Peter's Encounter with the Resurrected Christ
Y es, my dear sister, he is alive. Before you, before any in this room, before anyone at all, I have seen him.” Peter reclined at the end of the table and did not even rise at Mary’s appearance with her marvelous announcement. He was at peace and his heart glowed warmly at his thoughts.
After the trial, he had not known what to do with himself or where to go. He longed for the shores of Galilee and the familiar smells of fish and nets. He longed for the sound of sail and the sting of wind driven water in his face, but Jerusalem had none of these things. “Anything, anyplace I can be alone with my terrible deed;” his great heart crushed with self-loathing.
Some would say that it was chance that brought Peter to this place of shame and disgrace. But as he thought of it later, Peter was certain that his seeming random footsteps had been guided by the Spirit himself. In any case, Peter found himself staring at the spectered form of Judas. Judas stared back with glazed, lifeless eyes, his body still swaying gently. Peter, speechless, could not remove his gaze from those eyes and in his stupor saw not the face of Judas, but his own.
He stood there for several moments, feeling uncertain. Then, like his friend before him, he climbed the tree and edged out on the limb to where the rope was tied. Unsheathing a dagger, he applied its edge to the rope, taut with the weight of the body of Judas. The tree limb swayed upward as the carcass fell and struck the earth in such a way that the stomach wall opened its contents to the ground. To a Jew, touching a dead body was to defile one’s self, but Peter could feel no more defiled than he was already. He sensed a certain kinship with Judas, a certain vicarious identification with the body of the betrayer. He handled it gently, reverently.
The hills of Judea and around Jerusalem did not want for caves. It was to one of these that Peter carried the body of Judas. He had no spices, no grave clothes. Having labored under the weight of the body through the rocks and hills, he layed Judas on the floor of the cave. Peter sat down exhausted. Through the awful hours of the crucifixion, while his Lord hung suspended between the dark, lowering clouds and the blood soaked earth, Peter sat weeping and whimpering by the disemboweled body of Judas in the cave. Darkness had descended on the hills. Darkness in the cave. Darkness in his heart. His chest began to heave great gulps of the dank air. The pounding of the earthquakes, the dirt and dust falling from the ceiling of the earthen cave were matched by pounding in his heart and in his temples. “Fall on me!” a blunted, gutteral utterence from somewhere deep within him. It rose like vomit through his intestines and stomach until it erupted again in a violent, throat shredding scream, “Fall on me!” and again “Fall on me!” Again and again it erupted from his insides. Racking sobs came. The walls of the small cave echoed lurid, hideous wails of the insane. The day passed.
Peter awoke to the smell of death. Outside, the sky had begun to pale in predawn emptiness. His eyes, accustomed to the darkness, could barely make out the form of Judas decaying in the loose dirt on the floor of the cave. Something scurried at Peter’s movement. Somehow a logical thought entered his mind, “I must find stones for the entrance.” As he tried to stand, he struck his head smartly against a protruding rock. “Damn!” he cried. And then he thought, “Cursing comes too easily these days.”
“You’ve been doing that your entire life.”
At first he thought he had imagined it. “What?” he answered, absently.
There was mirth in what he heard, “Bumping your head against things. Never taking into account your own pig-headedness. Trying to walk on water, trying to get me not to do things, the thing with the foot washing, and then cutting that man’s ear with your sword, the denials; shall I go on?” Despite the harshness of the words, the old fisherman felt a smile beneath them. Of course, Peter recognized the voice the instant he heard it. His stupefied response had to do with his inability to comprehend the reality of it. He was overjoyed and terrified at the same time. He wanted to fall on his knees and worship but the casual, matter of fact manner seemed so comforting, so inviting. Here? In this dark hole? With the body of Judas rotting at his feet? He felt elated . . . and ashamed. He felt utterly destroyed, yet triumphant, immeasurably triumphant!
“Lord, I . . .” he began, thinking of something, anything, he could say. There were no flashes of lightning. There was no shining glory. Peter could only see a form in the gloom. But the love he felt, the compassion . . . “Lord . . .” His knees began to buckle.
“Simon! Son of Jonas, stand on your own two feet!” Simon stood, nailed to his footprints. Jesus came to him, paused within arms reach, yet another step and took the broken old fisherman into his arms.
Peter never told this story. Although some have alluded to it, no one has ever spelled it out until now. I am not sure it all happened just like this. Perhaps I dreamed it. Perhaps I didn’t.
Cp. 1 Corinthians 15:5 with Luke 24:34. See also Brown, Plummer and Briggs, International Critical Commentary series on 1 Corinthians 15.5, 1911. p.335
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Copyright: Paul D. Morris, 2006