Simon Peter
“Verily, verily, I say unto thee, When thou wast young, thou girdeast thyself, and walkedst whither thou wouldest: but when thou shalt be old, thou shalt stretch forth thy hands, and another shall gird thee, and carry thee whither thou wouldest not. This spake he, signifying by what death he should glorify God. And when he had spoken this, he saith unto him, Follow me.”
Deep down in a hullow lies the Lake of Galilee. Rimmed round with a fine white gravel, and on the eastern side walled in by lofty hills, for the space of five miles broad and twelve miles long, it fills up the mighty fissure which stretches from the base of Lebanon to the mountains of Moab; and, fed by the river which rushes down to it from the northern highlands, it offers an abundant spoil to the fisherman. On the western side is a broad, warm plain, irrigated by copious springs; and, between its liigb temperature and abundant irrigation, to its fortunate occupants this “land of Gennesareth” must have been an inexhaustible granary. But there were several villages which depended more directly on the lake itself; and just as on the coasts of Norway and Scotland we have various Fiskafiords and Fisher-rows, so on the shores of Gennesareth, and on opposite sides, there appear to have been two fish-towns, or Bethsaidas.
In the western, or Galilean Bethsaida, were born and brought up two boys, called respectively Andrew and Simon. Their father was a fisherman, and they followed the same occupation. Which of these two Barjonases, or J ohnsons, was the oldest, we do not know; but by far the most marked and forcible character was Simon. With a warm heart, a stirring spirit, and a sturdy constitution, “when he was young he girded himself, and went whithersoever he would.5’ W e can easily imagine him climbing the tall palm-tree for its dates, or heading exploring expeditions tip the Jordan, when the molten snow came foaming and cascading down those shelves which pass it swiftly to the lake below. Hash and venturesome, he was doubtless an occasional anxiety to his mother, even although she was the wife of a boatman; but, prompt in action, frank and generous, he was a favorite with his companions, and was born to be a leader. Whether on the playground or among grave and grown-up comrades, he was the man to say, “I go a-fishing;” and Nathaniel and Didymus, and whosoever else were present, would fall in, “We also go with thee.”
A hard and rugged life: to lie in the stern-sheets, soaked with rain, or numbed with the night wind; and full of uncertainties — one night such a take that the nets are dragged to the bottom, or broken; another night, nothing at all: sudden squalls, canvas blown to tatters, boat capsized, the fish restored to the stormy deep, the strong swimmer scarcely saved. Yet not without its softening, solemnizing influences; halcyon seasons —
“When marshalled on the nightly plain,
The glittering host bestud the sky,”
and when it is as natural to look up unto the heavens from the liquid expanse as from the grassy slopes of Bethlehem; moonlit nights, when balm comes off the shore, and when the nightingale is singing in the orchards of Tiberias; dim, mysterious nights, when hyaenas are laughing and demoniacs howling amongst the tombs of Gergesa, and, like ghosts in procession, white vapours flit over the cliff, or go streaming out and in the hillside sepulchres.
Simon had grown up and was married, and was living with his mother-in-law at Capernaum, when we first make his acquaintance; and we make it in interesting circumstances. He was not, like so many of his countrymen, a self-complacent formalist. He felt himself a sinner; and when John came preaching “the baptism of repentance for the remission of sins,” Simon and his brother went all the way to Bethabara to hear him. Andrew was the first to find that “Lamb of God who taketh away the sin of the world;” and when by Andrew Simon was introduced to Jesus, He said, “Thou art Simon, the son of Jonas; thou shalt be called Cephas (a rock)” — a name not so descriptive of what he was, as prophetic of what he was yet to become. Going back to Galilee, and by turns plying his craft or attending on Christ, he was not finally detached from the fishing-boat till that day — so like the morning here mentioned — when a miraculous draught filled to the point of sinking two boats, and in the presence of superhuman power Simon’s self-consciousness was startled into exclaiming, “Depart from me; for I am a sinful man, O Lord.” But Jesus reassured him: “Fear not: from
henceforth thou shalt catch men;” and, leaving all, he arose, and thenceforward followed his miraculous Master.
With his manner of life in Christ’s company you are well acquainted; for of all the apostles he is the most conspicuous. Ardent and honest, full of eager affection, but in delicate discernment and prudent forecast somewhat deficient; frank of speech and swift in action, yet apt to be startled by his own boldness — apt to break down after a boastful promise or a brilliant beginning, — his was the character which is sure to be often vexed with itself, and of which every one sees at a glance the faults or the foibles.
Still, who does not admire his genuineness, his warmth and energy1? A chain-cable may have such a flaw, that, run quickly out, its own weight will snap it; whilst a single link of the self-same cable may be drawn into a wire that will multiply tenfold the strength of a packthread ever so long. And so a small portion of Simon’s devotedness, in union with a colder and more cautious temperament, might have spun out into a respectable and consistent career of the average duration. But for holding great ships in stormy weather chain-cables are wanted, — bellwire and packthread won’t do; and after the link was repaired — when the fracture in Simon’s faith was restored — he became a power in that primitive Church — a reliance and a holdfast to his brethren.
It was a great love and an overmastering which he had for his Lord, and it does us good to see it. The manifestation might be occasionally precipitate or misjudging, but in a cold, calculating world it does us good to see a generous enthusiasm. At the first announcement, “It is the Lord,” we like to see him leaping over the vessel’s side, and plunging swimming, panting towards the shore; and the moment the Lord says, “Bring of the fish which ye have now caught,5’ we like to see him rushing forward, and hauling high and dry the net which more deliberate comrades had safely dragged to the shallows. When Jesus poured water into a bason, and began to wash the disciples5 feet, we appreciate the feeling which, distressed and almost shocked at such excessive condescension, exclaimed, “Thou shalt never wash my feet 1 55 but when Jesus replied, “If I wash thee not, thou hast no part with me,55 instantly rejoined, “Then not my feet only, but also my hands and my head.55 And when, startled at the Divine claims of J esus, many followers drew off and walked no more with Him, in answer to the appeal, “Will ye also go away’?55 we are comforted by Peter’s memorable avowal, “Lord, to whom shall we go 1 Thou hast the words of eternal life; and we believe and are sure that thou art that Christ, the son of the living God.55
This devotion to his Lord was the grand feature, the saving element in Peter’s character, — which even when cas down was not destroyed, — which even when so disastrously eclipsed was not extinguished. And happy they who have a similar love to the Saviour. Like the modern ship in mid-ocean, which, when the propeller fouls, or the axle breaks, has still sails to carry her forward, — which, when a timber is stove, has water-tight compartments sufficient to sustain her still buoyant, — happy they who, even if courage should collapse, or faith itself encounter some shattering collision, have got enough of the. new nature’s love to Christ to keep them still afloat — those sails of affection which make the. disabled vessel still answer to the helm.. Happy the Cranmer who, on the strength of* this affection, survives to burn “that unworthy hand;” happy the Petei who at the first look; of his Master dissolves in repentance, and lives to declare, with a decision and ingenuousness which nothing can gainsay, “Lord, thou knowest all things: thouknowest that I love thee.”
The warning of what awaited him, which the Lord now gave to Peter, was divinely adapted* to his peculiar cast of mind, and in conjunc-K 3
tion with th ,» words, “Follow me,” was fitted at once to cd nsole and solemnize the apostle.
“When thou wast young thou girdedst thyself.” Rapidity and self-reliance have always been your way. An hour ago you girded your fisher’s coat around you, and it is still wet with your weltering through the water. What you then did you have always been doing, acting on impulse, and girding yourself, and going wherever you pleased. u But” — and there must have been something in the way in which this was spoken which conveyed a peculiar import, for it was at once understood as predicting to Peter a death like Christ’s own — “But when thou shalt be old, thou shalt stretch forth thine hands, and another shall gird thee, and carry thee whither thou wouldest not. Follow me.” And whilst we can quite believe that to the eager disciple so full of revenge at himself and of devotion to his Lord, there was at this fervid momer/j joy in the prospect of being conformed to Christ in His crucifixion, in conjunction with all that had occurred it was a sobering consideration that the days of freedom and self- disposal were about to be succeeded by days of captivity, and a death of violence.
But by that death “he should glorify God.”
It is a singular history, older than the time of Peter, as old, we may say, as the death of Abel, and accounted for by man’s mournful antipathy to God’s holiness and God’s truth: in this world of ours, when any one stands out from his fellows severely loyal to his God, that constant tendency to exclaim, “Away with such a fellow from the earth;” that perpetual effort to extirpate unwelcome truth by slaying and burying out of sight the witnessbearer.
Yet in all these martyrdoms God is glorified. Of the death that Peter died we possess up authentic record; but long before his own time came, an earnest was given in the stoning of Stephen, whose angel face and dying prayer made the first impression on a young man called Saul, and from around whose grave the mourners dispersed to go everywhere preaching the Word. And God was glorified in the funeral pile of Polycarp, who, when the proconsul said, “Curse Christ, and I release thee,” made answer, “Six and eighty years have I served Him, and He has done me nothing but good. How then can I curse my Lord and Saviour h” and who, before the fire was lighted, prayed, as we could imagine Peter praying, “Almighty God, Father of thy beloved Son Jesus Christ, through whom wo have received the knowledge of thyself; I praise thee that thou hast judged me worthy of this day and of this hour, to take part in the number of thy witnesses, in the cup of thy Christ.” God was glorified in such confessors as the martyr Babylas of Antioch, who marched to the place of execution, singing, “Return unto thj rest, O my soul, for the Lord hath dealt bountifully with thee.” He was glorified by Savonarola, saying, as he mounted the scaffold, u My Lord, innocent ef all crime, died for my sins; and shall not I willingly give up my life for the love of Him 1” It was glory to God when, under the walls of Balliol College, a Boyal pardon was offered to Xtidley, if he would even then recant, and he replied, “So long as my breath is in my body, I will never deny my Lord Christ and His known truth: God’s will be done in me.” And, whilst they glorified God by testifying to His truth — laying down their lives in allegiance to a risen and reigning Redeemer — God glorified Himself in the support vouchsafed to His servants; so that, like the martyrs of Lyons, in their superiority to every torment, they seemed already absent from the body; and He glorified Himself in defeating the designs of the devil, so that it has grown to a proverb, “The blood of the martyrs is the seed of the Church.”
In our country it is long since any died for Christ’s sake and the Gospel. Foxe’s “Martyrology” is a black-letter book, and it is nearly a hundred years since the “Scots Worthies” was written. As we look at the engravings of the former, so quaint and so wooden, we hardly realize that they were men of like passions with ourselves, who went through such ordeals, and crowned lives of suffering with deaths of agony. We find it hard to believe that there was once a St.. Botolph’s Church in Aldgate, from under whose shadow, one dark morning in February, a woman with her two little daughters rushed out and interrupted the armed procession which was conveying forth from Londou a. saintly old man; and, as lie and his wife and two children knelt down in the street, and he prayed such a prayer that the very officers wept, and then said, “Farewell, my dear wife; be of good comfort, for I am quiet in my conscience,” and then blessed the little daughter in his arms, and said to the other, “God bless thee; I pray you all stand stedfast unto Christ and His Word, and keep you from idolatry;” and his wife answered, “God be with tiee, dear Rowland; I will, with God’s grace, meet thee at Hadleigh” — we find it difficult to believe that to Hadleigh he was going to be burned alive; but, when we have somewhat entered into the feelings of the martyr and his noble wife, we can better understand what is included in Christ’s “Follow me.” And so, when we picture to ourselves the “heart of Mid-lothian,” and an old Christian in his cell, bending over his Bible, and they open the door, and bring in a basket, and produce a, fair-haired youthful Lead, newly severed; “Ho you know this, Mr. Cameron Vy “I know it, I know it. My ;son’s — my own dear son’s. It is the Lord; igood is the will of the Lord, who cannot wrong me nor mine, but has made goodness and mercy follow ns all our days” — we wonder how weak humanity survived such tragedies; and, as we think of all whom the headsman’s axe left widows, and all whom inquisitorial terrors hunted from their home, and try to estimate that long agony by which a martyr Church has maintained its testimony, we begin to appreciate the awful privilege assigned to Peter, and to the myriads who, like him, have trod in the Master’s bleeding track since that morning when, stretching forth His own pierced hands, Josus said to the apostle, “Follow me.”
The fires of Smithfield are extinct, the Grassmarket gallows is taken down; and most of us expatiate at our ease in that wealthy place to which, through fire and through water, our fathers fought their way. But piety is not yet quite popular, nor do all men take the Lord Jesus for their King. There are still those who, in the effort to live godly, must suffer persecution. There are Sabbath honourers who lose their employment or their trade, and keepers of a conscience who forfeit patronage and profit. And not unfrequently 1 fear, is the praying youth interrupted in his devotion by scoffing room-mates, just as the Bible-reading servant or church-going artisan is made a butt and a byword by rude and jeering comrades. Nor is it easily borne. It tries the feelings, and it tries the principle; it tries the temper too, and it sometimes hurts both health and spirits. But, after all, you have the best of it. You are upon the winning side. The tables will soon be turned; the laugh will not always go against the saints. Even now, 0 scoffer, He that sitteth in the heavens laughs at you. The Lord holds you in derision; and when at last He speaks to you in wrath, you will feel the sharp recoil of arrows shot against the heavens. It is sorry wit which makes wise men look sadly at the speaker, ?nd a poor jest is that which with shame and everlasting contempt covers its author.
“When thou wast young thou girdedst thyself;” and surely this was no discredit to Simon. We all like to see young people active, self-helpful, and handy; and we always feel rather ashamed when we find grown persons retaining so much of infancy, or anticipating second childhood so early that they can do nothing for themselves, but need help in putting on their attire. On the other hand, when God so determines, there is a graceful submission. When old age creeps on, or infirmities still more disabling, let us cheerfully surrender, and be thankful to those who are good enough to do anything for us, or carry us any whither. Old Betty was converted late in life, and though very poor, was very active. She visited the sick; out of her own poverty she gave to those who were still poorer, collected a little money from others when she could give none of her own, and told many a one of the love of the Saviour. At last she caught cold and rheumatism, and lay in bed month after month pain- worn and helpless. A good minister went to see her, and asked, if after her active habits, she did not find the change very hard to bear. “No, Sir, not at all. When I was well I used to hear the Lord say day by day, c Betty, go here; Betty, go there; Betty, do this; Betty, do that; ’ and I used to do it as well as 1 could; and now I hear Him say every day, £ Betty, lie still and cough.’” * By a sweet submission glorify God. By patience and thankfulness render it delightful to those around to minister to your necessities, and seek to give them in return the edifying spectacle of pain well endured in strength of God’s own giving. And thus, whilst He makes your bed in your sickness — thus, whilst old and grey-headed, He keeps His everlasting arms around you, you will show His strength to the new generation, His power and faithfulness to those who are coming after — a good confession, a gentle and not inglorious martyrdom.
* American Presbyter.