I’m not sure there’s anyone in the Bible more emotionally intense than Peter. This fisherman called to a life of ministry and service may have spent every day with Jesus, but he didn’t forget in a hurry the brazenness that kept him alive in hard times. Read any account of the disciples in the gospels and Peter is usual front and center, going big or going home.
Peter doesn’t know how to do anything half way. He is the ultimate all-or-nothing kind of man. I can almost picture him wearing a t-shirt that says “moderation is for cowards”. Any time something big is happening Peter is right there with an opinion and something to say.
In the right time and place, these emotions can be a very good thing. Peter loves Jesus so completely and unashamedly. When an entire crowd of people turn away believing Jesus teaching is too hard and Jesus asks of the disciples will leave too, it’s Peter who simply and emphatically states “Where else would we go? You have the words of eternal life.” (John 6:68) There’s a lot we could learn from Peter’s example of total and complete steadfast love.
But Peter isn’t all sunshine and cuddles. As intensely as Peter feels love for Christ, he seems to have significant issues with arrogance in his knowledge and anger towards those who don’t understand who Jesus is.
The same Peter who so eloquently pledged his allegiance to Jesus is also the same Peter who thought he could scold Jesus for talking about his own death. Peter also interrupted the transfiguration, panicked while walking to Jesus on the waters, chopped off the ear of another man, and claimed he would die with Jesus but ran away with the rest.
Peter is, to put it mildly, a bit of a dumpster fire. A loveable dumpster fire, but a dumpster fire nonetheless. Not unlike myself.
But all his shortcomings come to a horrifying low point in his story. All this intensity comes crashing down around poor Peter when Jesus is arrested and tried.
Left in the dark without the Christ he loves to guide him and unable to do anything to stop it or fix it, Peter is stripped of his sincerity and anger and left with the last emotion any of us ever want to sit with: fear. Asked three different times if he is with Jesus, Peter denies the association more emphatically each time. Some gospel accounts even say he denied it with a curse. Peter is completely losing his grip.
In Peter’s denial of Jesus, we see Peter reacting so completely out of total fear. This is different from his panic walking on the water. It’s consuming him and it absolutely destroys him in the course of a single night.
What was Peter thinking as he heard that final call. We can surmise he put two and two together from Jesus’ earlier statements. We know it devastated him to the point of breaking down and weeping. But what else was going on in his heart and mind in that moment? Did he think about all the promises he’d made to die alongside Jesus? Did he wonder if Jesus was hearing that same rooster call, knowing he’d been betrayed again? Did he wonder what his own family would think of him? Did he think of all the moments he could have acted differently?
For Peter, that could have very easily been the end. He could have walked out of that courtyard and just kept walking, spending the rest of his life trying to put distance between him and his shame.
But God wasn’t done with Peter.
We know Christ rose again. We know he returned to his apostles, speaking with them and comforting them. We know he and Peter had personal conversations, some in which Jesus called Peter to huge work for the kingdom. Peter was forgiven and loved.
But this is the work Christ does in us; it wasn’t enough for Peter to just be forgiven. Jesus transformed his life. The man who (in the course of a few hours) mutilated a man’s ear in an attempt to guard Jesus in his rage and then denied he even knew Jesus in his fear went on to be the rock of the church. If you need any clearer indication of the work Christ did in Peter’s life no matter how short he fell, you needn’t look any further than 1st and 2nd Peter in the New Testament.
Two short letters to the church, completely soaked in themes of encouragement, diligence, obedience, and endurance. I can’t even find a specific example to quote from these two books. Every word is filled with Peter’s exhortations for patient, diligent obedience to God. I strongly encourage you to sit down and read these two letters and be amazed at the difference in Peter’s attitude. Gone are his days of chopping off ears and hysterically denying Christ. These are the words of a changed man, quietly resolving to do his best to follow his savior.
This is a man who, through Christ’s work on his heart, learned to control his impulsive, explosive emotions. He learned to harness them into steadfast devotion and resolve. He learned to teach himself and others to endure.
We are no different from Peter. We are just as lost in our intensity and shortcomings and fail spectacularly in following Jesus. But like Peter we have that same hope that through Christ we are being refined into the best version of ourselves. We have hope that we aren’t being left as we are in our mistakes. We have hope that Jesus loves us enough to keep drawing us close through our mistakes, even when our mistakes are tripping us up away from him. Jesus loved Peter to the point of patience and reconciliation. He loves us just the same.
So take heart my fellow Peter’s, all is not lost. The pain of our failures in the night are bathed in the hope of a new day. We have nowhere to go but forward with Christ.
Let’s find some joy,
A
Avalon Robinson Author 