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| Ask Peter! (John 21:15-17) | |||||
 Printer Friendly Version - opens in separate window The first three hundred years of the Christian Church saw sporadic, sometimes brutal persecution of Christians. Sometimes they were persecuted for being Christians, other times as part of a wider crack down on any people that dared recognise authorities apart from the Emperor. The accounts of martyrdom, originally in the form of letters from one church to another, were brought together in a collection called "The Accounts of the Martyrs". One such account tells of Polycarp, C. 69-156, and Bishop of Smyrna. As an old man he was brought to Rome in chains to die in the Arena. He was offered the opportunity to save himself by denying Christ and declaring, "Caesar is Lord". He replied, "Eighty-six years I have served him, and he has done me no wrong - how can I blaspheme my King who has saved me?" It is often observed that the blood of the martyrs is the seed of the Church.We are stirred by such accounts of course, but they can also be intimidating. What of those of us who are not so courageous? What of those who compromise when our faith is challenged? Those who decide that discretion is the better part of valour and run for the hills? In the early Church there were those too and when the Church came out of hiding after Constantine made Christianity the state religion there were questions, unresolved issues; there was unfinished business. What should be the attitude of the Church towards those who had avoided martyrdom by apparently compromising? Some of these very people were now bishops, leaders in the local church. Martyrs and confessors - confessors were those who had endured torture for their faith without being put to death - began to challenge the leaders' authority on moral grounds. Those who regarded themselves as rigorists refused to recognise the authority of those they regarded as laxists and appointed their own leaders. Schism ensued but what else were they to do? Ask Peter! Peter who had declared before the disciples, "You are the Christ, the Son of the Living God" (Mt.16:16); Peter who protested, Even if all fall away on account of you, I never will" (Mt.26:33); Peter who swore, "I don't know the man!" (Mt.26:74). In Matthew's account we read that the night of Jesus' trial was cold and so a fire of coals was lit in the courtyard and the servants of the house of Caiaphas stood around it to keep warm. Peter also skulked near the fire to escape the chill when he was challenged, "You also were with Jesus of Galilee". But he denied it before them all, "I don't know what you are talking about." Then he went out to the gateway, where another girl saw him and said to the people there, "This fellow was with Jesus of Nazareth." He denied it again, with an oath: "I don't know the man!" After a little while, those standing there went up to Peter and said, "Surely you are one of them, for your accent gives you away." Then he began to call down curses on himself and he swore to them. "I don't know the man!" Immediately a cock crowed. Then Peter remembered the word Jesus had spoken: "Before the cock crows, you will disown me three times." And he went outside and wept bitterly. After a death we often find people distracted by self-recrimination over things left unsaid, things unwisely said, perhaps in anger, fear or doubt, things that were never meant but that hurt deeply. "If only", we say. "If only I had the chance to apologise, express my true feelings, tell them I loved them - if only." Peter had no such opportunity and, within the realm of normal human possibilities, he could not undo what he had done. In John's Gospel, however, we read an extraordinary account in which the disciples are on the water fishing and a strange sense of déjà vu overtook them. On the shore was a man who cried out to them, "Friends, haven't you any fish?" When they replied that they hadn't any he said, "Throw your net on the right side of the boat and you will find some." When they did, they were unable to haul the net in because of the large number of fish. Then John said to Peter, "It is the Lord!" Peter immediately jumped out of the boat and ran through the water to Jesus who sat by a fire, ready to cook some of the fish they had caught. He invited them to breakfast around a fire just like the one that had burned in the high priest's courtyard that terrible night and asked Peter three times, "Do you love me?" Each time Peter insisted that he did, with each question insisting more firmly that he did, and each time Christ charged Peter to take care of his flock. All at once a seemingly irreversible sin was forgiven and a believer who faltered at a time of extreme weakness reinstated. We are living in a time of extreme persecution for millions of Christians around the world, a persecution unprecedented since the days of those early martyrs. Yet for so many of us such testing has not, and God willing will not come. Yet we are faced with the challenge of our own feint hearts as we stand before the world, our own weaknesses and sinfulness and we know all-too-well how far short we fall of what the Lord expects and deserves. In our quiet moments of reflection we too, like Peter, might weep bitter tears. The Gospel's final word, however, is the message of Easter; that sin and death are conquered and the reconciliation that seems impossible to us, the healing that could normally never come, the apparently lost hope of beginning anew is all found in the risen Christ who died and rose again to bring us new life, healing and reconciliation. Pasg Hapus - Happy Easter |
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