The Life
Peter is one of the most loved and most human saints in the whole Bible. He was a fisherman from a small village on the Sea of Galilee, married, ordinary, with rough hands and a rougher mouth. The Lord called him to leave his nets and follow, and he did. He became the leader of the twelve apostles. He walked on water for a moment before he started to sink. He was the first of the apostles to call Jesus the Christ, the Son of the living God. He denied the Lord three times the night before the Crucifixion and wept bitterly. He saw the Risen Christ and was forgiven, restored, and given the charge to feed the Lord’s sheep. He preached the first Christian sermon at Pentecost. He died upside down on a cross in Rome because he did not feel worthy to die the same way as his Lord.
Peter and his brother Andrew were fishermen. They worked the Sea of Galilee with their father Jonas, casting nets, mending nets, working in all weathers. Andrew had already met the Lord at the Jordan and had run to bring his brother. So Peter knew who Jesus was. But the actual moment of his call came one morning when the Lord was walking along the shore. He saw the two brothers casting their nets in the sea. He said to them: come after me, and I will make you fishers of men. The Gospel says they immediately left their nets and followed him. They did not finish the catch. They did not arrange their affairs. They just left. The Lord called, and they followed. That is how it has always been with the Lord’s saints.
One night the apostles were in a boat on the Sea of Galilee. The wind was against them. The waves were high. They had been rowing for hours and getting nowhere. In the fourth watch of the night they saw something walking toward them on the water. They were terrified. They thought it was a ghost. Then they heard a voice: be not afraid, it is I. It was the Lord. Peter answered: Lord, if it really is you, command me to come to you on the water. The Lord said: come. So Peter climbed out of the boat and started walking on the water toward Jesus. He took several steps. Then he looked at the wind and the waves and got afraid. He started to sink. He cried out: Lord, save me. The Lord stretched out his hand and caught him. He said: O thou of little faith, why didst thou doubt? They got back in the boat together and the storm stopped.
One day at Caesarea Philippi, the Lord asked his disciples a question: who do men say that I am? They told him: some say John the Baptist, some Elijah, some Jeremiah, some one of the prophets. Then the Lord asked them directly: but who do you say that I am? And Peter — always the first to speak — answered: thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God. The Lord said something extraordinary in reply. He said: blessed art thou, Simon Bar-Jonah, for flesh and blood has not revealed this to thee, but my Father in heaven. And I say also unto thee, that thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my Church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. He had given Peter the name Cephas, the Rock, on the day they first met. Now he was telling Peter what the Rock was for.
On the night the Lord was arrested, Peter had promised that even if everyone else fell away, he never would; he would die with the Lord. The Lord told him: before the rooster crows, you will deny me three times. Peter said: never. But that night, while the Lord was being questioned in the high priest’s house, Peter sat outside in the courtyard warming himself by a fire. A servant girl looked at him and said: this man was with him. Peter said: woman, I do not know him. Another asked. Peter said: man, I am not. Another said: surely you were with him, your accent gives you away. Peter cursed and swore: I do not know this man. Immediately the rooster crowed. The Lord, being led away, turned and looked at Peter. Peter remembered. He went out and wept bitterly. After the Resurrection, the Lord found him on the shore of the Sea of Galilee where he had gone back to fishing. They had breakfast together. Three times the Lord asked: do you love me? Three times Peter said yes. Three times the Lord said: feed my sheep. Three denials, three confessions of love, three commissions. Peter was restored.
There was a moment in the Lord’s ministry when he taught some hard things and many of his followers turned and walked away. They could not bear what he was saying about eating his flesh and drinking his blood. The Lord watched them go. Then he turned to the twelve and asked: will you also go away? Peter answered for them all: Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life. We have come to believe and to know that you are the Holy One of God. That sentence is the secret of all Christian perseverance. There is nowhere else to go. There is no other voice that speaks the words that give life. When the temptation comes to walk away — from the Faith, from the Church, from the Lord himself — Peter’s answer is the answer the Orthodox Christian gives across two thousand years: Lord, where else would we go?
On the morning by the Sea of Galilee after the Resurrection, the Lord asked Peter three times whether he loved him. The third time hurt. Peter remembered the three denials. He answered with everything he had: Lord, you know everything. You know that I love you. He could not say it any plainer. He could not promise the future, having already failed once. He could only point at his own broken heart and say: you see what is there. Christ saw. Peter was forgiven. The Lord told him: feed my sheep. The shepherd of the universal Church was a man whose love had been tested by fire and found, despite everything, to be real.
Fifty days after the Resurrection, the Holy Spirit descended on the apostles in tongues of fire. They came out of the upper room speaking in the languages of all the nations gathered in Jerusalem. A crowd assembled. Peter stood up to explain. The man who had denied the Lord three times became, in that moment, the first Christian preacher. He told the crowd that Jesus of Nazareth, whom they had crucified, was risen and was Lord. They asked him: what shall we do? Peter’s answer is the answer to the deepest question the human heart has ever asked: repent and be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins, and you shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. Three thousand people were baptized that day. The Church was born from Peter’s sermon.
After many years of preaching and traveling, Peter ended up in Rome. He was an old man. The persecution of Christians under Nero had begun. They arrested him. They condemned him to be crucified. Peter asked to be crucified upside down because he did not feel worthy to die the same way as his Lord. They granted his request. He died on an inverted cross. They buried him on the Vatican hill. The Lord had told him at the Sea of Galilee, after the Resurrection: when you were young, you went where you wished, but when you are old, another will gird you and carry you where you do not wish to go. The prophecy had been fulfilled. The fisherman who had been afraid of the storm and afraid of the servant girl in the courtyard was unafraid of the Roman cross. The love that had survived three denials was strong enough to carry him to his death.
Peter matters to every Orthodox Christian because he is the most human of all the apostles. He says the right thing and the wrong thing in the same breath. He confesses Jesus as the Christ and then tells him not to suffer; the Lord praises him and rebukes him in the same conversation. He walks on water and starts to sink. He swears he will never deny the Lord and denies him the same night. He weeps bitterly. He is forgiven. He becomes the leader of the apostles and the preacher of the first Christian sermon. He shows us that the Lord does not need our perfection. He needs our love. The disciple who fails and weeps and gets up again is the disciple the Lord uses to feed his sheep. Every Orthodox bishop stands in Peter’s line. Every parish priest. Every catechumen who has fallen and asked for forgiveness. The Rock on which the Church was built was a man whose own heart had been broken and remade by the love of his Lord.