BELOVED MASTER

 

The most exhilarating part of the Saviour's earthly life would have to be post resurrection.

Imagine abandoning your profession to be an apostle of a man who claimed to be the Son of God. Imagine all the time you have put in being His disciple, all the hope you had in His promises and His teachings. Imagine the tutoring and the love you have experienced at His side.

Then imagine all of that coming to an end as you saw Him crucified.   Imagine having your witness of His divinity crushed as you saw Him dying on the cross because He would not fight back. Most likely an enormous wave of doubt would flood your whole being. Could the Romans, who were mere men, kill Christ if He was really God?

All hope seemed to be gone. Then on the third day, the grief would not end for the Master whom His disciples loved was gone from the sepulcher where He lay. With haste Peter and John ran to see for themselves the emptiness of the tomb with no doubt the Master’s words echoing in their ears:

“A little while and ye shall not see me: and again, a little while, and ye shall see me…..ye shall weep and lament….and ye shall be sorrowful, but your sorrow shall be turned into joy” (John 16:16,20). Did they run to that tomb with hope against hope in His saying that He must rise again from the dead??? (John 20:9). Was it really true???

This was the moment in time when the lives of Peter and John changed forever. The Saviour’s life came to an end but theirs was just beginning. Imagine their joy and excitement as they saw their beloved Master again, in His immortal body, and were given the understanding of the scriptures which spoke of His death and rising from the dead the third day (Luke 24:45,46).

The third time Jesus showed himself to His disciples at the sea of Tiberias, He made it clear what their mission was. Lacking in direction, Peter and some of the Twelve went fishing (John 21:1-3). After all, this is what they knew best but that night they caught nothing.

When in the morning they saw Jesus standing on the shore, they followed his instruction to cast the net on the right side of the ship and when they did so, the net came up full for ‘the multitude of fishes’ (John 21: 6). This was the lesson: they were to ‘feed His sheep’ and be the fishers of men (vs 15-17)

Peter and John were spiritually transformed following the ascension of Him whom they called the Beloved Master (Luke 8:24; Mark 9:5; 13:1; John 13:13). A leader in his own right, appointed by the Saviour himself to hold the keys of the Kingdom (Matthew 16:13-19), Peter became a spiritual giant whose very shadow was believed would heal the sick in the streets (Acts 5:15).  

He accepted graciously the manner of his death as foretold by Jesus (John 21:18,19; 2 Peter: 1:13, 14) and died in Rome during the reign of emperor Nero in 64 A.D. In the Roman Empire, crucifixions took many shapes which are too indelicate to mention (Seneca, Dialogue “To Marcia on Consolation”, in Moral Essays, 6.20.3).

According to tradition, Peter was crucified upside down, a death of his choice having felt unworthy to die in the same manner as his Master. Perhaps his three denials of Him echoed in his pool of memories to the very end (John 13:38; Mark 14:66-72).

And what can we say of John, the most beloved disciple (John 21:7,20) whom the Saviour named the Son of Thunder (Luke 9:52-56: Mark 3:17)?  He who lives still and sorrows for the sins of the world. Peter chose a speedy death to be reunited with the Beloved Master but John chose a more noble path by remaining on the earth to bring souls unto Him until the end of the world. I am in awe of John the Beloved.

I am grateful for the legacy these men left behind, a legacy of faith and works and their powerful testimonies in the words that I am privileged to read.

I had three images for this post. All three done by different artists depicting amazing emotion of expectation and hope of Peter and John as they ran towards the sepulcher. I couldn’t choose which one to use. In the end I used all three across my three platforms, my personal FB page, my FB Group and my Blog. I imagine myself running, like them, when my time comes, to fall at the feet of my Saviour who lives…..

- CATHRYNE ALLEN 

(Art: The Sepulcher by Dan Bur)