And Peter

Two words was all it took to bring my devotion to a stop, and me to tears.

The women had gone to the tomb, and as Mark tells it, they were starting to wonder how they’d get into the tomb. After all, the stone was heavy, and the strongest in this band of Jesus followers who may have been able to help weren’t there.

They had long since run away, and as we learn from other narratives in the scripture, had locked themselves away in a room hoping that the last few days had just been a fever dream.

Especially the one Jesus had appointed to lead. That one? He’d crumbled like a cookie, more than stood like a rock.

Clearly, Peter had experienced a particularly rough few days. There was the whole “Jesus called me satan” episode, then the rebuke after he’d tried to defend Jesus by cutting off an attacker’s ear, followed by the regret of having denied Jesus not once, but three times.

And now, as the women realized the enormity of the task before them, they also felt the weight of the desertion by the very ones Jesus had commissioned to go and make disciples. They’d gone, all right. Mark had summed up their going in six grief-filled words: “Then everyone deserted him and fled.” (Mark 14:50)

As a leader, I feel the sting in the word “everyone.” Not because I think leaders should never struggle with the doubts and fears that followers feel, but precisely because we do. Circumstances and situations on these dust-filled roads have a way of leveling the playing field, and revealing the humanity in all of us. But still, sometimes I want to find myself above the fray that entangles the ones I’m called to lead through it, and I can imagine Peter feeling that insecurity, too.

The last handful of years have felt like a fog for so many of us (dare I say, all of us??), and in many ways have exposed the worst in us: the fears, the failures, the rash judgments, the shame that we didn’t do better when we absolutely knew better.

Remember the women wondering how they’d move the stone? That last paragraph describes numerous stones that seem impossible to move, and that’s what I was feeling when I got to the seventh verse in the sixteenth chapter of Mark’s gospel. The women were standing in front of the tomb, mouths open, and wondering how that stone had moved. As they moved into the tomb to investigate, an angel told them that Jesus had risen.

And then, six grace-filled words.

“Go tell his disciples, and Peter.” (Mark 16:7, emphasis mine)

And Peter. After all that Peter had done to shrink back into the crowd and live out his days as a failed fisher of men, the message from heaven singled him out and highlighted his call.

The fog was lifted. The call was restored. The fire was rekindled. The keys to the kingdom were once again extended.

And all it took was two words.

Photo by @felipepelaquim on Unsplash

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