I read a beautiful essay in the New Yorker by James Marcus who lovingly recounts his father’s last days. As I read, I had a sense of how hard it would be to see my parents—currently in their 80s and healthy— decline in such a way. They might be blessed to die peacefully in their sleep, but one or both of them might go through what so many do: travails of illness that bring intense suffering to their last weeks, months, years.
I rebelled at the thought. NO. I didn’t want them to suffer as the parents of so many of my friends have suffered. And I didn’t want to have to see it.
This Lent, I’ve been ruminating on Peter’s denial of Jesus, which is depicted in all four Gospels. When I was younger, I read this as a kind of cautionary tale. When the chips were down, Peter was ashamed to be associated with Jesus. And then this thought would follow soon after: if someone as bold as Peter chickened out under pressure, what chance did I have in a similar situation?
Someone once told me about a Christian grad student who was in a university math class. As a joke, someone wrote on the board, “[Famous mathematician] is god and [famous math professor] is his prophet.” The Christian grad student stood up in class and said something along the lines of, “there is only one God and Jesus is his son.” In a different vein, I read about the life of missionary physician Helen Roosevere, who served for decades in a clinic in the Congo, was beaten and gang raped by rebels, then chose to return to the Congo to continue serving. To “not deny Christ,” I’ve often thought, must be made up of bold decisions like these.
These days, I’m seeing Peter’s denial in a different light. If courage and intensity of commitment were what was required, Peter might have done okay. He doesn’t seem like someone to shy away from conflict. In the Garden of Gethsemane, he lunges forward and slices off the ear of the high priest’s servant. So why did he, just hours later, turn away from Jesus?
After all he had been through with Jesus—the miracles, the teaching, the palpable sense that the reign of God was breaking into history—Peter had to confront Christ’s suffering. After all that had happened, was this the way it was all going to end?
Maybe he even had ideas of fighting or rescuing Jesus when he entered that courtyard. As soon as denied Jesus, though, the reality and finality of what is happening seems to hit him. Jesus predicted Peter’s denials and despite the strength of Peter’s convictions, he couldn’t even stop that from happening. He weeps. There is something so deeply human and existentially honest in Peter’s weeping. Utter failure, utter loss.
This Lent, I am pondering how to receive—not deny—Christ’s suffering, as it manifests in the world, in others, and in me.