Easter #4 : PETER

by Maxwell Ryan

The pale translucent dawn wiped the darkness from craggy hills and spilled over into the valleys. It was going to be a hot day, despite the present chill in the air.

A man was running, stumbling in the half-light as if chased by demons - or the shadow of defeat that he could not face. The gnarled roots of olive trees burrowed and interlaced the earth as if possessing a life of their own. The man didn’t see them, and before he knew what was happening the coarse rope of a flopping sandal caught and threw him, full-length and face down, on the stony ground.

He was winded and lay there as if dead. His legs, grabbing this respite in the mad rush from the city, throbbed and ached with growing intensity. Forcing his eyes closed, the man tried to bring order out of the chaos of his darting thoughts.

There were the voices - the low, profane voices of Roman soldiers as they sat around the fire or stamped cursing, in the unwelcome chill of the night air. Then there was the girl: black-haired and lithe, she moved easily among the soldiers with her wine skin. The man watched her.

Her dark eyes flashed and danced as she eluded the clumsy paw of an over-eager soldier, and her high laughter sounded above the general confusion and noise. “Sir, I’m only a poor girl and I have a widowed mother and sick brother at home, would you like to buy…”. The liquid Aramaic of the sales pitch stopped as she bent her head and peered closely.

Harsh and discordant, she shouted wildly, “Here’s one of them, here’s one of them. I saw him with the Man from Galilee!” The sudden silence of the courtyard lived briefly.

“She’s a liar, she doesn’t know what she’s talking about.” The man’s voice was high-pitched and dry with fear, and trembled slightly. “That no-good, misbegotten daughter of Belial can’t see with the eyes that Jehovah put into her worthless head. I never saw the Prisoner before.”

Curses, now stumbling through disuse upon his tongue, flowed in a dirty stream from the man as the girl clutched her wine skin and backed off.

The outburst had not died on the air when the man heard the slap-slap of marching sandals against the flagstones of the courtyard. A platoon of soldiers moved to his immediate left and he turned quickly to watch. For an instant the solid line of soldiers parted and he could see, not six feet away, the face - but especially the eyes - of the One who meant the most to him. This Person looked at him - through him - beyond him.

peter The man dropped his eyes and momentarily hid his face in his hands. Then he turned and ran blindly. The hills, the familiar hills, called as he left behind the flickering lights of the city and ran eastward into the paling dawn.

The throbbing in his legs subsided as still he lay on the ground. Over and over again, with insistent regularity, the thought pounded through his brain: “But I didn’t mean what I said. . . I didn’t mean it . . . I didn’t mean it.’ Those eyes still looked through him and, as they did so, they pierced his heart.

But now the crisis was past, and the fear had gone, to be replaced by hard resolve. He stirred and then sat, up, wiping his face and pushing back his hair. Calmly he said to himself, “I must go back, immediately. He might need me.”

The man arose, bent down to pick up the broken sandal and then walked slowly down the hill toward the city. There was no running now - Peter knew that - and he was warmed by the thought, deep inside, where it really mattered.

There were things to be done, and things to be suffered - perhaps. He’d need all his strength for this troubled present and uncertain future. The pall of defeat receded swiftly as now he strode with purpose. Those beautiful, impact-ridden three years with Jesus were not lost at all. For Peter had made a promise by the rocky shores of Galilee those many months ago.

His word, and his life, had been given; who was he to take them back?

Writer: Lieut.-Colonel Maxwell Ryan is a former Editor in Chief in Canada and the UK. In retirement has been a copy editor of theRubicon and the author of two series on theRubicon - Resurrected Writers and Thinkaloud