The Fisherman (16 page)

His debate with his enemies continued a few minutes longer. Then, when he had accomplished what he wanted, we left. The stage was now ready. The key players had just received their final instruction. With two rows of men standing on either side of us, their fists clenching the largest stones they could find, the Master walked out of the city with us following close behind. No one threw a stone, no one spoke another word, not because they didn't want to but because they had yet to be given permission to do so by this man who did all things well.

Yes, I know the Master called me Satan. I know he told me to get behind him. I also know he told me I was a stumbling block to him. But it was really a very good day for me . . . a very good day indeed! Let me share with you the events that led up to that exchange between Jesus and me, and I think it will help you better understand.

Following our dramatic exit from Jerusalem, we embarked on a journey that would take us more than a hundred miles away from our nation's capital and culminate more than a year later with the Master's great pre-Passover reentrance into the city just a few days prior to his crucifixion. That final year was a year Jesus reserved mostly for us, his twelve, and the relatively small band of other faithfuls who continued to travel with us. It was a year when he taught us how to think as his church, how to function within society as his victorious minority. At the time we could not hear what he was saying, because we did not want to. Our minds were still fixed exclusively on the here and now. He knew that, of course. But he also knew his Spirit would bring his words back to us following his departure, and then the principles he communicated to us during those final months would become the pillars upon which he would build his church.

Rather than returning home following the Feast of Dedication, Jesus took us east to Perea and the region beyond the Jordan where the Prophet John's ministry had begun. It was a wonderful few weeks. It brought back memories of our earliest days with the Master. In that isolated region the people's attitudes toward Jesus had not been corrupted either by the selfish greed of so many in Galilee who now viewed Jesus as their own private resident miracle worker or by the vicious hatred of the Jewish national leaders. They simply welcomed him, trusted him, loved him, and bathed in his unending compassion and kindness. Though the days were long and the masses always with us, the absence of manipulation and hostility from the people around us made our tour throughout the region seem almost like a vacation. For one of our last extended times together, we were doing what we all did best—introducing people to the Master and helping them gain access to his love.

Over the course of several weeks we followed the Jordan River north through Perea and the Decapolis, then along the eastern edge of the Sea of Galilee, and finally into the villages surrounding Caesarea Philippi. We were now at least 120 miles north of Jerusalem. A number of our Jewish countrymen were once again traveling with us, and even in this distant Gentile region, Jesus' reputation preceded him. Then, just a few days following our arrival in the area, an event took place that in retrospect marked the most dramatic change we ever witnessed in Jesus' earthly ministry prior to his crucifixion. And it was an event in which I became a key player.

Of course I didn't see it coming at the time. I was excited about the success of our most recent campaign and the resurgence of Jesus' popularity. We were regaining momentum after several unfortunate setbacks and, from my perspective, some regrettable miscalculations on the part of the Master.

It is strange to remember myself back then. I knew so much and understood nothing at all. I had amassed a greater accumulation of facts about Jesus than nearly any other person alive at the time. Inside me, though, was a great chasm between the facts and the truth. It was a chasm created by my own selfish, stubborn will, a chasm I guarded and protected because I still believed I desperately needed Jesus to be what I wanted him to be. But my Lord is so good to me. While I was busy guarding and defending that chasm, he was busy building for me a bridge between the facts and the truth. Such bridges often take time to build. In my case it had taken three years, and even then it was not a solid, sturdy bridge. It was more like a rope sort of thing. It got me over to the truth, at least briefly. But it left me feeling shaky, unstable, longing for the familiar side of the chasm where I could once again pursue my own agenda. Is it surprising that following that first crossing into the truth, I almost immediately retreated once again to the other side?

It was early morning. We were getting ourselves up and going for the day. Jesus was once again in prayer a short distance from camp. Then we heard him calling for us to join him. We assumed he wanted to alert us to his plans for the day. No one anticipated the question he asked once the Twelve of us were gathered around him.

“Who do the people say that I am?”

It's funny how it was with him sometimes. As soon as he asked the question, we all knew he had a reason for asking, a reason that went far beyond the obvious desire for our input. We'd been with him much too long for any of us to have any hesitation about answering his question honestly. We told him the things we were hearing—the rumors, the theories, the guesses. “Some say you are the Prophet John risen from the dead, and others say Elijah; and others say that one of the prophets of old has risen again.”

As we reported to him the things we'd been hearing, he just sat in silence, listening. Some of the suggestions he found amusing; none of them seemed to trouble him. He knew how people loved to talk. He knew, too, that the entire nation was talking about little else than the miracle worker from Galilee.

But even as we shared with him, we knew there was more to come. And it came with tremendous force in the next eight words he uttered.

“But who do you say that I am?”

And there it was, all of the sudden—the question each of us had been asking ourselves for the past three years, the question upon which everything else rested, the question we knew could have only one correct answer, but the question we were so hoping he would answer for us rather than asking us to answer for him.

Though on that particular morning, with the Twelve of us gathered around Jesus, my relationship to that question was totally, intensely personal, in the years since I have marveled at the power and simplicity of that one question. “But who do you say that I am?” There is a frantic, desperate, driving part of us that longs to answer that question with “prophet . . . teacher . . . wonderful, wise, and remarkable man.” Those responses carry limited implications for ourselves. I can learn from a teacher. I can respect a prophet. I can admire a wise and wonderful man. I can take what he offers and integrate it into my own life as I see fit. But what if he is more? What if he is someone to whom I owe submission, to whom I must relinquish my own agenda? What if the correct answer to that question requires not just my mind but also my will?

I don't think the Twelve of us had ever been so silent for so long in the presence of the Master. I too sat in silence. Under normal circumstances I would have instantly begun jabbering on about how he was the most incredible, remarkable, wonderful human being in existence. But something was happening within me that day, something I knew very little about. The Spirit of God was active within my mind, giving me the ability to think before I spoke. It was a strange sensation for me. And the Spirit's work did not stop there. Having gotten my attention, he then opened my eyes to see and to know with absolute certainty the truth in which I had been immersed since the first day I met the Master.

“You are the Messiah, the Son of the Living God.”

It wasn't a guess. It wasn't an attempt to impress Jesus. It wasn't the first of several possible suggestions I had to offer in response to his question. It was the truth, and I
knew
it was the truth.

And a gleaming ray of hope pierced the darkness.

My little brother had been pierced briefly by that ray the first time he met the Master. But this was different. This was not simply an expression of hope and faith. This was truth based on knowledge. This was the first time a human being affirmed Jesus' true identity in his presence, based on the evidence, with absolute certainty that it was the truth. The mind of man could understand. The Spirit of God could break through the fear, the pride, the arrogance, and the selfishness surrounding our hearts and give us eyes to see. It took the Master three years just to bring us to this moment and this understanding. It was not enough to call him rabbi, teacher, prophet, healer. Unless we understood who he was, it was of little value for us to know what he said or what he did. His greatest work was yet to come. But unless we understood who was doing it and why, he could not accomplish in us the work he must accomplish.

At the time I did not understand even a tiny fraction of the significance of the words I spoke. I did, however, know the words were truth. And I knew, too, they were words that obligated me not simply to respect but to submission. I could not have this Jesus on my terms. I could not shape him into the man I wanted him to be. This was not simply a great prophet. This was the Christ—the Savior of our nation, the Son of the Living God. I could only accept him or reject him for who he was.

You don't understand why this was such a revelation to me, do you? You can't figure out why, with all his miracles, and all his power, and all his authority, it took me three years to see the truth. Well, you see, it was because . . . because he
liked
me, and because I
liked
him. I knew Messiah was coming. I knew Messiah was the hope of our nation, the hope of our world. But who could have guessed that Messiah would be my best friend? Who would have guessed that Messiah would love me and that I would love him? Who could ever have imagined that Messiah would laugh at my stupid jokes, and sit and talk with me for hours about nothing, and clearly delight in my friendship and my presence with him? Messiah was not supposed to like me, and me like him. Messiah was supposed to rule and conquer and judge and command great armies. Messiah was supposed to be absolute power. But no one had expected him to be nice, to be kind, to be gentle. Of course Messiah would care about
the nation,
but how could I have known he would care about me?

And if you were not one of the few who were there with us in those days, I think you may have to fight this battle from the other way around. For those of us who were there, we found out Jesus was nice and that he cared about us and that he really, truly loved us before we discovered that he was Messiah. You, on the other hand, may have already accepted him as Messiah, but you have not yet allowed yourself to believe that he loves you personally, deeply, eternally. You cannot imagine that he delights in your friendship and cherishes your sense of humor and values his communication with you as much as the communication he shared with King David. If so, then you also have before you a pilgrimage, a bridge to cross. Only, when the Spirit finally leads you to the other side, and the Master asks you, “Who do you say that I am?” your great and glorious breakthrough will not be, “You are Messiah,” it will be, “You are my friend.”

You think perhaps I had a head start, beginning with the knowledge of his love as I did. You are wrong. I did not have a head start; I simply had a different start. Having begun with the knowledge of his love, I then had to grow into the knowledge of his deity. You, perhaps, will begin with the knowledge of his deity and then must grow into the knowledge of his love. Both pilgrimages are filled with pitfalls. Neither can be successfully accomplished apart from the leadership of the Spirit. But neither, I think, is easier than the other. And both lead us in the end to the same amazing truth about the same amazing God.

When I spoke on behalf of my fellow disciples that day, I knew I spoke the truth. And it was that certainty, that conviction within me, that brought about the Lord's immediate response. “Bless you, Simon Barjona, because flesh and blood did not reveal this to you, but my Father who is in heaven. I also say to you that you are Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church; and the gates of Hades will not overpower it. I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven; and whatever you bind on earth shall have been bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall have been loosed in heaven.”

I had never felt so wonderfully affirmed in my life as I did at that moment. I loved what he'd just done with my name and my testimony and that whole rock thing. It was such a powerful contrast for those of us who were there. Always he crafted his words with such power and precision. The name the Master gave me, Peter, does mean “rock,” but it is a little rock, a rock a person can pick up and throw. But the word he used for the rock upon which he would build his church was altogether different. It meant bedrock—a massive, solid slab of immovable stone. The little rock referred to me, the one who spoke. The bedrock referred to the truth I had spoken. It was this truth—the truth about his real identity—upon which Jesus would build his church. His little rock had just been used by the Holy Spirit to communicate the bedrock upon which his church would rest. And it has been that way ever since. His little rocks—his living stones—continue to proclaim the bedrock truth upon which our hope and our salvation rest: Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the living God. I like the way my brother Paul said it in that first letter he wrote to the Christians at Corinth: “For no man can lay a foundation other than the one which is laid, which is Jesus Christ.”