Be
Who You Are
Stephen
Terry
Commentary
for the May 27, 2017 Sabbath School Lesson
“Then
Peter remembered the word Jesus had spoken: “Before the rooster crows, you will
disown me three times.” And he went outside and wept bitterly.” Matthew 26:75,
NIV
After a wonderful supper meal that included wine and perhaps
unleavened bread in anticipation of the upcoming Passover, Peter and the other
disciples, minus Judas, went out into the darkness to seek a sheltered place
for meditation and prayer. As they had often done, they ended up in the Garden
of Gethsemane. This quiet retreat was apparently the site of an olive press[i] at the foot of the Mount
of Olives, a hill covered with olive orchards. Beneath those gnarled trees,
Jesus invited Peter, James and John to join with Him in prayer. While they were
willing, the lateness of the hour and the meal they had just enjoyed brought
heavy eyelids to each of them. While Jesus prayed, they were soon nodding off.
Although Jesus had shared with them the importance of the moment, they were not
able to grasp its significance. Perhaps they thought that this was just another
prayer vigil like so many others they had shared with Jesus over the past few
years.
When we look back with our 20/20 hindsight, we find it hard to understand how
they could have been so dull that they did not see what was coming. But are we
not guilty of the same? For almost two thousand years the message has been
proclaimed that Jesus’ return is imminent. Do we act as though it is? Or are we consumed so much with the cares of
day-to-day life that we hardly have time to even consider the possibility that
we might not finish those tasks we are so focused on? We buy expensive
automobiles, confident in the assurance that things will continue as they are
until the last payment is made and the vehicle is ours, even though that may
take five or more years. We buy homes with thirty year mortgages with the same
expectation. Perhaps even worse, we accumulate wealth and use it to make
ourselves obese and unhealthy. We sit in front of computers and media screens for
hours hardly moving, lulled into a hypnotic torpor that likely could easily
rival the slumber of the Disciples. All the while we become less and less fit,
physically and spiritually. We are confident that we are doing something
meaningful, but in reality we are doing little more than taking large
quantities of time from before us and placing them behind us, scarcely aware of
the stages of our lives rapidly passing. Momentous events come and go every day
of our lives, just as happened for the Disciples during Passion Week. Too
often, we fail to realize their importance before they are gone. Often that
failure causes others to suffer in a parallel of Christ’s suffering rising to
the surface of a vast pool of indifference. We are too often inured to anything
but the daily activities that always seem more pressing than intervention on
behalf of others.
Peter, like so many of us, felt that he cared deeply
about such things. He even told Jesus so.[ii] He protested that no
matter what, he would remain faithful and protective to Jesus. But as our verse
at the top of the page reminds us, Peter fell short when the test actually
came. He denied his association with Jesus three times, even cursing in support
of that denial, but the crowing of the rooster brought him to his senses, and
he realized his failure. We may be tempted to chastise Peter for his timidity in
the face of opposition. Early sources tell us that he was filled with remorse
and self-recrimination for what he had done. Legend has it that his remorse was
so great that he considered it too great an honor to be crucified as Jesus was
and requested to be inverted for his crucifixion. Whether that story is true or
not, it serves to illustrate Peter’s humanity. Paul wrote, quoting from Psalm
14, that we are all failures when it comes to doing the right thing.[iii] The prophet Jeremiah
agreed with him, writing, “Can an Ethiopian change his skin or a leopard its
spots? Neither can you do good who are accustomed to doing evil.” (Jeremiah
13:23, NIV)
We do not find it easy to be more than we are. In fact,
we often find it impossible. We too often hurt those we care most about because
we cannot take the time to be concerned about their suffering. Perhaps this is because
we focus too narrowly on our own suffering. Peter was focused on what might
happen to him if he were to admit he was with Jesus in Gethsemane. He placed
that concern above any he might have for what Jesus was going through. He saw
that Jesus seemed powerless to deliver Himself from the authorities. Perhaps he
also remembered John the Baptist’s fate at the hands of the reprobate King
Herod, aroused by the salacious dancing of Salome. He may have had thoughts of
his days fishing on Galilee with his family, fearful he would not see them
again if he were to be arrested. Whatever his thoughts, we all know how our
minds spin like wheels when we are under such stress. We understand Peter,
because we are Peter. Maybe that is why we are a little shocked by his denial.
We tend to hear his words of betrayal spoken with our own voices rather than
his. We like to think we would do differently, but we fear that we would not.
History shows us that with rare exception this has been the case. We are
effusive in our admiration of individual acts of heroism in the concentration
death camps of World War II. But we are the ones who allowed those camps to
exist in the first place. The Dachau’s and the Auschwitz’s have risen
historically in hundreds of places and in virtually every century as we have
looked the other way until the suffering and pain begins to touch us
personally, and we can no longer look away.
Peter, along with so many Bible writers reminds us that
we should strive to be better than this. So why do we so often fail? We could
certainly give the facile answer and say it is because we are sinners, but the
truth is more complex than that. That truth is one that many theologians and
apologists do not wish to acknowledge. They quote the verse that says “with God
all things are possible,”[iv] while demanding that each
of us accomplish the impossible. There is a masochistic soul that seems to
afflict Christian thinking with a troubling thread of perfectionism. Like
Luther climbing the Sacred Stairs of the church of St. John the Lateran on his
knees, we somehow feel that the path of denial is the sure path to salvation.
But when we find, like Luther, that denial does not bring us the peace and
perfection of spirit we sought, we either chuck it all out the window, or
broken, we finally realize that we can only be what we are and trust God’s
grace for what we are not.
Some feel that we must somehow obtain perfection prior
to the Parousia. They may believe this based on Jesus’ statement in the Sermon on
the Mount calling us to be perfect.[v] But if we understand this
in the light of the Decalogue, we can perhaps see that this statement, far from
indicating our ability to achieve perfection, instead reveals our failure to
achieve it and therefore our need of grace. The context of Jesus’ statement is
an illustration of just how loving God is, and in that illustration is a
revelation of just how loving we are not. Any love we demonstrate to others is
contrary to our nature and is only possible as we allow it to flow from God,
through us, to others. We are faced, in our humanity, with the most profound
problem. No matter how great our desire to exhibit the perfection of Christ,
until the Parousia, we are burdened with the carnal flesh that is our corporeal
burden. We shall not be freed of its baleful influence, its many avenues of
temptation, until Jesus returns to replace those earthly bodies with heavenly
ones. Flesh and blood, what we are now, cannot inherit the kingdom of God.[vi] No amount of trying to
become perfect can change that. Does this mean that even though “no good thing”
is in us,[vii] we are to seek depravity
and are given over to despair? Certainly not. It simply means that it is Christ’s
battle to fight through the presence of the Holy Spirit,
our Guide to what is true, to Jesus. He will bring us safely home, and if we
allow Him the opportunity by stepping aside from whom we are with openness to
His leading, we might improve, within our carnal sphere, to be all that we can
be, knowing it is far from the perfection of heaven. Meanwhile, we hope and
yearn for that day when every promise will be fulfilled and what is now
impossible becomes the possible. Even so, come Lord Jesus.
