This was now the third time that Jesus was revealed to the disciples after he was raised from the dead. When they had finished breakfast, Jesus said to Simon Peter, "Simon, son of John, do you love me more than these?" He said to him, "Yes, Lord; you know that I love you." He said to him, "Feed my lambs." A second time he said to him, "Simon, son of John, do you love me?" He said to him, "Yes, Lord; you know that I love you." He said to him, "Tend my sheep."
He said to him the third time, "Simon, son of John, do you love me?" Peter was grieved because he said to him a third time, "Do you love me?" And he said to him, "Lord, you know everything; you know that I love you."
Jesus said to him, "Feed my sheep. Truly, truly I say to you, when you were young, you girded yourself and walked where you would; but when you are old, you will stretch out your hands, and another will gird you and carry you where you do not wish to go." (This he said to show by what death he was to glorify God.)
And after this he said to him, "Follow me" (John 21:14-19).
Then Peter, filled with the Holy Spirit, said to them, "Rulers of the people and elders, if we are being examined today concerning a good deed done to a cripple, by what means this man has been healed, be it known to you all, and to all the people of Israel, that by the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom you crucified, whom God raised from the dead, by him this man is standing before you well" (Acts 4:8-10).
The resurrection is a reality that puts forward a choice—and guarantees the freedom to make it. A confrontation with the risen Lord may prompt nearly as many fears as it calms. The community of disciples is shaken to its roots as much by Easter as by Good Friday; the Living God asks them to begin again.
Any number of the resurrection experiences, beginning with Mary and the other women, then variously the other disciples, have the effect of restating the call to discipleship: "Behold, he is going before you"; "Go, therefore, and make disciples of all nations." None, however, is more explicit than the passage from John's epilogue where the risen Christ says straight out to Peter, "Follow me."
The scene in chapter 21 is the Sea of Galilee. Peter and the sons of Zebedee, among others, are at their nets fishing. Sound familiar? The gospels suggest that following the crucifixion there was a temptation for the disciples to head home, back to Emmaus, back to the comforting ritual of business as usual. There may be some hint of that here.
In any event, Peter meets up exactly there with his original call. All the trappings are present: the smell of the sea, his own boat, even, as in Luke's gospel, the overloaded nets of a miraculous catch—"Do not be afraid, from now on you will be catching people" (Luke 5:10). The echoes are strong and haunting.
The Cross and Resurrection
It is often said, and rightly, that in the original call of the disciples there is a stark simplicity. Jesus says, "Follow me." They drop everything and go. There is no record that they had previously heard him preach, mulled over the message, and then, ripe for an invitation, finally met him by the sea.
Jesus does not lay out the details of what they might expect: "You'll join a vagabond community and live by begging. Eventually we'll go up to Jerusalem to confront the authorities. You will betray me and deny me and scatter. I'll be arrested, tried, and executed. Come, follow me." No such thing is said.
It's all simpler, if no less surprising, in that first go around. He offers neither program nor predictions, but himself. Jesus calls them, and they follow, in Bonhoeffer's phrase, as an act of single-minded obedience.
Now, however, there is a little more water under the bridge. When Peter is called to follow in the resurrection, he knows a good deal more about what that means, where it leads, and even who he is himself. There is no room for either naivete or bravado, though a touch of fear might reasonably slip in. After all, Peter has just been confronted by the risen Lord with the very prospect of his own martyrdom: "You will stretch out your hands, and another will gird you and carry you where you do not wish to go."
To meet Jesus, crucified and risen, is at least to face your own death. It is to understand as well your relation to the powers. In Apocalypse, Jacques Ellul writes, "For the first prolonged Christian generation ... the authentic Witness, the Martyr upon which all else depends, was Jesus Christ and it was enough so to consider him in order to comprehend what the political power was and the true situation of the Church in the world."
So what's new? "If the world hates you, know that it has hated me before it hated you ... If they persecuted me, they will persecute you" (John 15:18, 20). "If any one would come after me, let them deny themselves, take up their cross, and follow me" (Mark 8:34).
What is new about the resurrection call to follow is that before the risen Lord, Peter becomes utterly vulnerable and transparent. Heretofore, he has talked tough in the face of risk, making big claims with a puff of macho. Peter pledges never to fall away (Matthew 26:36); he avows he's ready for prison and death (Luke 22:33); he offers to lay down his life for Jesus (John 13:37). But in the hour of darkness, when push comes to shove, he's running on ego and comes up empty. He caves in, lies, and denies.
The resurrection means that Peter cannot deny the truth about himself. Perhaps he could turn away and refuse to see, but to look in the eyes of the risen Christ is to face himself. Looking there, Peter must surely die.
Jesus asks Peter three questions for three denials: "Simon, son of John, do you love me?" And three replies, each more anguished than the last: "Lord, you know everything, you know my weakness, you know my love." Jesus sees him through and through, and Peter knows it.
Peter, in fact, is the one who is loved in this encounter. Love surrounds the moment of confrontation and makes it possible. Nothing, even death, can separate Peter from that love. By it he is forgiven and freed and called again. By the love of Christ, Peter is healed for discipleship. If he is thereby commissioned with pastoral authority, it is predicated on his very weakness. The issue here is grace and the freedom to follow Christ, even in death. Peter's pastoral work begins and ends there.
IN THE EARLY weeks of the Eastertide lectionary, there appears a series of texts from the third and fourth chapters of Acts that address these same issues. It is a shame we get it thusly patchwork and piecemeal, for the consequential chain of events have an amazing coherence. They deserve to be read as a single story.
Peter and John, on their way to temple prayers, heal a man begging at the beautiful gate. His joy begets a sermon from Peter on the resurrection, at the close of which the disciples are arrested and spend the night in jail. The next day in court they again testify boldly, refuse to comply with the court's order, and are released after calculated threats from the authorities. Their release prompts prayers of thanksgiving in the community.
It shouldn't be, but always is, a surprise that healing in the New Testament is cause for political trouble. It is for Jesus. His healings are carefully surveilled; they are the topic of elaborate "grand jury" investigations (John 9). More than eyebrows are raised; they conjure conflict and plottings against him. In John, it is the raising of Lazarus—the ultimate in healing miracles—that finally precipitates Jesus' arrest.
Why so? You'd almost be led to suspect that political authority rules by brokenness, infirmity, blindness, division, and by death itself. Authority over death would be an affront to any such rule.
Peter and John exercise that authority spontaneously, almost offhandedly. It begins with a moment of electrifying eye contact. Something is already going on. Three verses (Acts 3:3-5) are packed with an intense visual connection: "Seeing Peter and John about to go into the temple, he asked for alms. And Peter directed his gaze at him, with John, and said, 'Look at us.' And he fixed his attention upon them ..." What's happening?
Perhaps no one ever looks at the guy, an invisible fixture at the temple gate to be hurried past. Even those who give him alms may avert their eyes and never really see him. Perhaps he is accustomed to averting his own eyes from theirs, the downcast and demeaned self-image of someone born lame.
But now their eyes are fixed and fastened. They connect. Love is not mentioned, but it's there. They see him broken and know him. They see him whole and claim that in the name of the Risen One.
ACTUALLY WE KNOW more about this man and his situation than we commonly imagine. We know some things from his daily position at the beautiful gate. The station was more than a little shrewd. Beside the expensive splendor of the gate, most likely some Corinthian bronze doors of exquisite artistry, his need was set in high relief. Of course, you still have to have an eye for such contradictions. Compare Jesus sighting the widow with her mite among the lavish givers, even as the disciples comment on the bejeweled wealth of the temple architecture (Luke 21:1-6). In any event, the beggar has surmised that people going to prayers may be momentarily sensitized to the cry of the poor.
But there is more. This gate marked the passage into the Court of the Women (where the treasury was, site of the "widow's mite" story) and the Court of the Gentiles (where the moneychangers and sellers of doves had set up shop). There certainly was a lot of money changing hands around this beggar. The gift of healing, the authority of Christ, is set over against silver and gold; it is in contrast to all the money and wealth in sight.
If Luke's chronology is accurate, and if his friends also brought this man daily to his station as the text carefully insists, then he witnessed only last month a dramatic event in the Court of the Gentiles. This beggar had a front-row seat for the cleansing of the Temple. He witnessed all those Roman coins spilling out the front door. When Peter and John say, "In the name of Jesus," he knows exactly whom they're talking about. In that place they might just as well say, "In the name of the Troublemaker, rise and walk."
It's a miracle that he doesn't take a look around the room, pause to think it over just a minute, and say, "Thanks, but no thanks." That would be the safer path. Instead he jumps up and runs from table to table, spouting the news, praising God, calling attention, and gathering a crowd.
Peter has no alternative but to preach, and nothing to preach but the resurrection of Christ. Given the time and place, that word is every bit as strong and inflammatory as the original temple action. It is in fact one with that action, in continuity and solidarity with it. No wonder the authorities are "annoyed." The disciples are arrested to "cool their heels" in jail.
Notice something about their court appearance the next day before the Sanhedrin—the beggar is with them (Acts 4:14). How does he come to be there? Has he too been arrested and spent the night at hymns and prayers with Peter and John in jail? Has he been subpoenaed? I think not. The authorities don't want him there. He is the living evidence and testimony they want suppressed; they wish him lame again. Apparently he has simply walked in and presented himself. He has come to stand beside the disciples.
Add that these officials must know him from his daily station at the gate. Some perhaps are friendly regulars with alms. Some would be condescending, the averted eyes. Some hustle by, pretending not to see. And others, worst of all, mark him truly invisible.
They see him now. It must take incredible nerve to stand before them. This is a real transformation. It is a complete healing of body and soul and social relationship. The real miracle is not just that he's standing, but that he's standing there.
DID THE SANHEDRIN know Peter? It is said they recognized him as having been with Jesus. Peter was previously, as already mentioned, recognized at a session of the Sanhedrin. It was an irregular meeting convened late at night, and he was warming himself by a fire, listening at the door for the outcome of certain deliberations. Perhaps he even overheard how Jesus comported himself before this selfsame crew.
Then when he was recognized, Peter denied his identity, repudiated his association, and shuffled off in tears. The Sanhedrin would like nothing better than more of the same now. They intend public intimidation issuing in denial, apology, promise not to do it again; case dismissed.
Peter, in turn, recognizes them. They are the rich, landholding Sadducees, in the main from the wealthy collaborationist classes; the scholars—Pharisees and experts in the law; and the ecclesiastical leadership—chief priests and temple rulers who served in part at the behest of the Roman governor. Together they exercised both a legislative and judicial function. It was every bit like standing before a corporation board, a university faculty, a House of Bishops, Congress, and the Supreme Court, all rolled into one. But mostly he would know that this was the body that condemned Jesus and demanded his execution. They were precisely, in Paul's turn of the phrase, the rulers of this age who crucified the Lord of glory.
Peter makes it his business to tell them exactly who they are in relation to Christ. He pulls no punches. And the man born lame has come to stand beside him. Beyond being nervous, Peter must be incredibly moved by the beggar's presence. Maybe he savors the irony and smiles. Certainly he recalls his own denial.
Two healings have come together. The healing of the beggar was in fact his call to discipleship in the resurrection. He is already faithful to that. Peter's call to discipleship in the resurrection was also his own deep healing. Now the resurrection is verified in this moment of community under pressure. The love of Christ sustains them.
They do not back down. In the face of threats, some carefully spoken, others veiled and implied, they make no promise to go away and shut up. They evince a complete freedom. It is not merely that they preach another resurrection sermon; they demonstrate it. They are the living evidence.
Under threats they reply and offer a choice to the authorities, "Whether it is right in the sight of God to listen to you rather than God, you must judge, for we cannot but speak of what we have seen and heard" (Acts 4:19-20).
Released, the disciples return home to report all these events to their friends. Their reporting turns quickly to prayers of praise and thanksgiving. The topic of their prayer is the sovereignty of God in history. They pray cogently from Psalm 2: "Why do the nations conspire and the peoples plot in vain? The kings of the earth set themselves, and the rulers take counsel together, against the Lord and God's anointed ... The One who sits in the heavens laughs; the Lord has them in derision."
Their prayer is to the point and informed by their experience. The rulers lay out big claims, they set schemes in motion, call shots, make threats, execute plans. They set themselves against the Lord; hence the crucifixion. But God sets the limits, undoes their plan, exercises the final freedom in history. God laughs; hence the resurrection.
The disciples have met that healing freedom personally face to face, in their hearts and in their bones. Now they are exercising that freedom publicly, which is to say "politically." They laugh out loud with God.
The prayer of Acts 4 makes clear their surmise that this is no obscure and isolated encounter with authority. Yet they give thanks, welling up and spilling over with joy—rejoicing to be counted worthy to suffer with Christ.
THE "PUBLIC WORK," or liturgy, of Easter is to celebrate all such things. Eastertide marks the renewal of discipleship. We are healed in it. Unflinching honesty about our weakness and frailty gives way to our rehabilitation in the call. We follow and follow again.
To keep the season is to embrace and proclaim the sovereign freedom of God in history. In spite of, and against the overwhelming claims of power, disciples announce and enact that freedom. There is no shortage of opportunity on that score.
To keep Easter is to rejoice—all the way to jail and, for the time being, home again. Our celebration is neither flip, for we know the cost and the long haul, nor morose, because we're in on the joke. We rejoice, even in suffering, in our own healing, in our freedom, and for the presence of God in Christ.
The powers have had their day.
Bill Wylie-Kellermann was a United Methodist pastor in Detroit, Michigan, and a Sojourners contributing editor when this article appeared.
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