For this year's Good Friday service, I was given the assignment to write a first-person narrative from the point of view of Peter at the crucifixion. After 20 pages of notes and three drafts, here is my meditation on Peter at the foot of the cross. This narrative will be followed by our rendition of "Secret Journey," by the Police.
He gave me the name Peter. It means “rock.” He told me I’m the rock he’s going to build
his church on. Some rock. All I’ve ever done is screw up. Every time he asked something of me, I let
him down. Everything he tried to teach
me I’ve been too stupid to get. I’m just
Stupid Simon. Why did he believe I was
Peter, his rock?
I so wanted to be! Ever since he called me and I dropped
everything—my fishing business, my wife and family, my home—just to follow him,
I’ve wanted to be the Best Follower, the leader he was trying to teach me to
be. I believed in him—I really believed
he was the Messiah—I was willing to die for him. And I believed I really would if I had to.
I still want to believe it, all
of it. I want him to be the
Messiah. And I want to be Peter, not
Simon. Simon the Weakling who can’t even
stay awake with him on his last night with us; Simon the Coward, the Deserter
who runs away as soon as things get ugly; Simon the Liar—“I don’t know what
you’re talking about, I wasn’t with him, I don’t even know him!” Three
times I swore I didn’t know him. Three times.
He knew I would, too. He told me I’d deny him three times before the
rooster crowed. I swore I would never do
that, but that’s exactly what happened.
And when that rooster crowed and Jesus turned around and looked right at
me, I wanted to die right there on the spot.
I wish I had. I wish I could take it back and shout to
everyone that he’s the Messiah and I love him.
I wish I could be who he wanted me to be. I wish I could be Peter. I want to be Peter.
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