This Doofus Named Peter

Portable speakers, audio wires running along the concrete steps of our church, and the slightly confused congregants gathering outside the church can only mean one thing: Palm Sunday. I'm sure that when the famous pilgrim Egeria logged her travels to Jerusalem in the 4th century and helped entrench the tradition of the liturgical procession on Palm Sunday, she was thinking of unseasonably crisp, cool March evenings in Chicago when you can almost see your breath.

We got our palms. We heard the procession Gospel. We shivered our timbers. And as our celebrant's voice crackled through our surprisingly stable and clear outdoor speakers, he advised us, before entering the Church (and everyone's thinking, "Will my seat be saved? Should I have left my jacket there?"), to put ourselves in the shoes of one of the many characters in the Gospel of the Passion.

So, sitting standing through today's choral reading of the Passion of Christ, I found myself gravitating toward our old friend Peter. I was drawn in by Peter's "vehement" denial that he would deny Christ, telling Jesus, "Even though I should have to die with you, I will not deny you" (Mark 14:31). Jesus could have absolutely gone back and forth several times with Peter in a "but seriously" kind of way, but instead, Jesus kind of just says "I'm gonna leave this here."

And then Peter follows along, very closely, as the rest unfolds - the Agony in the Garden, the arrest, the questioning before the Sanhedrin. Peter puts himself right in the middle of it all, and as the allegations begin to fly at Jesus, Peter isn't hiding from anyone; instead, he's right outside among the curious crowd, almost rubbing his nose in all of it. And then come his three denials, the cockcrows, and Peter's weeping at his behavior.

Jesus tells Peter to his face that he's gonna mess this up, and though Peter swears he won't, he does. This is the same guy who Jesus invited to the Transfiguration and the Agony, pledged to build His Church upon, and told him whatever he loosed and bound one earth would be so in Heaven. How the heck does this fit together.

Well, here's what I was thinking as my knees flexed and straightened while our lectors took us artfully (and ever so gradually) toward the cross. In the Agony, Jesus asks the Father for the hour to pass, but Jesus defers to the Father's will. The Father green lights this whole thing. He wills it, and Jesus undertakes it.

So, this - the trial, the Passion, crucifixion, three days, and resurrection - has to the master plan, the best way for God's love to unfold decisively and completely. Jesus hops on board with complete fidelity because God, knowing its excellence and profundity, has willed that Jesus' Way to the Cross will be the method of salvation. Jesus had to trust that it will fall into place providentially.

He had to trust that the 72 He sent before Him would be effective in preaching and healing. He had to trust that John's baptisms would bring people to God and prepare the way for Him. And He had to trust that this doofus named Peter would have some semblance of an idea of how to guide the Church.

Jesus couldn't accept His sentencing, take His cross, and die on the wood without trusting that God had ordained a future for the Church He had started in the name of His Father. So much of this hinged on Peter, who Jesus looked in the eye on told of His immense power and responsibility to act with heavenly authority while later telling him straight up that he'd deny Him several times.

I couldn't help but feel that Peter is a solid stand-in for me, for us, for the Church. Jesus knew Peter's road would be bumpy and messy, but He also knew that the Father willed the Passion, the Resurrection, and a period of time when Christ will have ascended and left the Holy Spirit to animate the world with His Presence until He comes again - you know, the Church. So, He trusted the Father and trusted the Father's trusting Peter, massive screw-up that Peter was.

I think Christ's trust is a testament to His love for us. Jesus will look us in the eye and tell us the truth with great love. Whether that truth is that He has give us great gifts and has great things in store for us or that it's that our propensity toward human frailty and shortcoming is pointing us to deny Him, Jesus is always with us.

We may have moments of trust in God's will. We may have moments when we deny Him. But as we come to the foot of the cross, Jesus commends us to one another and to His mother, seeking to establish communion among ourselves and with Christ. The Church is born at the foot of the cross, from the wounded side of Christ, the torn veil, and the communal grief of those who love Christ and rise to new life in Him.

Like Peter, let us weep when we deny Christ, and let us be attentive to Christ's Passion, so that our faith may grow and grow to the point where we can vehemently tell Jesus that we will not deny Him.