SIMON, CALLED THE ROCK

SIMON, CALLED THE ROCK

Peter before the Resurrection is like a body beside a spirit, like a material voice which accompanies the rerouting of the soul. He is the earth which believes in Heaven but remains earthy. In his rough man's imagination, the Kingdom of Heaven still resembles rather too closely the Kingdom of the Prophets' Messiah.

When Jesus pronounced the famous words: "It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God," (Matt. 19:24) Peter thought this sweeping condemnation of wealth very harsh. "Then answered Peter and said unto him, Behold, we have forsaken all, and fol­lowed thee; what shall we have therefore?" (Matt. 19:27) He acts like a money lender inquiring what interest he can expect. And Jesus, to console him, promises him that he will sit upon a. throne to judge one of the tribes of Israel, that the other eleven will judge the other eleven tribes, and adds that everyone shall have a hundred times what he has given up.

Again Peter does not understand what Christ means when He asserts that only what comes from man himself can defile men. "Peter then answered and said unto him: Declare unto us this parable, and Jesus said: Are ye also without under­standing? Do ye not yet understand?" (Matt. 15:15-16) Among the disciples so slow to understand, Peter is one of the slowest. His sur­name "Cefa-petros," stone, piece of rock, was not given him only *for the firmness of his faith, but for the hardness of his head.

He was not an alert spirit in either the literal or the figura­tive meaning of the word. He easily fell asleep even at the most important moments. He fell asleep on the Mount of the Transfiguration. He fell asleep on the night at Gethsemane, after the last supper, where Jesus had uttered the saying which would have kept even a Scribe everlastingly from sleep. And yet his boldness was great. When Jesus that last evening an­nounced that He was to suffer and die, Peter burst out: "Lord, I am ready to go with thee both, into prison, and to death. Al­though all shall be offended, yet will not I. If I should die with thee, I will not deny Thee in any wise." (Mark 14:31) Jesus answered him: "Verily I say unto thee that this night before the cock crow, thou shalt deny me thrice." (Vs. 29)

Jesus knew him better than Peter knew himself. When he stood in the courtyard of Caiaphas, warming himself at the fire while the priests were questioning and insulting his God, lie denied three times that he was one of His fol­lowers.

At the moment of the arrest he had made, against the teach­ing of Jesus, an appearance of resistance: he had cut off the ear of Malthus. (John 18:10) He had not yet understood after years of daily comradeship with Christ that any form of material violence was repulsive to Jesus. He had not understood that if Jesus had wished to save Himself, He could have hidden in the wilderness unknown to all, or escaped out of the hands of the soldiers as He had done that first time at Nazareth. So little did Jesus value this act, contrary to His teaching, that he healed the wound at once and reproved His untimely avenger.

That was not the first time that Peter showed himself un­equal to great events. He had like all crude personalities a tendency to see the material trash in spiritual manifestations, the low in the lofty, and the commonplace in the tragic. On the mountain of the transfiguration, when he was awakened and saw Jesus shining with white light, speaking with two others, with two spirits, with two prophets, the first thought which came to him, instead of worshiping and keeping silence, was to build a tabernacle for these great personages. "Lord, it is good for us to be here: if thou wilt, let us make here three tabernacles; one for thee, and one for Moses, and one for Elias." Luke, the wise man, adds to excuse him, "not knowing what he said." (Luke 9:33)

When he saw Jesus walking in all security on the lake, the idea came to him to do the same thing. "And when Peter was come down out of the ship, he walked on the water, to go to Jesus. But when he saw the wind active, he was afraid; and beginning to sink, he cried, saying, Lord, save me" (Matt. 14:30) And immediately Jesus stretched forth His hand, and caught him, and said unto him, "O thou of little faith, wherefore didst thou doubt?" (Vs. 31) Because he was familiar with the lake and with Jesus, the good fisherman thought he could do as his master did, and did not know that the storm could be mastered only by a Soul infinitely greater, a faith infinitely more potent than his.

His great love for Christ, which makes up for all his weak­ness, led him one day almost to rebuke Him. Jesus had told His disciples how He must suffer and be killed. "Then Peter took him and began to rebuke him, saying, be it far from thee, Lord: this shall not be unto thee. But he turned and said unto Peter, Get thee behind me, Satan: thou art an offence unto me: for thou desire not the things that be of God, but those that be of men." (Matt. 16:22-23) No one ever pronounced such a terrible judgment on Simon, called Peter. He was called to work for the Kingdom of God, and he thought as men do. His mind, still occupied with the rough idea of the tri­umphant Messiah, refused to conceive of a persecuted Messiah condemned and executed. His soul had not yet kindled to the idea of divine compensation, the idea that salvation cannot be secured without an offering of suffering and blood, and that the great should sacrifice His body to the cruelty of mean men in order that the mean, after being enlightened by that life, may be saved from that death. He loved Jesus, but although his love was warm and potent, it still had something earthy in it, and he grew angry at the thought that his king should be re­viled, that his God should die. And yet be was the first to rec­ognize Jesus as the Christ; and this primacy is so great that nothing has been able to cancel it.