Imagine abandoning your life’s work to be an
apostle of a man who claimed to be the Son of God. Imagine all the hours 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. All
your belief in His divinity would be crushed and an enormous wave of doubt
would flood your whole being. Could the Romans, who were mere men, kill Christ
if He were 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 sepulchre where He lay. With haste Peter and John ran to the sepulchre
with eagerness, no doubt with 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 have hope in His saying that He must rise again from the dead as they ran
to that tomb??? (John 20:9).
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. 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 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 of ‘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 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.
- CATHRYNE ALLEN
(Art: Hope by Liz Lemon Swindle)
