I guess everyone who has ever read the Gospels has been struck by Peter, this forceful, brash, headstrong, outspoken man who was the opposite of all of those things at the moment when it mattered most. The Romanists, the Church of Rome, argues that Peter was the official divinely appointed leader of the Apostles and that may or may not be true. Maybe he was a spokesperson for the rest of the Twelve with or without consent simply by sort of speaking first and loudest. Or maybe Peter's real primacy stems from later, beginning at Pentecost, and it only seems takes the lead in the Gospels because Peter was the source for much of the Gospel material. But however it happened, Peter is the member of Jesus' inner circle that we know the most about. His personality is stamped on every episode where the Twelve make an appearance. And on Good Friday, he is the only one, besides Judas, that we can say with certainty where he was, what he did, and make reasonable guesses what he thought and felt. Backing up a little for some context about Peter,
From Matthew 16: When Jesus came into the region of Caesarea Philippi, He asked His disciples, saying, “Who do men say that I, the Son of Man, am?”
So they said, “Some say John the Baptist, some Elijah, and others Jeremiah or one of the prophets.”
He said to them, “But who do you say that I am?”
Simon Peter answered and said, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.”
Jesus answered and said to him, “Blessed are you, Simon Bar-Jonah, for flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but My Father who is in heaven. And I also say to you that you are Peter, and on this rock I will build My church, and the gates of Hades shall not prevail against it. And I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven.”
Then He commanded His disciples that they should tell no one that He was Jesus the Christ.
From that time Jesus began to show to His disciples that He must go to Jerusalem, and suffer many things from the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and be raised the third day.
Then Peter took Him aside and began to rebuke Him, saying, “Far be it from You, Lord; this shall not happen to You!”
But He turned and said to Peter, “Get behind Me, Satan! You are an offense to Me, for you are not mindful of the things of God, but the things of men.”
Then Jesus said to His disciples, “If anyone desires to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me. For whoever desires to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake will find it. For what profit is it to a man if he gains the whole world, and loses his own soul? Or what will a man give in exchange for his soul? For the Son of Man will come in the glory of His Father with His angels, and then He will reward each according to his works. Assuredly, I say to you, there are some standing here who shall not taste death till they see the Son of Man coming in His kingdom.”
Peter is a double man isn't he? Lots of times when we say that we mean that one side is kinda fake and the other is real but with Peter both sides of him are real to the core. He is the one who cuts through the bull, he answers straight up and with no ambiguity. Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the Living God. And with perhaps even more plainness, more straightforwardness, he REBUKES JESUS. When Jesus starts explaining that His Chosen instrument isn't life but death, isn't winning but losing, Peter TAKES JESUS OFF TO THE SIDE, and he says, "That just ain't the way it's gonna be." He might as well say, "Anybody that wants to mess with you is gonna be doing it without an ear. They can't hurt you my beautiful, idealistic, otherworldly, and somewhat naive friend without dealing with the practical, stony problem of Simon Peter." But let's not forget the key point here of just HOW upset Peter was at the thought of the Crucifixion. I won't quote them here but on at least two other occasions he makes it plain that he is not going to let this happen.
This is also the only passage in the Synoptics where Simon's full name is used. In John's Gospel, when Jesus first meets Peter he calls him by his full name Simon Bar-John, Simon son of John, and says but I'm gonna call you Peter. And the last scene after the resurrection, in John 21, Jesus again calls him Simon son of John. But Matthew 16, the scene of Peter’s confession and rebuke of Jesus, is the only place where the First Three Evangelists, Matthew, Mark, and Luke- who all used Peter as a source as opposed to John who wrote based on his own memory, record Simon's full name and they record it with a one letter difference, instead of Son of John he is here called Son of Jonah. I think Peter, on this important occasion noticed a difference in the way that Christ pronounced his name from the usual, connecting Peter not with his biological father who was probably named John, but with the prophet Jonah who ran the other way as hard as he could and was brought back to Christ by the mechanism of death and resurrection to preach the forgiveness of sin as we are about to see happen to Peter.
From Mark 14: In the evening He came with the twelve. Now as they sat and ate, Jesus said, “Assuredly, I say to you, one of you who eats with Me will betray Me.”
And they began to be sorrowful, and to say to Him one by one, “Is it I?” And another said, “Is it I?”
In the first chapter of his Institutes of the Christian Religion, Calvin said that all of human knowledge that is worthwhile comes down to either knowledge of oneself or knowledge of God and that the two are directly related. That is, they have to sort of advance together, the more you know yourself the more you can know God, and the more you know God the more you can know yourself. The disciples' question "Is it I?" shows that they had begun to know themselves, to know their capacity to find themselves lost in sin, to know their inability to be true even to the things most dear to them. But it is by the Law, not by Grace, not by the Gospel, not by Christ, but by the Law that we come to the knowledge of ourselves as sinners. And when this "Is it I?", "Will I let Christ down? Will I prove untrue?" rises up in us, we have to recognize the truthfulness of seeing ourselves as failures, but we have to press on further, to seeing our failure as the weakness in which Christ's strength is made perfect, to accepting the fact of our failure in advance and seeing beyond it to how our failure is transformed, is conquered, by the Rider of the White Horse. On that night, Satan had set a snare for Peter, as Christ tells us Satan had asked for and received permission to test and tempt Peter, and had gotten the go ahead, and I think this is where that temptation began, but it is the story of how Peter's temptation ends that we want to look at today.
From Mark 14: And they led Jesus away to the high priest; and with him were assembled all the chief priests, the elders, and the scribes. But Peter followed Him at a distance, right into the courtyard of the high priest. And he sat with the servants and warmed himself at the fire.
Now the chief priests and all the council sought testimony against Jesus to put Him to death, but found none. For many bore false witness against Him, but their testimonies did not agree.
Then some rose up and bore false witness against Him, saying, “We heard Him say, ‘I will destroy this temple made with hands, and within three days I will build another made without hands.’ ” But not even then did their testimony agree.
Now, to me at least these words are significant, that "their testimony did not agree." It is easy to get the idea that the whole council of Jewish priests were in on this plot against Jesus, but this picture of false witnesses getting up and their stories falling apart suggests to me that someone in this trial was cross examining the witnesses. Someone was trying to defend Jesus and was picking their stories apart, we don’t know who but somebody it seems was defending the Lord. The charges against Jesus were all about the things that He had said, I think the idea was to kind of cherrypick some things He had said, take them out of context, to make them look bad, and get the group of the council, most of whom don't appear to have been in on the plot, to condemn him. This was an early form of the Trial by Soundbite which is now practised by our modern Media, but when the witnesses were questioned about the specifics it became obvious that they were just repeating something someone else had told them.
And the high priest stood up in the midst and asked Jesus, saying, “Do You answer nothing? What is it these men testify against You?” But He kept silent and answered nothing.
Again the high priest asked Him, saying to Him, “Are You the Christ, the Son of the Blessed?”
Jesus said, “I am. And you will see the Son of Man sitting at the right hand of the Power, and coming with the clouds of heaven.”
Then the high priest tore his clothes and said, “What further need do we have of witnesses? You have heard the blasphemy! What do you think?”
And they all condemned Him to be deserving of death.
Then some began to spit on Him, and to blindfold Him, and to beat Him, and to say to Him, “Prophesy!” And the officers struck Him with the palms of their hands.
Now, those who were trying to defend Jesus probably would have had an easy time if Jesus would have testified in His own defense. In fact, if He had ever talked to these priests instead of just calling them names and telling stories where they seemed to be the bad guys He could have easily turned them around. The mystery of why Jesus deliberately offended everyone who was capable of taking offense, why He shakes everything that is shakeable is not why we are looking at this story right now though. So, since Jesus would not defend Himself what was needed to counter these false witnesses was a true witness, someone who was actually there, who understood what Christ had been saying and could put these statements into a true and complete context. And it seems like some of the priests had their servants on the lookout for one of Jesus disciples who could fill this role...
Now as Peter was below in the courtyard, one of the servant girls of the high priest came. And when she saw Peter warming himself, she looked at him and said, “You also were with Jesus of Nazareth.”
But he denied it, saying, “I neither know nor understand what you are saying.” And he went out on the porch, and a rooster crowed.
And the servant girl saw him again, and began to say to those who stood by, “This is one of them.” But he denied it again.
And a little later those who stood by said to Peter again, “Surely you are one of them; for you are a Galilean, and your speech shows it.”
Then he began to curse and swear, “I do not know this Man of whom you speak!”
I know that Jesus famously predicted Peter would deny three times, but it seems to me that there was a flurry of activity that night looking for one of Jesus disciples, and John actually records another questioner, a relative of the man who's ear Peter had cut off that night, who had seen Peter in the garden and tried to get Peter to admit who he was. So, maybe Peter only verbally denied Christ three times but through the whole trial these servants were trying to get Peter to admit who he was and I think that the reason why is because they had been instructed to find someone who had been with Christ and could tell His side of the story. They needed a witness, in Greek an apostolos or a martyros, but Peter wasn't ready for either of those things.
A second time the rooster crowed. Then Peter called to mind the word that Jesus had said to him, “Before the rooster crows twice, you will deny Me three times.” And when he thought about it, he wept.
The truth is that Christ was convicted by His own will. He directed the trial to His desired End. But Peter could only see His part, could only see that Christ was convicted for the lack of a witness who would tell His side of the story. Peter thought that he had his answer to the question, "Is it I?" His soul answered with a resounding Yes. Peter thought that he was Judas. And it is a worthwhile exercise for us to consider why their stories, Peter’s and Judas’ end so differently. They had looked and felt a lot alike up until this point, and maybe they were very much alike, but they suddenly became as different as any two lives can be. In fact, although Judas' story ends on this same morning, Peter's story has a tremendous second act which hasn't even begun.
So, what is it that Peter did that made his story turn out so differently? In Judas' story, when he has his big awakening and realises what he has done, he runs back to the other conspirators and tries to fix it, tries to stop the whole thing, and that doesn't work, and so he judges himself, condemns himself, and hangs himself. Peter has a similar big awakening, but there is no followup. Peter doesn't do anything. After Peter runs off crying, he drops out of the crucifixion narrative and won't be seen again until Easter morning. The Bible doesn't have a lot of nice things to say about human works. The Prophets and Apostles and presumably the God behind them, view very skeptically anything that we can do. But there is one human action that they are pretty much uniformly in favor of...doing nothing. They sometimes call it waiting on God, this Holy act of twiddling your thumbs at the crucial moment. What is my answer to what is the difference between the Prince of the Apostles and the wretched traitor after whom the last and worst circle of hell is named? The difference between the one who founded the church and the one who, according to Dante, is gnawed on by Satan for all eternity, is simply that Judas died on Good Friday and Peter survived until Easter. Maybe Peter thought about hanging himself, maybe Peter thought about getting his sword back and cutting his way to Jesus side before it was too late, but he didn't do any of those things.
Peter swore that he would fight and die for Jesus, and then when the time came he wussed out, and then the rooster crowed, and the Lord looked at Peter, and Peter ran off crying. And what we all want to know is, what did Peter see in that look? For at least three years, Jesus had been taking advantage of every teachable moment with Peter, He had shaped story after story and point after point to find their way into Peter's thick head and stony heart. But in the end, Peter had to see for himself before it all made sense. The look that Jesus gave him in the courtyard said, "This is what I was telling you about all those times. The point of all the stories is right now, Peter. Your salvation, your perseverance, your Apostleship, your martyrdom, your glorification is all happening right now, is all contained in this morning that you tried so hard to stop from happening." An Apostle is a witness, and in Acts 2, Peter makes it clear what he witnessed, what he saw in that look. "You killed Jesus with lawless hands, but the real actor in this whole play was the God of All Grace who superintended each step, whose determinant foreknowledge carried this same Jesus to the Throne of Heaven, through the mechanism of human betrayal, human weakness and cowardice, and jealousy and pettiness." Peter's testimony is that our goodness or badness, our rightness or wrongness, our works or our procrastination, all of these things are irrelevant. Our goodness cannot add to and our badness cannot subtract from the merit of Christ.
What Peter realised is that all of our stories are like that. Peter was about as active in this story as any man could be, He was confessing great truths, and cutting off great ears, and telling great lies, and weeping great tears, but none of it mattered. The truth of the story is that Peter was a rock who was being shaped into a living stone. The truth of all of our stories is that we are rocks that are being built up into the temple of God. And each rock is a chosen rock. And in our spiritual journeys we are as passive as rocks being shaped. We don't make any active contribution. Our part is simply to wait and see His salvation. You can't interfere with the Master Builder, and that is a good thing. Because His plan for you is good.
Links to the other parts of my Good Friday series:
I traveled over to your sub from reading a comment you made on Mark Bisone’s stack. Very glad to have found you. That was a beautiful essay and I look forward to reading more of your thoughts.
Discomfort from The Truth.
The God of Washington is not the God of the poor Ukrainian people.
In truth, there is no God, only Power Politics.
And so to their last Proxy War, not to end all proxy wars, just to end them.
_____________
Remember what they said, all that was written, especially the London Mainstream Media, for if a fraction of it was true, Russia would have by now collapsed.
The lesson of The Ukraine - Act as a Washington vassal, be destroyed.
Finland is lining itself up for that lesson.
As for The Ukraine . . .
The Real War has started, the battlefield is littered with hundreds of thousands of Ukrainian Armed Forces personnel and the Western Media cut their coverage. Remember this – The Russian Armed Forces will take Kyiv. And so . . .
Narrative Collapse – – –
Only when the last American artillery shell has been fired in The Ukraine, only when the last Ukrainian soldier has been killed in The Ukraine and only when the last of Ukrainian state territory has been irretrievably lost from The Ukraine will The Americans and Europeans finally realize that God Favours Russia . . .
https://les7eb.substack.com/p/ukraine-long-proxy-war-vi-god-favours