all his heart that Jesus was who he claimed to be.  I think he knew that suffering and death will come to us all, and if it’s going to come, better to endure it while maintaining our confession, that Jesus Christ is indeed Lord.  In the words of Peter, “it is better to suffer for doing good, if that should be God's will, than for doing evil.”

I Peter 3:1-7: faith in God=faithfulness to your wife

It is important when we come to the Bible that we realize that it is written in a certain context.  Does that mean that we can’t relate to it today?  Absolutely not!  What it does mean is that in order to properly understand what the Bible is telling us, we have to properly understand what it told its first readers.  This issue of context is seldom more critical than when dealing with sociological issues, especially those relating to gender.  To prove my point, I’d like to share with you a literary exert from the era when I Peter was written, that may help shed some light on how women were viewed in that culture:

“How can one reach agreement with a woman?’ ‘By recognizing,’ he replied, ‘that the female sex is bold, positively active for something which it desires, easily liable to change its mind because of poor reasoning powers, and of naturally weak constitution.  It is necessary to have dealings with them in a sound way, avoiding provocation which may lead to a quarrel.  Life prospers when the helmsman knows the goal to which he must make the passage.  Life is completely steered by invocation of God.” – Letter of Aristeas

I would agree that when dealing with women, it is sound advice to avoid provocation which may lead to a quarrel.  That is a tidbit of advice that is not unique to the above passage, and that stands the test of time.  Likewise, we would agree that life is completely steered by invocation of God.  However, we would disagree that women have poor reasoning powers.  The idea that women are inferior intellectually is a relic of a bygone era.  Too many of us have received our education from women to argue that they are in any way intellectually inferior.  As the percentage of those obtaining a higher education continues to tilt in favor of females, if anything the empirical evidence would argue the exact opposite.  But I digress…  

So if I Peter was written in an era whose view of women differs starkly from our own, what if anything can we learn from it regarding the marriage relationship?  Despite its “dated”, and some would say “antiquated” nature, there are some eternal truths that emanate from the text. 

First of all, we should not judge a book by its cover, or in this instance, a woman by her outward appearance.  How desperately do our little girls, our teenager girls, and our young women need to hear this?  In a society that judges us largely by our outward appearance, how important is it for us as a church to send a message to our young women, and young men, that clothes and physical beauty are far less important than what is in their hearts.  Only a little more than ten years removed from high school, I can tell you that the things I remember most about my classmates have nothing to do with their clothes, or even with their appearance.  Believe it or not, when looking at some of the photos from my reunion last year, there were some attractive girls from my class that I had forgotten existed.  My memory of my classmates from so many years ago is centered on the relationship I had with each one of them.  It focuses on shared experience, not what they wore, what they drove, or how they looked.  If the church doesn’t advocate for the surpassing value of judging others by their heart, and the content of their character, who will?

Second, we learn that wives should be honored and protected.  The very things that make them the weaker vessel physically are also the very things that make them a blessing to society, and a perfect match for their husbands.  I know it’s a faux pas to speak in terms of weakness and strength, especially when referring to how the genders relate to one another, but what we see related in I Peter is just one side of the coin.  Generally speaking, women might not be able to bench as much or run as fast as men, but that does not mean they don’t make a vital contribution every bit as important as men.  Why do you think Peter insists on husbands honoring and protecting them?      

Third, we are taught that women are co-heirs, or equals with men spiritually.  Women are not second-class Christians.  Furthermore, by giving them moral instructions motivated by a missionary outlook, Peter shows that they have a unique role to play in the church’s evangelistic efforts.  Anyone who has spent much time around a church knows that women do a large percentage of the work.  They not only function in the roles that have traditionally been ascribed to women, but they teach, preach, and witness to the love of Christ in ways seldom recognized, but always impactful.   

Finally, we learn that for husbands, our ability or inability to honor our wives will directly impact God’s willingness to hear our prayers.  We cannot display ingratitude by neglecting, dishonoring, or God-forbid abusing the wives that God has blessed us with, and then expect beneficial answers to our prayers.  Faith is not just mental assent to a certain belief, it is living our lives in such a way that we show to others the truth of what we believe.  If we can’t manifest faithfulness in our homes, what chance do we have of manifesting it in the world?

May my faith, and my gratitude to God, be displayed for all to see in the way that I honor the wife God has blessed me with.  

I Peter 2:13-25: tracing the pattern of Christ

If you’re reading this, then you’re old enough to have realized that in life we often have to do things we don’t like.  We often have to work with, or associate with people we don’t like.  What do we do as people of faith when life’s circumstances remind us of this realization?  Peter tells us that as Christians, we should be motivated to submit “for the sake of the Lord”, even if the person they are submitting to is found to be offensive.  We live in a time when not only the people we must submit to, but also the very idea of submission itself is less than appealing.  All our emphasis on personal liberties and being an individual has taken us to a place where we chafe at the idea of submitting to anyone.  And yet, submit we must.  We submit when we see those blue lights come on in our rear-view mirror, when we mail in that check to the IRS, or when the boss calls to tell us he needs us to come in to work.  If submission is a reality that we can’t escape, maybe we should consider not whether to submit, but how we submit.  It’s not that we will suddenly be happy about that speeding ticket, or rejoice as we pay our taxes, or love the idea of going into work.  However, perhaps we can endure all those things, and even grow to the point that we can do them with a positive attitude, if we think of them not as submitting to a police officer, or the government, or our boss, but if we see them as submitting to Jesus. 

Peter desperately wants us to understand that it’s how we respond in those less than enjoyable moments that serve as the greatest witness to our faith, or our lack thereof.  Detractors of the Christian faith are all around us, and our conduct can become either a testimony to our faith, or evidence that Christians are not all that different from anyone else.  Good deeds silence those who reject the gospel, and undercut their arguments against it.  I’m reminded of a story I read not too long ago about an atheist in Texas.  This man was suing to have all Christian symbols removed from the county courthouse.  He did not want to see a nativity scene at Christmas, and if going to court was what it took to remove it, so be it.  Before too long however, the man would not be seeing anything, including a nativity scene.  For some time the man had been suffering from a condition that would eventually leave him blind.  While some Christians might see this as divine justice (and sadly some of those Christians are the ones with the largest microphones), a group of Christians in this Texas town chose not to delight in the man’s plight, but rather to help him as Jesus had instructed them.  Soon the man received a check from local Christians to help cover his medical expenses. 

I’m not sure if those Christians had spent a lot of time reading I Peter, but I think Peter would have been very proud to see how they reacted toward one who was supposed to be their “enemy”.  Peter is trying to tell us that rather than using our freedom for ourselves, or to do evil, we should use it to become servants of God.  That group of Christians became servants of God by helping an atheist pay his medical bills, because everyone is made in the image of God, even atheists.    In a time where there is an emphasis on personal liberty, and on our “rights”, we should be asking the question, what do we do with our liberty?  How do we use our rights not to bless ourselves, but to bless others?  Do we respect everyone, from the top of our social ladder all the way down to the bottom?  According to Peter, we should show as much deference to every human being, as we do to the most powerful among us.  He tells us to honor the emperor, which the Roman government would have been glad to hear.  But he also says honor everyone.  Rather than dragging the emperor down, and risking sounding treasonous, Peter instead elevates the rest of humanity.  Rather than viewing society as a ladder, the apostle insists that we should see it as an even plane where everyone is honored and respected, and God alone is feared and worshiped. 

How does that happen?  It sound great, but how can we control our emotions, keep our pride in check, and treat every person with the dignity they deserve?  The passage points to the fact that the answer lies in following the one who did it the best, who did it perfectly, Jesus Christ.  When the verse refers to Jesus as our example, it uses the Greek word hypogrammos, the word for a pattern that a child would trace.  So, in patterning our life after Jesus, we learn to suffer for others because Christ suffered for us.  In following Jesus we come to an understanding that just like him, we do not receive the crown of glory without the crown of thorns.   Martin Hengel would say, “’Following’ means in the first place unconditional sharing of the master’s destiny, which does not stop even at deprivation and suffering in the train of the master, and is possible only on the basis of complete trust on the part of the person who ‘follows’; he has placed his destiny and his future in his master’s hands.”  That is exactly what Peter encourages us to do, to believe that we share in the destiny of our master.  While that may include suffering for a time, it ultimately leads to that far richer fate of eternal life in the presence of God.  

I Peter 2:1-12: When God changes our name

Peter understood something about being human.  He understood that before we can pursue God, and the vocation that God has given us, we must first decide to turn our back on our old life, on our old way of thinking.  That’s why he instructs his readers to “put away”, or some translations might say “put off”, things like malice, deceit, and slander.  It’s the same verb used in the Greek for the taking off of one’s clothes, perhaps because they are dirty.  Just as we take off our dirty clothes to put on clean ones, so we must also take off our old sinful way of living, before attempting to live a Godly life.  Imagine how foolish we would look if we kept putting on clean clothes, but never took off our dirty ones.  My guess is the fact that the new clothes were clean wouldn’t make much of a difference due to the stench of the old ones.   While in some places, the imagery of milk is used to refer to something basic, here the emphasis isn’t on the milk, but on the longing.  We must have a desire, a longing to be clean, before we will be moved to take off those old rags of sin and doubt.  What does it mean to long?  The psalmist would compare a longing for God, to a deer that pants for flowing streams:  “As a deer pants for flowing streams, so pants my soul for you, O God.” (Psalm 42:1)  I remember that feeling when I was a runner in high school.  The longer we ran, the harder we pushed ourselves, the more we longed for water, for pure refreshment.   In another psalm, the author would state “my soul longs, yes, faints for the courts of the Lord; my heart and flesh sing for joy to the living God.” (Psalm 84:2)  It is clear that if we are truly exerting ourselves as people of faith, then we will long for the spiritual nourishment that only God can provide. 

In the middle section of this passage, a number of Old Testament passages are quoted, as the author lays out two possibilities for his audience.  He describes our response to Jesus as either tripping, or as building.  Some people trip, rejecting Jesus for various reasons.  However, God overrules their rejection by taking the object, or in this case the person, whom they scorn, and making him the foundation of a new world.  That’s where that Old Testament quotation comes in, “the stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone.” (Psalm 118:22)  The author didn’t have to try hard to make the connection between Jesus and this passage, as Jesus actually makes it himself in Matthew 21:42; Mark 12:10; Luke 20:17.  Also, Peter uses it in Acts 4:11 when he and John are standing before the council, he states that “this Jesus is the stone that was rejected by you, the builders, which has become the cornerstone.”  A quotation from Isaiah is also used, that describes Jesus as “a stone of stumbling, and a rock of offense.” (Isaiah 8:14)  One of the words used to describe this rejection of Jesus is the Greek word from which we get our word “scandal”.  Jesus was indeed a scandal in his day, just as he continues to be in our day, at least when the implications of his life, death, and resurrection are properly understood.    A crucified Messiah is indeed a tough pill to swallow; Paul says as much in Galatians, that the cross as an instrument of shame and defeat is hard for some people to overcome.  But for those who trust in God, it need not be a stumbling block.  You see, not everyone trips over Jesus.  While some might trip over a stone like Jesus, others choose to build with him.  We see in verse 4 that though Jesus was rejected by men, he is precious and chosen in the sight of God.  “Chosen” or “elect” is the same word used to describe us in the very first verse of I Peter.  When we build with Jesus, we become the new temple.  In John 2, Jesus talks about how he will replace the temple as the place where people encounter God.  What if as followers of Christ, we can serve that same purpose, and through our love for those around us serve as a place where people encounter God? 

That is indeed our purpose as a type of new Israel.  It’s why Peter refers to us as a “chosen race”, “royal priesthood”, “a holy nation”, and “a people for his own possession”.   These are all titles that belong to Israel.  “Royal priesthood” and “holy nation” are direct quotes from Exodus 19:6.  Peter is in essence saying, now they also belong to the Christian community, the church.   We proclaim God’s goodness, in calling us out of the darkness and into the light.  We even hear echoes of the story of Hosea and Gomer’s children from Hosea.  In the story, Hosea’s wife Gomer has children with another man, and they are named “she has not received mercy”, and “not my people”.  They are odd, even damaging names for children, unless you are looking to prove a point.  However, in a move that illustrates God’s mercifulness towards us, Hosea adopts the children, naming them “she has received mercy”, and “my people”.   In the Hebrew, all you have to do is drop the negative component of the names, a simple “Lo-“, to go from merciless to merciful, to go from “not my people” to “my people”.   Isn’t that what God does for us?  In his mercy and grace, God drops the negative component of our names.  The “nos” and the “nots” that defined us not as who we were, but who we weren’t.   God gives us a way of defining ourselves not by our failures, but by our purpose.  I think Peter would join us in giving thanks for a God who rather than looking back at our failures, looks ahead to the purpose that he has for us.     

I Peter 1:13-25: holiness, the forgotten vocation

Peter writes to this group of Christians under fire for a reason.  One of the things he wants to do is remind them of why they are being persecuted.  He is reminding them that their vocation is of the utmost importance, which explains why it has drawn so much fire from the world.  That vocation is nothing less than holiness. 

If they are going to successfully answer God’s call for them to live holy lives, they must first be prepared.  The word usually translated as “prepare” at the beginning of this passage literally means “gird”.  It’s a word which implies impending action, as to gird up literally meant to gather in your cloak or long garment, and tie it up in preparation for running, fighting, or other strenuous work.  When simply walking, sitting, or at leisure, the garment was allowed to remain long.  The exhortation to “gird up” invokes images of Israel, specifically their preparation to leave Egypt during the Exodus.  During the one season I played basketball in high school, on the junior varsity team, I was rarely required to “gird myself” for action.  My warm-up almost always stayed on, and I seldom saw the court.  Peter is telling us here that when it comes to faith, there are no “bench-warmers”, we all must be ready to go into the game.

What is the game exactly you may be wondering?  Too often, holiness is described as abstaining from certain things.  While it is true that part of our calling to be holy requires us to forego many of the things the world deems acceptable, and even good, holiness is more than abstention.  Holiness is also, and I would argue primarily, concerted action on behalf of God.  In both the Old and New Testaments, imitation of God is the standard of our ethics.   Placing our hope totally in Jesus Christ means we invest fully in his service, and in the spread of the gospel.  How do we accomplish that?  To put it simply, we accomplish it through action, through the loving service of our neighbor that we see so powerfully manifested in the life of Jesus himself.  In the words of Clement of Rome, “seeing then that we are the portion of one who is holy, let us do all the deeds of sanctification.”   

In order to perform those “deeds of sanctification” that Clement refers to, God gives us great freedom.  Not a freedom that is an escape from responsibility, but one that liberates us from the restricting power of sin and death.  It was freedom that came at great price, the blood of Jesus, which means that we should not think we can waste the gift that God has given us without consequence.   Our relationship with God, namely his being our Father, should not lead us to believe that he is partial, and that he will refrain from judging us fairly.  In fact, his punishment is often motivated by love, and a desire to see us grow into the task he has set before us.  I remember back in high school when I brought home the worst grade I ever made on a report card, a “D” in Algebra II.  For the entire six weeks that followed, I was not allowed to watch television.  Why was it that my parents punished me?  Was it because they hated me?  Far from it, it was because they knew I was capable of doing much better than a “D”.  The last thing they wanted was to see me squander my talent because of laziness, or a lack of desire to do my best.   We should not think that our relationship with God will cause him to compromise his sense of justice, and righteousness.  If we truly know God, we know that justice and impartiality is part of who God is.  

It was the justice of God that required that he purchase our redemption, rather than simply granting it.  It was the costliest transaction in history, as our redemption led his only Son to be hung on a cross.  In his allusion to the Passover lamb, Peter refers simultaneously to Christ, as well as to our identity as the people of God, Israel.   The blood of Christ does more than cleanse us from sin, it cleanses our consciences (Hebrews 9:14); gives us bold access to the Father (Hebrews 10:19); and rescues us from a sinful way of life.  In other words, it does not just do away with the negative consequences; it adds positive aspects as well.  Reinforcing the point made earlier, it does not just aid the aspect of holiness that requires us to abstain from evil, but it also empowers us to actively participate in the positive side of holiness, to take part in the “deeds of sanctification”.  This has been God’s plan all along.  The phrase “chosen in advance”, points to the fact that God did not just predict these events, but rather planned them from the beginning.   Jesus is the revelation of God for us, and also the one through whom we believe.  Indeed, our relationship with God is through Christ, because we see done in Christ what will ultimately be done in us.  Jesus resurrection gives us hope that God can and will also raise us, and vindicate us no matter what the world does to us as we live out our lives in holiness. 

In this passage, Peter is reminding them that they are saved for a purpose.  How many of us think only of salvation, and not about why we are saved?  Our salvation is not about avoiding death, or hell, it’s about living life, and embracing a relationship with God.  I am reminded of Lieutenant Dan in the movie Forest Gump.   Lieutenant Dan saw his purpose in life as being to die in combat, just as several prior generations of men in his family had done.  When Forest saves him from that death he so desired, his world is shaken to the core.  He was alive, but for a long time he refused to live.  How many of us have been spared death, but have yet to embrace life?  What does it mean to embrace life you may ask?  In essence, embracing life is to order our behavior according to God’s principles.  God’s word reveals imperishable truth, namely the command for us to love one another.  There is power in that love, a power that unleashes in us eternal life.   We are after all, not now the product of corruptible seed, but the incorruptible word of God, which creates, and recreates (see Genesis, John, etc.).   Peter longs for his audience, and for us, to realize that our faith should extend to every part of who we are.  Christ’s redemption of our souls, God’s plan for our life, is as all-encompassing as the love which made that plan possible in the first place. 

I Peter 1:1-12: a message of hope from the hopeless

After countless blogs on the gospel of Mark, I have transitioned to I Peter.  The reasoning behind the decision is simple.   When we read I Peter, we are reading the testimony of the same man we saw bumbling his way through the gospel of Mark.  Who was Peter?

-          He was one of the first ones called to be a follower of Jesus Christ.  He was called with his brother Andrew.  He had been there from the beginning.

-          He had accompanied Jesus throughout his ministry, and had heard his teaching on multiple occasions

-          He had also experienced his share of setbacks, disappointments, and even failures.

In many ways Peter is like us.  Things don’t always go the way he wants.  Sometimes he is his own worst enemy.  And yet, what we’ll see from this letter is quite simple.  Peter has changed.  The resurrection has prompted Peter to respond in ways we would have thought unimaginable while reading Mark.  He still isn’t perfect, but when we listen closely we can hear the words of Christ in Peter’s writing, and we can see how his entire outlook has been radically altered because of the power of the Holy Spirit working in his life.

So with all this in mind, we sit up and take notice when Peter says that we are “born again to a living hope”.  We talked about how Peter had things in his past, things he wished he could undo, or redo.  I can’t help but wonder if as he writes this phrase, he doesn’t think of those low-points in his life- the boasting, the violence, the denial.  If anyone understood the power of being born again, of having a living hope, it was Peter.   There is no doubt that he delighted in this phrase, “he has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.”  That implies more than a fresh start, it implies a different start.  Becoming a Christian isn’t about getting a mulligan.  It’s not a second chance to get things right, it’s coming to the understanding that we can’t get things right on our own.  In John 3 Jesus tells Nicodemus that we must be born again/from above.  For whatever reason, the translators usually chose either “born again” or “from above”, subjecting the alternative to the footnotes.  However, I don’t think Jesus was using the word because of its ambiguity, but because of the dual meaning inherent in the word itself.  We can’t only be born again, because then we would be destined to re-live our life in the same limited way we did the first go around.  Similarly, we can’t be born just “from above”, because that fails to reckon with our need for renewal. 

So what does this look like in Peter’s life?  Peter didn’t like it in Mark’s gospel, when Jesus mentioned the Messiah suffering.  Peter’s concept of the Messiah probably included Jesus riding a large war horse, not a donkey; it involved him sitting on a throne, not hanging on a cross.  And yet here we read of Peter describing an eternal kingdom well worth the enduring of temporary suffering, and momentary trials.  The inheritance of the Christian who perseveres is incorruptible, in that it will not rot or decay.  It is undefiled, in that it is morally and religiously pure, not requiring us to compromise our morals in order to obtain it.  And it is unfading, in that its beauty doesn’t slowly slip away like that of a flower.        

It would seem from reading this letter that Peter has come to realize the value of trusting in what we cannot see.  I am reminded from a scene in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, where Indiana comes to a pivotal point in his quest to find and rescue his father.  Before him stands a large chasm, a chasm that can be traversed only by a narrow foot-bridge.  The problem is, the footbridge is invisible.  Motivated by his love for his father, Indiana takes what is literally a step of faith.  Just when it appears he will fall to his death deep into the dark void, his foot lands upon the unseen ledge.  After walking across, he turns and throws dirt on the bridge, a visual reminder that though unseen, the bridge is in fact there.   It’s a move we all have to make in our faith.  It’s a move we see Peter making in the gospel of Mark, thus all his fumbling around.  He hears Jesus echo those famous words, “where your treasure is, there your heart will be also”, and over time the meaning of them slowly sinks in.  Finally, as we read the words of his epistle, we see that though he is still not perfect, he has shifted the location of his treasure, away from a worldly way of thinking, and toward a kingdom of God way of thinking. 

It’s a shift we are all called to make, indeed it’s a shift Peter is exhorting the troubled recipients of his letter to remain commited to.  It’s not that Peter has given up on the idea of a crown of glory, it’s just he’s come to embrace the paradox that we do not, that we cannot receive the crown of glory, without the crown of thorns.   

Mark 14:53-72: A Study in Contrasts

The last section of Mark 14 is about a study in contrasts.  On the one hand we have Jesus, who through his incarnation has become the temple where we experience God.   With Jesus incarnation, we are given a temple not made with human hands.  He alludes to as much in his discussion with some of the Jewish leaders in the gospel of John:

 “The Passover of the Jews was at hand, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem.  In the temple he found those who were selling oxen and sheep and pigeons, and the money-changers sitting there.   And making a whip of cords, he drove them all out of the temple, with the sheep and oxen. And he poured out the coins of the money-changers and overturned their tables.   And he told those who sold the pigeons, “Take these things away; do not make my Father's house a house of trade.”  His disciples remembered that it was written, “Zeal for your house will consume me.”  So the Jews said to him, “What sign do you show us for doing these things?”  Jesus answered them, “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.”  The Jews then said, “It has taken forty-six years to build this temple, and will you raise it up in three days?”  But he was speaking about the temple of his body.  When therefore he was raised from the dead, his disciples remembered that he had said this, and they believed the Scripture and the word that Jesus had spoken.” – John 2:13-22

It was a theme that developed in the minds of Christians, with Paul explaining how as followers of Christ, we literally become part of that temple where the world can experience God:

“So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God, built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus himself being the cornerstone in whom the whole structure, being joined together, grows into a holy temple in the Lord.  In him you also are being built together into a dwelling place for God by the Spirit.” – Ephesians 2:19-22

In addition to being the temple where we experience God, Jesus is also our Passover lamb, the one which is led to the slaughter.  His role as such was foretold by the prophet Isaiah when he described the coming Suffering Servant of God:

“He was oppressed, and he was afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth; like a lamb that is led to the slaughter, and like a sheep that before its shearers is silent, so he opened not his mouth.”       – Isaiah 53:7

John the Baptist, having read his Bible, recognized Jesus as the fulfillment of this prophecy when he saw Jesus and exclaimed, “Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!” (John 1:29)  We even see Jesus praised as such in the vision of John passed on to us in the book of Revelation, when the living creatures and elders surrounding the throne of God proclaim:  “Worthy is the Lamb who was slain, to receive power and wealth and wisdom and might and honor and glory and blessing!” (Revelation 5:12)

On the other hand we have Peter, a disciple who at his best follows at a distance and who at his worst blatantly denies his Lord.  We can go all the way back to the first part of Mark’s gospel and be reminded that Peter, or Simon as was called back then, has been with Jesus all along:

“Passing alongside the Sea of Galilee, he saw Simon and Andrew the brother of Simon casting a net into the sea, for they were fishermen.  And Jesus said to them, “Follow me, I will make you become fishers of men.”  And immediately they left their nets and followed him.” – Mark 1:16-18

Peter isn’t shy about reminding Jesus of this fact, even mentioning what they have all left behind in order to be Jesus disciples: “Peter began to say to him, “See, we have left everything and followed you.” (Mark 10:28)  And yet, where is Peter now?  The gospel tells us that, “Peter had followed him at a distance, right into the courtyard of the high priest.  And he was sitting with the guards and warming himself at the fire.” (Mark 14:54)  At this point in time, Peter is one who doesn’t know Jesus, even though he has spent months or maybe longer, following him around every day.  I wonder if any of us are in the same boat, going to church every week, hearing the proclamation of the gospel, but still failing to recognize who Jesus really is.  Peter denies knowing Jesus three times.  There is tragic irony in the fact that he still doesn’t understand that Jesus must suffer to fulfill his mission as the Messiah.  The state of Peter’s soul is reflected in the fact that he is an emotional wreck.  When the rooster crowed a second time, when the hour had passed in which he denied Jesus three times, Peter breaks down and weeps.  If you’ve ever had one of those moments in time when the monumental nature of your mistakes hits home, then you know exactly how Peter feels in this moment, and you probably sympathize.  Peter has really messed up, but his transgressions are not unforgiveable.  At this point in the story, it’s helpful to glance forward a little bit to the light at the end of the tunnel, lest we be overwhelmed with the darkness of the moment.  In Mark 16, part of the announcement of Jesus’ resurrection is this simple, but very important statement:

 “And he said to them, ‘Do not be alarmed.  You seek Jesus of Nazareth, who was crucified.  He is risen; he is not here.  See the place where they laid him.  But go, tell his disciples and Peter that he is going before you to Galilee.  There you will see him, just as he told you.”                     – Mark 16:6-7

What is the significance of this statement?  Why are we skipping ahead to notice it now?  The significance lies in the fact that God’s faithfulness is not dependent upon our perfection.   Jesus remains faithful to his mission to redeem us, even as Peter denies Him in the courtyard below.  Peter would have let out a resounded amen to the words penned by his fellow apostle Paul to Timothy:

“The saying is trustworthy, for: ‘If we have died with him, we will also live with him; if we endure, we will also reign with him; if we deny him, he also will deny us; if we are faithless, he remains faithful- for he cannot deny himself.”   – II Timothy 2:11-13

God remains faithful, even when we do not.  Why?  Because it was our unfaithfulness, our inability to achieve perfection, that brought Jesus this earth to begin with.  When the news came that Jesus had risen from the dead, his disciples are summoned to meet with him in Galilee.  After the courtyard fiasco, my guess is Peter no longer considered himself part of that group.  It wasn’t that he didn’t want to follow Jesus, but that he felt unworthy, he felt weighed down by the weight of his past mistakes.  How liberating must it have been for Peter to hear the words, “go tell his disciples and Peter.”  It is Jesus’ way of extending to Peter not only forgiveness, but an invitation to try again.

What an encouraging word, to hear the gospel as it speaks to us, revealing to us the fact that our God is a God of second chances.  Most of you know George Washington as our first President, the “father of his country”.  Out of his tenacity and skill as a military leader, our freedom as a country was born.  What you probably didn’t know was that Washington’s military record before the American Revolution was pretty dismal.  During the French and Indian War, he was responsible for building a fort, which he named Fort Necessity.  Unfortunately for him, he built the fort in the worst possible location, making it easy for the enemy to surround it and force its surrender.  Washington lost every man under his command, was underwent the humiliation of having to surrender himself.  What if he had allowed that initial failure, as bad as it was, prevent him from trying again?  What if Peter had rejected Jesus offer of forgiveness and restoration?    

When you’re voice becomes silence by the past, when Satan whispers in your ear, reminding you of all the times you’ve failed, clear your throat and remember; the Peter who denies Christ the night of his trial, is the same one who boldly proclaims him on Pentecost.