(This post is a personal reflection on a lesson taught during a recent church meeting.)
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In the hours leading up to the crucifixion, Peter denied Christ three times. We're all familiar with the scriptural account, but the question is: Why did he do it?
I don't ask this rhetorically. I think the answer could have profound implications and offer a meaningful glimpse into the human psyche. Was Christ actually commanding Peter when he said, "Thou shalt deny me thrice" (Matthew 26:34)? Maybe. But maybe not. Did Peter fear being put to death along with Christ? That seemed to be the general consensus as we read and discussed Luke 22 in Sunday School today. For me, though, that explanation just doesn't quite cut it.
We're talking about Peter, after all: Peter--the rock of the Church, the man who consistently defended the Master with a passionate and almost foolhardy loyalty. This is the guy who, earlier in the same chapter of Luke, smote off the ear of the high priest's servant who had come to arrest Christ. (Luke doesn't mention him by name, but John clearly identifies Peter as the culprit.) If anything, Peter was probably more likely to lose his life in this situation--after severing the ear of a government official!--than he would have been by acknowledging Christ later on. So again, why did Peter falter in purpose and deny the Savior so soon afterward?
I find it telling that the disciples' first major sign of weakness occurred when Christ was no longer physically present with them in the Garden of Gethsemane. As the Savior left His disciples to perform the Atonement, He pled with them to "rise and pray" that they might "enter not into temptation" (Luke 22: 46). When he found them sleeping only moments later, his reproach was directed specifically toward Peter: "What, could ye not watch with me one hour?" (Matthew 26:40).
Separated from the Savior, Peter had become weak. When Christ once more stood at his side, Peter regained his courage and enough bravado to smite off the ear of an offender. But once the Savior had gone away to be tried, Peter sat alone, and it was then that he denied the Savior three times. Peter doesn't even seem to have realized the gravity of the situation until the cock crew. Then he "went out, and wept bitterly" (Luke 22: 62). What, for Peter, may momentarily have been clouded in mists of relativism was suddenly laid bare. Alma had a similar experience: "I did remember all my sins. . .for which I was tormented with the pains of hell; yea, I saw that I had rebelled against my God" (Alma 36: 12-13). Surely Peter, like Alma, felt that he had separated himself from Christ and wished, more than anything, to return to the side of the Master.
Many of us have probably wept bitter tears upon realizing that, in a situation where the stakes may not actually have been very high, we somehow lost our spiritual center. During such an experience, we may not even have noticed the ground shifting beneath our feet. All of us--including the stalwart Peters!--are subject to the natural man and to the world's magnetic pull downward. We may be willing to smite off an ear or to march into a fiery furnace during the most intense heat of a spiritual experience, but when conviction cools, we often settle--subtly and almost imperceptibly--into the world's paradigm. The lines between right and wrong slowly blur, and integrity starts losing its meaning.
As with Peter, the moment we step away from Christ is the moment we loosen our grasp on God's reality and begin slipping towards the world's false reality. That's the dual nature of man's condition: Stop fighting for the spiritual man, and the natural man takes over. Let go of the iron rod, and the mists of darkness close in. Luckily, God has provided us with several rods of iron to keep us on track (or to put us back on track when, inevitably, we slip off course): The words of ancient and modern prophets and personal revelation.
We can only understand these spiritual messages through the Gift of the Holy Ghost. The Holy Ghost is the ultimate clarifying force and the restorer of all lost truth. It's interesting that this gift was sent to the disciples after Christ had left them. It was a substitute for his physical presence. Many have cited the Comforter as Peter's saving grace, and it is certainly ours. When we are worthy of the gift of the Spirit, we stand with Christ. Spiritual reality becomes our reality. The mists clear. Bitter tears are dried.
Why do you think that Peter denied Christ? Have you ever felt like Peter as he wept his bitter tears of realization? How are you able to maintain a firm hold on reality in a world that presents an infinite variety of counterfeits?
2 comments:
I have always loved bold, rash, impetuous Peter. He is one of those figures from the scriptures with whom we call all relate to a degree. I think you're absolutely right that it was, first, Christ's presence, and, later, the Holy Ghost, that centered and grounded Peter.
And, yes, I, too, have wept bitter tears many times when I have "come to" and realized just how far from my best intentions I have strayed.
We had this lesson a couple of weeks ago and I was asked to read from a talk that Spencer W. Kimball gave at BYU in 1971. Pres. Kimball gives us a different perspective from which to view Peter's denials. Bruce C. Hafen also referenced Pres. Kimball's talk:
"Consider also the case of Peter on the night he denied any knowledge of his Master three times in succession. Some of us commonly regard Peter as something of a weakling, whose commitment was not strong enough to make him rise to the Savior’s defense. But I once heard President Spencer W. Kimball offer an alternative interpretation of Peter’s behavior. In a talk to a BYU audience in 1971, President Kimball, then a member of the Quorum of the Twelve, said that the Savior’s statement that Peter would deny him three times before the cock crowed just might have been a request to Peter, not a prediction. Jesus just might have been instructing his chief apostle to deny any association with him in order to insure strong leadership for the Church after the crucifixion. As President Kimball asked, who could doubt Peter’s willingness to stand up and be counted when you think of his boldness in striking off the ear of the guard with his sword when the Savior was arrested in Gethsemane. President Kimball did not offer this view as the only interpretation, but he did suggest there is enough justification for it that it should be considered. So what is the answer—was Peter a coward, or was he so crucial to the survival of the Church that he was prohibited from risking his life? We are not sure. This is a scriptural incident in which there is some ambiguity inhibiting our total understanding."
Below is the link to a complete copy of President Kimball's 1971 talk.
emp.byui.edu/marrottr/GenlAuthorities/PeterMyBrother.pdf
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