[We have again reached the time of the Church year when, in Christian churches of all kinds, almost all over the world, the attention and devotion of the faithful is turned to the Passion of Jesus. I will not therefore continue with the next part of the Epistle to the Romans, but will bring here a small episode from the Passion story, but just enough to give us a better understanding of ourselves and of Jesus, of our own weakness, our own frailty, and the strength of Jesus' faithfulness...The first thing that struck me from this little conversation between Jesus and Peter is how little we humans know ourselves, how little we have any idea of what we are capable of! More than once I have seen someone, when he has done something very bad, say, almost to himself, "It is a mystery to me how I could have done such a thing! Indeed, in the labyrinth of our own hearts, we often do not even know ourselves. That is why we often find ourselves in the midst of completely unexpected surprises in our own lives. Time and again, we catch ourselves in actions, thoughts, words that we might never have expected from ourselves. Here is the case of the Apostle Peter: with what vigour and enthusiasm he promised and received: 'Lord, I am ready to go to the dungeon and to death with you'. - In fact, the evangelist Matthew records even more of Peter's solemn declaration: from him we know that he also said: 'Though all men stumble at you, I will never stumble' (Mt 26,33): Never! I will never be unfaithful to You! And Peter was so convinced of his love for his Master that he dared to make such a great declaration in good faith. How much confident power there is in those words!
And this same Peter, that very night - denied Jesus! Three times in succession he proved, swearing to heaven and earth, that he had nothing to do with Him! He flatly declared, "I don't know this man!"
Unbelievable!" one might say. But no! In fact, it is a very common and familiar phenomenon. It is simply a matter of not knowing oneself, one's own abilities, even one's own faith and zeal! That man is much weaker than he thinks himself to be, and that there are depths within him which he had not suspected. He has no idea of all that is in his heart! Courage and cowardice, loyalty and infidelity, confession and denial of faith... That is why we must beware of big words, big promises, big vows! How many bridegrooms have said to their brides "I love you, I will carry you in the palm of my hand, I will do everything for you to be happy, I love you more than my own life..." - and in a few years or decades, maybe even the gesture of his wife blowing her nose annoys him... Or, for example, we have all taken a solemn vow at confirmation in some church or other that we would be "true followers of Jesus Christ, faithful members of our Reformed Church until death". Or in the intimate devotion of a communion service, in a touching atmosphere, we may have really taken seriously the answer we gave to the question, "Do you promise, do you promise, do you promise that you will devote your whole life to the Lord in thanksgiving for this grace, and that you will fight sin with the help of His Holy Spirit, and that you will live for His glory?" I have no doubt that when a man says in a solemn, devout, transcendent moment, "I love you, I love you", or "I promise, I accept", I have no doubt that he is telling the truth, that he is not deceiving himself or anyone else, that he really means it, but then come the ordinary days, life with its thousand problems and troubles, and the great words - they are just words! Hardly anything comes of them, most of the time the opposite! Peter's great words, too, were born out of a total inner conviction, under the influence of the uplifting moment of standing next to Jesus. But then the circumstances changed, and he was no longer standing with Jesus, but among mocking Roman soldiers, laughing slave girls: there Peter was different, there he too had become a practical man, a man who does not like risk, who wants to get out of trouble, who instinctively looks for a way out, an easier solution, an escape - he helps himself with a little lie: "I don't know that man, I have nothing to do with him!"
Yes, that's how implacable a man is! You and me! Such little is the value of enthusiastic good intentions. Such is the weakness of our loyalty! It is enough to make circumstances such that it is not good business to belong to Jesus, to think you are suspected if you confess your faith in God, or to be accused of being obstinate if you still believe in the hereafter: and that loyalty, so loftily pledged, is overthrown! Oh, how vile a man can be! Judge not such Peter, nor Judas, nor Thomas, nor any one who has failed the test of fidelity, for the same may happen to you tomorrow! You never know what will come out of the mysterious mysteries of your heart. Never say that you could never be such or such a wretch! Of course I can! You are very capable! It's just that maybe you've never been in a situation where the other one failed! What is one of the most poignant warnings in God's Word: 'Let him who stands take heed lest he fall' (1 Cor 10:12)?
It is easy to speak big words, to make big promises, to make moving statements, to imagine some imposing role, some heroic pose, some dramatic scene, and to act it out in the imagination, but it is another thing to then prove faithful in daily life. Don't you Peter give your life for Christ, that's just a phrase, give something much simpler, less showy: give a kind word, a loving gesture to someone you think doesn't deserve it, give half an hour a day to God, to the exclusion of everything else, talking only to Him, leaning on your Bible, give your full attention and effort to the work you do in the world every day, give unthinking goodwill to the people around you... And you will see how weak our faithfulness is, not in the big things we like, but even in the small things of everyday life!
But it is not only the impermanent nature of ourselves and the unknown mysteries of our hearts that we fail to take into account, but another factor, which Jesus warned us about. He said to Peter, "Simon, Satan has sent you to be threshed like wheat!" Jesus is here giving us a glimpse into a secret, that in the unseen background of our lives, a demonic world is involved in the struggle and is doing its best to shake the faithfulness of Jesus' followers. Now it doesn't matter what we call this power, devil, Satan, arch-enemy, the point is that there is such a force, a spiritual influence, which is deliberately seeking to compromise the followers of Jesus, so that good and beautiful resolutions and promises are turned into nothing, so that those who pray may have a bad falling out with their neighbours or relatives, so that those who confess Jesus as Lord may bring shame on this holy name by their actions, so that those who listen to the Word here today in devotion may fall into some ugly sin tomorrow... It is the great joy and triumph of this demonic world, when it can claim that even Peter can be so vile, that is all his religion is worth. So much for his word, his promise, his zeal. We ought to take much, much more seriously what Jesus says here, "Satan has chosen you to thresh you like wheat!"
But then, let no man dare to set his strength, his zeal, his faithful work to any good thing, to any just cause, for, behold, the result is hopeless anyway! Now, indeed, it would be very bad indeed if Jesus had not said something else to Peter: "But I have prayed for you, that your faith fail not." So it's true that we have a big, dark labyrinth in our hearts, it's true that there is a mysterious demonic world working invisibly in the background of our lives, but at the same time there is another power at work: Jesus! Jesus did not pray that His Peters would not be caught in Satan's sieve, but that their faith would not be destroyed by being caught in the sieve!
As long as a Peter falls while keeping his faith, the possibility of rising from the fall and starting again is always open to him. Not everyone who has fallen in some ugly sin is lost to God! As long as he has not lost his faith, however much shame he may have brought upon it, so long as he can still ache for his unfaithfulness, as long as he can weep in repentance, as Peter did later, he is still Christ's child, even if he has fallen, and still a child of God, even if he is unfaithful! And Jesus prayed for this, that your faith might not fail!
And one more thing: Jesus can even make good out of this shaking practice of Satan. Think about it: wheat is sifted to get the tares out of it: sifting is a way of cleaning the grain. This is what happens in the sifting of Satan: one's faith is purified, the husks fall out: pride, a sense of self-righteousness, confidence in one's own power, all false certainties, but humble faith remains: we realise how dependent we are on grace, on the forgiveness of sins: on the saving power of Jesus. We realise that the secret and the strength of our whole Christian life is not that I will never be unfaithful to Jesus, but that Jesus will never be unfaithful to me! How good it is that our relationship with God and our salvation is not determined by our faithfulness and love, but by Jesus' faithfulness and love for us!
It was there, in Satan's grate, that the self-confident Peter learned humility, the humility that enabled him to accept God's forgiving grace on the one hand, and on the other, what Jesus said to him, "Therefore in due time, when you have repented, strengthen your brothers". Who better, more tenderly, more authentically, could strengthen and console believers who are failing, who are always becoming unfaithful again, than one who has experienced Jesus' saving love, which lifts them up from their fall?
"And I have prayed for you," says Jesus. Do you know what that means? It means that it's not just Satan who is fighting for you, but someone else: Jesus! He is standing up for you in heaven! He's watching over you, holding you accountable, strengthening you with heavenly help! Never trusting that we will have the strength to persevere in faith, but trusting that Jesus will have the strength to keep us in His forgiving love; never looking to ourselves, but to Him, Jesus, who begs for our faith! And so even Peter's great vow will be true. For later he was indeed ready to go to prison and to die for Jesus. Someone once said it so beautifully: Jesus had to die for Peter before Peter could die for Jesus. Until one has accepted with humble gratitude that Jesus died for him, all his zeal, sacrifice, faith, enthusiasm are as worthy as Peter's earlier vow. None of us will escape Satan's sieve, but when he shakes it hard, let us remember that our name is heard in heaven, Jesus is praying for us! And under the protection of His prayer, we can still overcome, persevere, persevere in faith, in faithfulness, through every battle, through every temptation, for all eternity!
Amen.
O how many times I have broken many a good promise,
The great vow I made to you alone, my heart.
I remain the sad prisoner of sinful weakness,
And by thy law I have lived in nothing.
Nothing but your heavenly wisdom can teach me,
To trust and serve thee wisely.
What am I without you? Give me to worship thee,
Let me, a poor, wretched sinner, be thy child.
Canto 445, verses 2 and 5
Date: 9 March 1969.
Lesson
Jn 15,1-9