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Ask Peter! (John 21:15-17)
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