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Simon Peter 1. The Call He straightened up from his task as his brother approached. Andrew was looking more than usually thoughtful, he was always the more serious of the two and given to times of quiet reflection whilst Simon got on with the net‑mending and other tasks demanded by the necessities of their fishing business. When there was vigorous action or hard work to be done it was to Simon that their father Jonah turned, but when it was a matter of quiet calm judgment as to where the fish shoals were likely to be found he always consulted his quieter son; Andrew was the more reliable in such things. Jonah was farther along the beach at the moment, cleaning the boat from the remains of the last catch, and Simon with his usual energy was repairing and adjusting the tackle. He had good‑humouredly accepted the fact of his brother’s absence and consequent failure to take his own share of the morning’s work, knowing that he had gone to see their spiritual leader, John the Baptist. His instruction in the things of God they had both accepted and his company they sought during all the moments they could snatch from the arduous business of earning a living. Simon noticed nothing unusual in his brother’s demeanour at first. He was not observant of such things. He motioned Andrew to a pile of nets still requiring attention and bent anew to his own work. Conscious, suddenly, of the other’s continued silence, he looked up again, and their eyes met. Andrew’s glance was serious; there was also in it a look of wonder, of awe, and strangely, of exultation. Simon’s eyebrows lifted in interrogation; he knew his brother and he realised that something out of the ordinary had occurred. "We have found the Messiah" (John 1:41) said Andrew simply. The half‑mended net slipped through Simon’s fingers and fell to the ground. He straightened up slowly as his mind took in the significance of his brother’s words. He was not naturally quick at grasping ideas. His dexterity of mind lay more in the realm of physical things. He reacted quickly when the wind blew the boat off course or sensing the subtle changes in the weather which betokened the imminent onset of the sudden gales which so often swept across the Sea of Galilee from the opposite mountains. So, he stood still for a minute, slowly considering what he had just heard. "The—Messiah?" he queried, half sceptically and half wonderingly. Andrew was looking across the calm sea. "We were with the Master" he said slowly "and there came by one of those whom he had baptised, a man from Nazareth, Jesus the son of Joseph." As he passed us by, the Master lifted up his voice and cried "Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world." (John 1:29) We looked into the eyes of Jesus and from that moment we knew that we were his men forever. We went home with him and we spent the night with him and he told us things about the Kingdom of God that even the Master had never told us and we knew that he is indeed "He that should come." (Matt.11:3) Simon stood, taking it in. "And what says the Master, that you are going to desert him?" he asked at last. He said that his work is now finished, that he was sent to herald this Coming One and that we must now follow the true Light which is to enlighten every man that comes into the world. "He must increase, but I must decrease" (John 3:30) he said. Simon came to a rapid decision. "Take me to Him" he demanded, and began immediately to walk away from the beach, leaving Andrew to hurry after him and resign himself to the seven miles walk back to Capernaum. So, Simon met Jesus. The serene eyes rested upon him, and Simon stood motionless. Then the quiet voice, speaking words which were never in all his life erased from his memory. "You are Simon the son of Jonah. You will win the name of Kephas—the Rock." (John 1:42 Author’s own ]) That was all, but it was enough. Simon knew then that he had found his life’s destiny—to follow and serve this Man to the end. *** How much more was said at that meeting we do not know. The call to be of the Twelve and to give up his secular occupation to follow Jesus was not yet; that was six or eight months future. For the present he was to spend part of his time with Jesus as formerly he had spent it with John, but he still continued to earn his living as a fisherman. The two brothers were soon on their way back to Bethsaida and their father, full of the new thing that had come into their lives and doubtless extolling the praises of the Man of Nazareth in the ears of all their relatives, neighbours and friends. From time to time they were with Jesus, as at the wedding in Cana of Galilee where they witnessed the first miracle, the turning of water into wine. They saw the healing of the nobleman’s son at Capernaum. They may possibly have accompanied Jesus on his first visit to Jerusalem where he drove the moneychangers out of the Temple and had his historic conversation with Nicodemus. If so, they must certainly have been with him as He passed through Samaria on his way back to Galilee and had the memorable talk with the Samaritan woman at Jacob’s well. But all this time they were like so many others, disciples of Jesus who accompanied him when He was in their district and went back to their daily work when He was not. A change was to come. King Herod had thrown John the Baptist into prison and John’s work was finished. There was only Jesus to follow now. And Jesus, returning from his first Passover at Jerusalem to preach in the synagogue of his native Nazareth, had been unceremoniously rejected by the townsfolk and without much doubt excommunicated. Leaving Nazareth, He and his parents—for there is no evidence that Joseph was yet dead—and his brothers and sisters, came to live in Capernaum by the lakeside. This was to be Jesus’ home and headquarters for the next eighteen months whilst He travelled throughout all Galilee preaching the gospel of the Kingdom. Quite naturally one of the first things He did was to seek out Andrew and Simon. This time it was Jesus who walked the seven miles between Capernaum and Bethsaida and there, as He had expected, He found the men He sought. (Luke 5) Standing on the seashore with the customary crowd around him, He talked to them about the things of God and the coming Kingdom. Finding the crowd pressing upon him, He looked round for Simon, who was most certainly not very far away, and climbed into his fishing boat, asking him to put off from the land a little way. From that vantage point He finished his discourse. It was many years before the fishermen of Bethsaida ceased to talk about the marvellous thing that happened next. Jesus had told Simon to put out into the lake and let down his nets. Simon had demurred; they had already toiled all night and caught nothing. It was evident the fish shoals were nowhere near their end of the lake and their knowledge of the habits of the fish told them that at the moment they would be wasting their time. But Jesus insisted and so Simon and Andrew complied, just to demonstrate to Jesus that no matter what He knew about the things of the Kingdom of God, He understood nothing about the technique of fishing. To their intense astonishment the net filled almost immediately with such superabundance of fishes that it threatened to give way and they had to make frantic gestures to their business partners, James and John the sons of Zebedee, to bring their own boat to the rescue. So, four very much impressed and subdued men got safe to land with the heaviest catch of fish they had ever landed. This was the great turning‑point in Simon’s life. He had come up against a power greater than he had ever imagined and of a nature he could not understand. In the face of what the Lord had done all his old self‑esteem vanished. "Depart from me; for I am a sinful man, O Lord" (Luke 5:8) was his spontaneous exclamation. From self‑assertiveness to humility, from arrogance to contrition, he became as in a moment a new man, Christ’s man, and Jesus, looking upon him, knew that the time had come to make him and his companions the spearhead of his mission. "Follow me He said to them "and I will make you...fishers of men. And immediately they left their nets and followed him." (Mark 1:17‑18 RSV) This marked the end of the old life. During that first six months or so they had combined their discipleship with their fishing business, now the fishing business was finished, and they were to be with Jesus all the time. Simon, and his brother Andrew, and John with James the sons of Zebedee, as men with a single mind, turned their backs upon the old life and entered together upon the new. Although it was probably several weeks before He formally ordained the Twelve to be his apostles (Matt.10:1‑4; Mark 3:13‑19; Luke 6:12‑16), there is not much doubt that this was the point of time at which there began that close identification of this band of men with Jesus which set the seal upon their apostleship. Philip and Bartholomew were certainly already in the company, and there were probably others. It almost seems as if these still very immature believers were to be given incontrovertible proof of our Lord’s Divine authority in order soundly to establish their faith in him at the outset, for side by side with the daily preaching, in the open and in the synagogue, of which they were, at present, only silent witnesses, there followed miracle of healing after miracle of healing. Almost immediately they were spectators of the wonder that was wrought in the synagogue at Capernaum, where He cleansed the man afflicted with an unclean spirit, to the amazement of the beholders. From thence the little party entered the home of Simon and Andrew probably the family home of their father Jonah—to find that Simon’s wife’s mother had been stricken with a fever. Jesus restored her to health and she arose and ministered to their needs. Then at sunset, the news having got around, the door to the house was besieged by hopeful villagers bringing their sick and maimed for healing at the hands of this wonderful Man. Simon and his fellows must have had plenty to think about that night. Incidentally, this little story about Simon’s wife’s mother will bear a second thought. It is upon this incident, recorded by three of the Gospel writers, that the knowledge that Simon was a married man is founded. Church tradition goes on to say that his wife accompanied him on his evangelistic journeys in later life and ultimately suffered martyrdom before him. He is supposed to have had a daughter, Petronilla, and a son. Of all this there is no evidence, only various allusions in the works of early Christian writers. Perhaps the most that can be surmised with probability of truth is that Simon’s wife shared his faith and became one of the band of women who are occasionally mentioned in the Gospels as endorsing and supporting the mission of Jesus and "ministered to him of their substance." (Luke 8:2‑3) There is however just the possibility that she had died young, before the time of this incident. One might ask how it was, if the daughter was in the house all the time, that the mother, newly risen from a sick bed, should be the one to minister to the men. On another point, the story militates against the idea so often met with, and inherited from medieval times, that Simon Peter was an old man at the time of his call. If his wife’s mother was still alive—and few lived beyond the age of sixty or seventy at that time he himself was not likely to be much out of his twenties if at all. The fact that he survived the death of Jesus by at least thirty years and even then did not die a natural death is a pointer in the same direction. In this manner, then, the Call came to Simon Peter. Like his illustrious predecessor Isaiah, he felt himself to be a "man of unclean lips" (Isa.6:5) in the face of the glory of his Lord but he was accepted and commissioned to bear the message to all Israel and eventually to all people everywhere. Like Isaiah, too, he had no conception at the start of what was going to be involved in the life he had chosen. There were to be times of light and dark, times of achievement and of failure, times of exaltation to the heights and of despairing descent into the depths. But at the end he emerged "more than conqueror." (Rom.8:37) This is the value of the story of Simon the Galilean fisherman, of Peter the Apostle and evangelist of Jesus Christ, to us as we in our time follow in the same way. So very human, so very prone to hasty and ill‑considered judgments, so quick at coming to the wrong conclusion and so liable to panic at a time of crisis! Yet, on the other hand, so warmly devoted and passionately loyal, so certain that all his Lord had promised would assuredly come to pass. Then, at the end, so quietly convinced that the star he had followed all his life was no chimera (illusion), but a reality which would lead him without fail into the heavenly Kingdom. "We did not follow cleverly devised myths...but we were eyewitnesses of his majesty." (2 Pet.1:16 RSV) To be continued |
