Holy Week 2023- Friday
Holy Week- Friday
What can you say about Peter?
Peter is perhaps the most well-known disciple, for some of the wrong reasons. Peter,
along with James and John, was one of the three disciples a part of Jesus’ inner
circle. They were the closest to Jesus and were often privy to many private moments
and interactions in the life of Christ. Throughout the Gospels, we see Peter as
the bold and brash disciple who often speaks and acts before he thinks. Just in
one dialogue with Jesus, Peter goes from hearing, “Blessed are you Simon Bar-Jonah!” to hearing, “Get behind me, Satan!”
Although the Catholic church considers Peter to be the first pope, there
is no historical evidence for this. There is also no historical evidence that
Peter was ever a leader of the church at Rome. History tells us that Peter led
the church at Antioch and, eventually, gave his life for what he believed and proclaimed
about Jesus.
Throughout the Gospels, we often see Peter stepping up when the other disciples
chose to stay silent. When Jesus asks the disciples, “who do you say I am?”, Peter quickly responds with, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living
God!” Peter walked on water because he was willing to step out of the boat
when Jesus called. When Jesus is being handed over to the chief priests, it’s
Peter who grabs his sword, tries to defend Jesus, and cuts off the ear of the high
priest (which Jesus heals). Peter doesn’t always make the best decisions or
handle things the right way, but you can’t deny his heart. Peter loves Jesus and
is willing to kill for him.
After Jesus is betrayed, the disciples scatter. They know that their Master
has been taken and they fear that they might be next. As Peter flees, he is met
with three opportunities to claim his affiliation with Jesus. But in each case,
Peter continues to deny Him. Peter is more concerned about his own flesh than
he is about Jesus. At Peter’s third denial, the Gospel of Luke records that
Jesus turns, and looks at Peter. Can you imagine the sorrow and pain that Peter
must have felt in that moment? Jesus had prophesied that Peter would deny Him,
and now it has come to pass. At this point in Peter’s life, he was willing to
fight and kill anyone for Jesus, but dying for Him was a different story.
This is where many of us are with our faith. We are like Peter in that we
are willing to do our list of duties, check off we have to accomplish for our
faith, and even fight for Jesus, but are we willing to die for Him? Full
obedience to Christ isn’t found in meeting all the demands that religion places
on us, but in willingly following what Jesus says in Luke 9: 23 And he said to all, “If anyone would come
after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me. 24 For
whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my
sake will save it. (Luke 9:23-24 ESV)
Following Christ calls us to be
willing to die to self and follow Him. We often think that’s a metaphorical
statement, but we must be ready and willing not only to fight for Him, but to give
up our lives for Him too. We have a counterfeit faith if losing our life for
Jesus isn’t an option for us. Because, by not being willing to die for Jesus, we
aren’t wiling to truly live for Him. We make our desires and our life more
important than Christ.
Eventually,
Peter would be restored by the risen Christ and would boldly stand in the face
of persecution and death and proclaim the Jesus as the Messiah. And sometime
later, Peter’s path would end much like Jesus’ in that Peter would be crucified
for his faith. But Peter would convince his murders to crucify him upside
because he felt as if he wasn’t worthy to die like Christ.
Eventually Christ became all to
Peter and his life became secondary to Christ. What about you? Are you willing
to put Christ first, above even your own life? It’s the only way you can truly
live for Him!
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