I call to the witness stand Simon, son of Jonah, known as Peter.
One of the most human, lovable, and significant figures to emerge from the Gospel narratives is the man we call Simon Peter. Peter was his nickname. In Greek it meant rock. It might not be different from the nickname “Rocky” that has come to mean a tough fellow. It is a favorite nickname in the boxing world. Two of the greats of fisticuff history, Rocky Graziano, the former middleweight champion whose three fights with Tony Zale made boxing history, and Rocky Marciano, the only undefeated heavyweight champion of the world, both found in the name Rocky a special identification.
Nicknames are our attempt to identify people by some special characteristic. Peter the Rock was tough, aggressive, loud, bombastic. He was a ne’er-do-well fisherman who always wanted to be someone important. But he was caught on a kind of inescapable wheel of fortune. There was no great wealth for people inthe fishing trade in the first century in Galilee, Peter’s home. The fisherman lived from day to day, from catch to catch. It was hard to get ahead. Peter lived with his mother-in-law. In Jewish society of the first century that was not done unless economic circumstances required it. Interestingly, the Bible never mentions his wife, but a man can hardly have a mother-in-law without having a wife, so her existence is assumed.
There are two versions of how Peter’s life became associated with Jesus of Nazareth. Matthew, Mark, and Luke, the synoptic gospels, say Jesus called him directly from his fishing trade into discipleship. The Fourth Gospel says that Andrew, his brother, after meeting and staying with Jesus, came and took Peter to the one he believed to be the Messiah. Whatever the history was of that meeting, there was no doubt that it was the significant and determinative confrontation in the life of Simon Peter.
If the New Testament account is historically accurate, Peter and the other disciples were associated with Jesus in some way prior to the time they were invited into the special status of the twelve. As followers, they had a chance to observe without commitment, to feel the power of this Jesus, to be affected by his life. No relationship develops instantaneously. No one reveals his inner core to another until such time as the kind of trust has developed that guarantees the gentle and loving acceptance of that revelation. So it was with Peter, and the Gospel narratives record in the bluntest and least favorable fashion possible the struggle Peter had in this growing relationship. The needs of his ego always seemed to outstep his ability. He covered his insecurity with aggressive behavior and incessant bragging.
I suspect that when Jesus invited Peter and the others to the special status of discipleship the old fisherman’s heart swelled with a certain amount of pride. Perhaps this meant he was important, a somebody, he thought; and this man seemed to need to be a somebody more than most. The picture the New Testament paints of him is that of a deeply insecure man who in an almost childlike way craved recognition and basked in the sunshine of attention. To cover this part of his personality, he developed a dominating external style. It worked so long as no one got too near or looked too closely.
As with every human community, the disciple band had to grow together. They had to establish relationships, rank, and priority—even a pecking order. Peter’s aggressive and loud manner quickly identified him, if not as the leader, at least as a power with which the others had to reckon. Peter was always the first to speak. He assumed the position of honor. When Jesus asked the disciples in general a question, Peter in particular gave the answer. He did not pause or inquire if there might be other possibilities. It was as if he were saying, “I have spoken; there is therefore nothing else to say.”
At the town of Caesarea Philippi in the northern Jordan River valley Jesus had a remarkable conversation with his disciples, the Gospel of Mark tells us. “Who do people say that I am?” he asked. There was a bit of brainstorming, and the answers flowed without comment. “Jeremiah.” “John the Baptist, one of the old prophets.” These were among the answers. But then Jesus turned the conversation sharply to confront an important and existential issue. “But who do you say that I am?” he asked. Peter instinctively and impulsively blurted out more than subsequent conversation revealed that he understood, “You are the Christ, the Son of the Living God.” Perhaps surprised, Jesus acknowledged the answer and even praised Peter for his insight and then began to talk about what it meant to be the Christ, the Son of the Living God. “It does not mean success or glory. It may mean defeat and failure. It may be a faithfulness that will endure suffering and death before the messianic purpose can be accomplished.”
This was too much for Peter, who interrupted and in effect demanded that Jesus be the kind of Christ Peter needed him to be. This won for Peter the New Testament’s sharpest rebuke, “Get thee behind me, Satan.” Peter was embarrassed but not defeated. Subsequent events reveal he was not changed.
Peter’s aggressive way did win for him a position in the inner corps of advisors; Peter, James, and John emerge in the Gospel narrative as the leaders of the band, the trusted ones who were allowed to share the more intimate moments of Jesus’ life. Whatever the experience was that we call the transfiguration, one thing is certain: Peter was involved in that moment. The details are shrouded in mystery, but Mark in particular goes out of his way to indicate that Peter’s role was cumbersome, oafish, and without the slightest bit of understanding. The details as Mark gives them are these:
Jesus chose his inner corps to go up a mountain with him to pray. While he was there, his raiment became lustrous, brilliant, perfectly white. In this transfigured state, the father of Jewish law, Moses, and the father of the prophetic movement, Elijah, suddenly appeared to him and talked with him. How Peter recognized Mosesand Elijah we are not told, but there was no doubt expressed about their identification. Peter must have been beside himself with pride. There he was with the heroes of the Jewish heritage, talking to the one who invited him into discipleship.
More and more Peter must have been intrigued that Jesus chose twelve. That was the number of the tribes of Israel. One of the messianic symbols was the establishment of the new Israel, and Peter began to have delusions of the greatness that was in store for him. So even in this strange setting of the transfiguration, Peter blurted out with his limited but egocentric understanding, “Lord, it is good to be here. Let us erect three tabernacles to mark this occasion. One for Moses, one for Elijah, and one for you, Jesus.” Perhaps Peter hoped that somewhere on that monument it might also humbly mention that “Peter was here.” At the very least he could tell people about it and show them the monument for which he had been responsible. At that moment, Mark says, a cloud overshadowed them, and a voice spoke out of the cloud, and Peter was rebuked. Mark apologizes for Peter, remarking, “He did not know what he was saying.” The voice affirmed Jesus as unique, special, not to be confused with prophets of a lower order like Moses or Elijah. Peter could not see beyond his own needs; and the less he saw, the louder and more aggressive he became.
The pattern is quite consistent in the biblical story. We see it next in the story of the Last Supper. The more Jesus discussed the impending passion, the less Peter either understood or was enthralled. Loudly he protested his loyalty, his willingness to defend his master. Finally, Jesus said, “Peter, even you will deny me before the cock crows,” a reference probably to a shiftin the guard rather than to the crowing of a rooster.4 At this public suggestion that Peter might not be the strong man he pretended to be, Peter became indignant. “Even if every one of these people forsake you, I will be faithful,” he swore with his voice rising several decibels. It is always so with those who cower in fear behind the facade of bravado.
People who have to dominate are never strong people. We dominate to cover our fear, our insecurity, to prevent our weakness from being discovered. Parents who have to control their children, presidents who cannot tolerate a hint of disloyalty in their cabinets, bishops who cannot hear or allow dissent in the clergy, bosses who have to regulate every moment of their employees’ time, husbands who cannot allow their wives to become competent and individual persons with lives of their own—these display symptoms of weakness, not of strength. The sign of weakness is to rage and shout whenever the strong image of domination is called into question and the facade of caring or benevolent paternalism or control is threatened with exposure. This was Peter.
When one brags too loudly or too publicly, the ensuing disintegration is impossible to hide. This is what seems to have happened to Peter. The day we call Maundy Thursday concluded, according to the Fourth Gospel, with Jesus taking a basin and a towel and proceeding to wash the disciples’ feet. Peter watched in increasing apprehension as Jesus neared him. Those who are bossy, pretending to be great, cannot stand it when one whom even they recognize as greater acts toward them with humble acquiescence. So when Jesus knelt to do the servant’s task to the mighty Peter, Peter backedup declaring, “You’ll never wash my feet!” To this Jesus replied, “Peter, if I do not wash your feet, you have no part in me.” Peter, trapped in his own mock humility, tried to recoup his losses. “Then Lord,” he responded, “wash all of me.”
Following that supper, the passion narrative moves to the Garden of Gethsemane where the evangelists assert that Peter once more failed to cover himself with glory. Jesus took Peter, James, and John with him to that garden and asked them to stand watch while he prayed. He left them and went a short distance in what was an intensely personal moment of final decisionmaking, so intense that Luke suggests that Jesus’ sweat was like great drops of blood. That is doubtless a bit of writer’s license, but it captures the mood of that moment in Jesus’ life. Returning to Peter and the disciples, he found them sleeping, hardly a flattering picture. A second and third time the scene was repeated. The disappointing question, “Could you not watch with me one brief hour,” was asked but never answered.
Then Judas and the temple guard appeared. The kiss was offered; the arrest was made. The disciples fled. The only attempt to whitewash Peter is in the Johannine narrative where it is suggested that Peter drew his sword and cut off the ear of the servant of the high priest. Even in this account (which no New Testament scholar I know of treats as history), however, Jesus once again rebuked Peter. “It is not your sword but your faithfulness I need, Peter, and you obviously do not yet understand.”
The Gospels do tell us that after fleeing, Peter alone of the twelve returned to watch the proceedings. Perhaps he sought a chance to help, perhaps he just wanted to make good his boast, but we see him next in the courtyard of the high priest, alone and vulnerable. Here a great personal drama was acted out.
Without Jesus, Peter once again was a nobody. No one deferred to him or listened to him. Those aching insecurities he tried so hard to keep hidden now rushed out of him. He tried to act Rocky. It fooled no one. It is not an insignificant detail of the story that the rout of Peter was at the hands of the lowest member of the social caste, a domestic slave girl.
It is always the mob spirit to side with the one who is perceived as victorious. When an arrest was made, the crowd assumed that guilt was both pronounced and deserved. It was not long before guilt by association was practiced. Jesus was clearly the victim, and those in the courtyard were observing all of the rules of the game.
The servant girl confronted Peter, and much to his dismay she announced, “This man is a follower of the condemned man.” In one stroke Peter’s dignity was affronted, and his cover was removed. He was not used to being addressed in so flippant and hostile a manner by one who was clearly his social inferior. And immediately and instinctively he responded out of his need for self-preservation. “I do not know what you’re talking about,” he snapped, trying to avoid the issue and not perjure himself at the same time. He moved to slip out of the courtyard, only to discover that the servant girl followed him repeating the charge. “This is a follower of the condemned man.” Peter was seething. “Oh wretched, damnable, nosey, talkative woman,” he probably thought even as he uttered an oath and shouted, “I am not.” Weak people frequently resort to oathswhen they fear that their lies are not being believed. Somehow to swear and shout is supposed to make one more believable. It does not.
Outside, others picked up the slave girl’s charge. “Why, you are one of his followers,” they asserted. “You dress like a Galilean, your speech has a Galilean accent.” Peter was trapped, and the vise was closing tighter and tighter. He looked from person to person, seeking some glimmer of support. There was none. Then the ultimate denial flowed out of his lips, “I do not know the man of whom you speak.” I do not know the one I have followed for all this time, shared life with in community, listened to him speak, watched him heal, pledged to him my loyalty. I do not even know the man I wanted to memorialize with the greatest heroes of Israel. This was Peter on the night of the arrest, broken, weak, and, worst of all, publicly revealed. One Gospel says Jesus turned and looked at Peter. Whether he did or did not is insignificant, for the pain of being caught between the person he wanted to be and the person he saw himself to be at that moment was more than Peter could stand. He wept like a baby, his bravado now disintegrated. The strong man who wanted to be somebody, who cultivated the image of dominance, now stood before them, undressed as it were, a nobody, routed by a slave girl, and weakling he had always been. It is a devastating portrait.
That was Peter before the Easter Moment. I see no reason to doubt the accuracy of the main lines of this biblical portrait. Perhaps some of the details could not stand the scrutiny of biblical scholarship, but there is no motive I can imagine in the early Christian writers that would cause them to create this devastating portrait of one whom they regarded as a hero. If the record were going to be doctored, it would seem far more likely for it to be doctored in a favorable manner. There is a strong historicity in this portrait. Peter before the Easter Moment was a Peter of weakness, failure, denial. More than that, it was probably Peter himself who made sure that this part of himself was never forgotten.
But something happened to Peter. Something so big, so powerful that his life totally turned around. His personality was reoriented. His needs for power, status, and pretending disappeared. Something ignited the potential that was in Peter and exploded him into a new life, a new being. The Peter we meet after Easter had great humility. He had a quality of fearlessness that was unbelievable. And he had a sureness so deep that he could lay his security-giving prejudices aside. Recall it was Peter, according to the book of Acts, who led the Christian Church out of the narrow boundaries of Judaism and into the Gentile mission. Peter had a dream in which a sheet was let down from heaven with animals on it that Peter had been taught were unclean. A voice from heaven invited Peter to rise, kill, and eat the forbidden animals. Peter demurred, saying he could not eat such food. The voice said, “Peter, what I have created don’t you call unclean.” Following this dream Peter is quoted as saying, “I now realize that God treats all people alike, no matter what race they belong to.”
Finally, there is no reason to doubt the tradition of the martyrdom of Peter. How he was martyred may have been subject to some heightening or exaggeration, but the fact remains that the new Peter never again denied his Lord and went to his death willinglyin witness to that Lord. No one who had read only the pre-Easter portrait of Peter in the New Testament would have imagined a brave martyrdom for him.
Peter was changed dramatically, significantly, totally. Peter before Easter and Peter after Easter are discernibly different people. Clearly, something happened to Peter. Something brought about the change. Something touched the deepest recesses of Peter’s life and called forth a new being. That something was involved in whatever the Easter Moment was.
Look at Peter. Look at the witness of his life, his change. Let the power of that transformation be embraced before you dismiss Peter from the stand and prepare to call the next witness.