Me and Peter

It’s evening.  I fished alone today on the Sea of Galilee, and the currents drifted me farther south than I usually go.  There is little wind. 

 

Instead of trying to row home, I decide to pull my boat onto the shingle in a new harbor; I’m a stranger here. 

 

I manage to sell today’s catch—not much—but now I have money for a drink.  Later, I’ll curl up in my stern-sheets and wait for dawn. 

 

From a dockside tavern issue companionable sounds.  The place smells of caulking tar and of salt bait.  I may be unfamiliar with this harbor, but I know taverns as well as I know my own hands.  I press inside the doorway.  The talk around me is of the catch that day and of the prices.  Prices have not been good.  The weather: always the weather…and the weather has not been good.  Some of the men are talking about the Almighty, and of what He said at some time or other. 

 

There are lamps lit on the bar.  A few men sit there.  I move forward to the bar and take an empty seat.  I order a cup of wine.  I look around.  Over in the corner there’s a big, loose-limbed, shambling kind of man, weathered as all of us are, with grizzled grey hair and a beard.  Several of the fishermen sit with him, listening to him talk.  He speaks slowly, every word carefully placed before his listeners as though he were displaying the Law and the Prophets. 

 

            “Who’s that?” I ask the man sitting next to me.

 

            “Oh, that’s Peter.  He’s back today from one of his journeys.  He’s talking about that new rabbi—dead now, they say.”

 

“What new rabbi?”

 

“Or maybe not dead…which is queer, you have to admit. You don’t know who I’m talking about?  Jesus of Nazareth?”

 

“Yes, I’ve heard a thing or two.”

 

“Jesus ought to be dead.  People saw him crucified.  No one lives through a humiliation like that!  But Peter says he came back to life, that he’s…well, the Messiah.”

 

There’s a pause.  I ask, “How well did Peter know the man?” 

 

“Very well.  He saw it all, Peter did.  He was with the rabbi the whole time.  He left off fishing to follow him.  Hard on his wife, but there it is.  However, she’s now become a missionary like him.”

 

We are silent, the way men are who are shy and wonder if the conversation has enough steam…and especially when the women have been broached.   

 

            “So what do you think?” finally I ask.

 

“That’s the devil of it.  I don’t know what to think.  But Jesus is the one, you know, who healed lame people and a blind man and cast out demons.  He fed whole crowds with only very few fishes and a piece of bread.  That, I know about.  I was there for that.”

 

“I wonder what it was like to be with him.”

 

“Peter says he was—is—mighty.  He knew him well, Peter did.  Have another?”

 

I would have another, yes.

 

“Peter says Jesus gave life a purpose.  The purpose is that God’s kingdom is right here on earth…right now.”  He barks a short laugh.  “Of course, you wouldn’t think so, when you look around and see what goes on.  But Jesus said that we should love one another, as we love ourselves…which we do, really we do.  And he forgave sins, Jesus.  That’s what got him into trouble.  He would just come right out and forgive a sin.  Just like that.  I mean, only God can do that.  That’s what the Pharisees say anyway.”

 

“And that’s why they hated him.”

 

My companion nods.  Again, we are silent, but then he continues, and his tone is softer.  “I was there one day when Jesus came across a woman who was, you know, an adulteress.  We all knew about her being that way.  So this one day, she got caught doing it, and we were going to stone her, and Jesus came up and—it was the most amazing thing—he stopped us.  He bent down, and he wrote something in the dirt.”

 

“What did he write?”

 

“I’d give worlds to know.  It was all scuffed when I tried afterwards to see what it was.” 

 

“Maybe Peter knows,” I suggest.

 

He shakes his head.  “Peter knows a lot, but not that.  I asked him once.” 

 

My new friend is still for a moment, remembering.   Then he takes a slug of his wine.  “It was like the others who wanted to stone the woman were testing Jesus, to see what He might say.  They challenged Him.  They called out to Him that the Law says to stone her.  ‘What shall we do?’  Then Jesus rose up from where He had been writing in the dirt—I’ll never forget this—and He said, ‘You who are without sin, you cast the first stone.’”

 

“What happened?”  

 

“I’d found a good stone, you know, heavy enough but not too heavy for a good throw, sharp edges.  It would hurt.  I was ready to go, but, when He said that, we, all of us, we just…stopped.  It was as though all the blood drained out of us.”  He strokes his beard, looks at me to see if I might understand.  “Not that I would have anything to do with a woman like that—of course not—but… well, what if she were my daughter?  She had to be someone’s daughter.  It’s hard to stone your own daughter.  Family honor, of course, and you restore it by the stoning.  But still it’s hard.” 

 

I nod. 

 

“But there was more to it than just that.  I’ve felt bad when I’ve stoned someone, sometimes, needful as it is.  But this was a different feeling.  All of us, we suddenly felt that this woman was—I know this sounds odd—we felt that she was God’s daughter…an adulteress!”  He belts another short, embarrassed laugh.  “And I felt—and I think the others did, too—that we were God’s sons.  We were all in the same family, in God’s family.  And the dishonor to our family did not come from our sister’s adultery….”

 

“Very strange.”

 

There is quiet for a moment. 

 

I prompt him, “Where did it come from then?”

 

“It changed me, the way I thought about that woman.  Yet it wasn’t the woman, really, in the end.  Jesus changed how I thought about myself.  I thought, if the kingdom of God truly is here, right here, what business do I have stoning another of God’s children, when it is I who have sinned?”

 

“You?”

 

“Yes, I.”

 

“The dishonor came from you?  How were you the sinner?”

 

There is a pause.  “Oh, I’ve sinned.”

 

“Well….”  I prompt.

 

“That’s where the dishonor came from.”  Another pause, and then, with finality: “I’ve sinned.”

 

We sit quiet for a time.  He stares into his cup; I drain mine.  “My turn.”  I wave to the man behind the bar.  When our cups are refilled, I glance at him.  “What’s your name?”

 

He tells me his.  I tell him mine.

 

I break the ensuing silence by asking, “So you didn’t stone her?”

 

“We dropped our stones and walked away.”

 

My friend takes a deep breath and lets it out.  He sits back a little and turns to me.  “What I think now is that we are all sinners.  We all deserved that stoning we were going to give to her.  But He forgave us, Jesus, not just her.  So we didn’t stone her.  We’re all sinners, equally, is what I think now.  Very odd.”

 

“I need to talk to Peter about this.”

 

“I heard what Jesus said to the woman afterwards.  What he said was, ‘Go, and sin no more.’  Just like that.” 

 

I stand up.  “That must have been a powerful experience.  Did she?”

 

He grasps my arm as I turn away, pulls me back.  “I’m a new man,” he says. 

 

I look at him and say, “Thank you for telling me this.”

 

He shrugs that off.  “I’m a new man,” he repeats, “That’s what you need to know.  You ask Peter if it’s not so: I’m new.”

 

I turn away and make my direction toward Peter.  I stand beside him, and he looks up at me.  There is great caring exhibited on his face, as though he can see right inside me.  For some reason—though I’m a private man—I am not alarmed when he looks inside me.  Instead, I feel relief. 

 

“Excuse me.  Are you Peter?”

 

“I am.”  His voice is a rumble, deep, content. 

 

The others make room for me.  I sit.  I sense that he is as full of holiness as a shell is full of egg.  His attention is on me.  I am dumb. 

 

Then: “May I, ah, offer you wine?”

 

He looks at me without reply. 

 

The holiness that is in him is because of his fear of God.  That fear leaves him joyful.  His joy makes him—and also me, there beside him—calm. 

 

“You do not come here to give me a drink.”

 

“No.”

 

No sound comes from Peter or from the men around me. 

 

“Excuse me,” finally I say, “I don’t know what to ask you.”

 

Peter watches me and then, taking a breath, he declares, “I stood on a mountain beside Jesus of Nazareth and knew him to be the anointed one.  He became light.”

 

“Oh.”

 

“That is my witness.”

 

My heart pounds, and my breath is short.   

 

Peter declares again:  “I spoke to him after he died, and I saw him rise into heaven.”

 

“Oh.”

 

“He called me, and I went with him, and I have been with him since.”

 

We are quiet.  My breathlessness makes me cough.  There is a murmur from some of the men, a shuffle.

 

“Please bless me.” I request, my voice sounding hoarse.  I had not expected to say that. 

 

“Do you know Jesus?” Peter asks. 

 

“I know of him.”

 

“You may love him.”

 

“He doesn’t know me.”

 

“Oh, but he does.”

 

“How can that be?”

 

“He knows all of us because we are sinners, and he is the Messiah.”  There is a pause, and then Peter continues, “He loves you.”

 

I take a deep breath.  “But you actually knew him?”

 

“Yes.”

 

“What was he like?”

 

“He was not like anything.  He was everything.”

 

“He was one of us?  A man?”

 

“He was a man, yes.  But he was the anointed one, who was foretold in ages past.  With my eyes, I saw that he was the Son of God.”

 

“But he’s gone now?  Dead?”

 

Peter nods.  “Risen, yes, but with us still.”

 

“Will he come back?”

 

Peter watches me. “When it is time.”

 

“And you preach of him?”

 

“Whenever I can.”

 

“Tell me something of him.”

 

“You long after him?”

 

“I do.”  I didn’t know that I did, until then, but I did.  “Please.”

 

“He will change you.”

 

“I am burdened, as I am.”

 

“He will change you.”

 

“I…I suppose I have sinned.”

 

“You suppose?”

 

I bow my head.  Quietly, I nod and say, “I have sinned.”

 

“And you ask for my blessing?”

 

“I do.”

 

“So I will tell you a story.  I am blessed by this story.  In it, there is a blessing for you, too.”

 

“Please.”  Still, I am out of breath. 

 

Peter shifts in his seat.  He glances around at the other men.  Then he focuses on me.  “When Jesus was tried and condemned, I denied that I knew him.  I was asked three times, and I denied him three times.  He had told me the night before that I should deny him, and I had scoffed.” 

 

“That is sad.”

 

“I am a humble man, of no great merit.  Why all this should have happened to me is a mystery.  One day, Jesus came to me and said, ‘Follow me.’  So I put down my nets and followed him.  That is all it took.  I witnessed miracles.  I experienced miracles.  I walked on water in the middle of a storm.  But the greatest miracle I experienced is this.  The greatest miracle came when I denied Jesus—just as he had foretold.  When I realized what I had done, I was wretched.  I had denied the Messiah who had come into my life and saved me.  I had denied him who had lifted me up out of the sea and rescued me in the storm.” 

 

“Terrible.”  

 

“But here is the miracle.” Peter looks me straight in the eye as he says this.  “When Mary Magdalene, and James’ mother, and Salome brought spices to anoint Jesus’ dead body in the tomb, and they found the stone rolled back, they were amazed.  There was no body.  But they saw a young man inside the tomb wearing a white robe —who was an angel.  And here is what the angel said to them.” 

 

Peter’s voice thickens. 

 

“Here’s the miracle,” he repeats.  “The angel said to the women, ‘Go, and tell the disciples’—he meant that Jesus’ body was gone.  And then the angel paused.”

 

There is a long silence as Peter holds my eye with his.  “And then the angel added, ‘And tell Peter, too.’” 

 

The others sitting around us have heard this tale before, but there is silence from them as well as from me.  The light is dim.  Even so, Peter’s face shines.  Peter stares at me.  “Do you understand?” 

 

“I understand.”

 

“Jesus gave me a second chance.  And I have never, and I shall never, deny him again.”

 

There is silence in the tavern.  Many of the men around the bar have left.  But no one has left the master. 

 

“Though I denied him, he loved me still.  Once again, he caught me and lifted me as I was about to drown, this time in my sin.” 

 

“It was a blessing.”

 

“I did not deserve it, but I needed it, as both Esau and Jacob needed Isaac’s.”

 

“Though they sinned.”

 

“Though I sinned.”

 

We are quiet for a time. 

 

“Thank you for your tale.”

 

“Jesus changed me.  I do not deny him anymore.  I speak of him.  I am redeemed by him.  Though he is gone, I am still with him, and he is with me.  He is here with me, right now.”

 

Peter reaches with a gnarled hand and touches my arm.  “He is here with you, too.”

 

And, for that moment, I perceive, He is. 

 

“That’s my blessing for you.”  Peter continues, “Jesus is bigger than the Law.  He is bigger than death.  He is bigger than time.  He is eternal.  And he is here with you now.  You may know him now.  For He knows you.”

 

“Will He forgive me?”

 

“God already has forgiven you.  That’s Jesus’ message.  You get a second chance, too.” 

 

I shiver. 

 

Peter rises.  It is not customary for me to do obeisance, but I bow to him and kiss his hand. 

 

“Bless you,” Peter says.  “Go in peace.”

 

“And you, too, sir.”

 

“Remember that you are forgiven, that you are free, and that you may have peace.  Follow Jesus, for He is the Lord.”

 

“I understand what you say.”

 

“I knew Him,” Peter says.  “With these eyes, I saw Him, and I knew Him, and He saved me.  He has saved you, too.”

 

After Peter leaves the bar, I walk outside with my original friend, and we stand at the top of the beach.  The sun has set, but the sky holds a faint light.  The world, right then, is calm. 

 

I continue to experience a shiver of holy dread.  I cough.  “Impressive,” I comment, “Peter.”

 

My friend glances at me.  “He is, yes.  We respect him tremendously.  He’s become an effective rabbi and a healer.  Often he’s away on journeys now; as he says, bringing the word about Jesus to other Jews.  Sometimes they don’t want to hear it.  Often, I should say.”

 

“Does he still fish?”

 

“He says so.  He says he’s a fisher of souls.”

 

“Perhaps I’m hooked.”

 

“Peter is right.  Jesus is the Messiah.”

 

“Peter saw all this.  He saw it!”

 

We are silent. 

 

Before my friend departs, he says, “But Peter’s impulsive.  I heard what he told you about not abusing his second chance.  Probably he will.  Probably we all will.”

 

We laugh. 

 

“However, Peter’s right,” my friend concludes.  “Since Jesus is the Messiah, there’s good news to report.  The good news is that we’ll all get a third chance, too.”





Copyright 2013 - Dikkon Eberhart