Peter Wondered John Believed
Elijah Raines
John arrived at the tomb and stopped. Peter ran up
from behind and
walked straight in. Seeing the grave cloths
folded, he wondered. John
was filled with awe as he stepped into the tomb
and believed. Do you
remember this scene recorded in the gospel of John
when the two
disciples came to the empty tomb? At first sight
of the grave cloths
John chose to believe. John believed with a
simple sign– a grave
cloth. But Peter wondered.
Peter’s wondering may have started with
fear and disbelief when
Jesus was taken from the garden by force. When the
guards grabbed
Jesus, Peter stood up ready to fight for who he
believed in, but he
ended up receiving a rebuke from the one he was
trying to fight for.
Later in the night questions came to Peter, “Don’t
you know this
Jesus?”
Peter’s response: “No, I don’t know the man.”
Peter was asked three
times, and each time he may have had more doubt,
wondering if he had
really known Jesus at all.
Questions went through the minds of Jesus
disciples the next
few days. The scene was playing over and over. Un-
answered questions
would not leave them alone. What were they to
think of the last few
years?
“No one has ever spoken like him...” “No one has
ever loved like he
did...” No one has cared for me like he has
cared...” Each disciple
was remembering the way that he first called him.
Had they been taken
in by a persuasive speaker? But what about the
miracles?
A few days before, Jesus had ridden a
donkey into Jerusalem.
All the people had been waving palm branches and
shouting “Hosanna!”
“Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!
Blessed is the King
of Israel!” The disciples may have thought they
were going to take
over the city.
At the Passover meal, perhaps they expected
to go over strategy
of what was next. They might have thought of a
Jewish kingdom with the
disciples at the right hand of Jesus the
conqueror.
But Jesus had something else in mind. He
was very somber when
he said, “I tell you the truth, one of you is
going to betray me.”
Peter spoke up and said, “I am ready to die for
you.” Jesus asked,
“Are you really ready to die for me?” Late into
the night Jesus had
much to say, but his words weren’t the the
strategies that they
anticipated. Were they the words of a ruler
getting ready to take a
city? “Where I am going, you cannot follow now,
but you will follow
later.” “If the world hates you, keep in mind that
it hated me first.”
“All this I have told you so that you will not
fall away. They will
put you out of the synagogue; in fact, the
time is coming when anyone who kills you will
think they are offering
a service to God. They will do such things
because they have not
known the Father or me.”
John 16:1-4
Their hearts were troubled, not knowing
what he meant by the
words that he spoke. The strategies that Jesus
gave were not to
conquer cities, but hearts. The words that Jesus
used left them
confused.
Then late in the night the soldiers rushed
in to the garden
where they were and with torches and swords they
took Jesus to the
officials and eventually before the Roman
government. This time the
crowd in
Jerusalem was shouting, “Take him away! Crucify
him!” and, “We have no
King but Caesar!” Perhaps days before many of the
same people were
shouting, “Hosanna! Blessed is he who comes in the
name of the Lord,
Blessed is the king of Israel!”
The sentence was made that Jesus would have to
die. The disciples
could not believe what was happening. Most of them
were not even there
for his death. Jesus was left by most of his
closest friends. The days
that followed may have seemed like the longest
days. Maybe they needed
to get back to life as usual, to try to forget the
last few years, to
get a new direction for life. Despair and
hopelessness set in. The one
they had so much hope in was gone.
Early one morning there was pounding at the
door. Fear seized
the disciples, Peter answered reluctantly, maybe
with sword in hand.
It was Mary (one of Jesus’ followers), not armed
soldiers. She said,
“They have taken the Lord out of the tomb, and we
do not know were
they have put him.”
Fear struck Peter and John as they ran to
the tomb. Why would
the soldiers take the body of a dead man? John
stopped at the
entrance, and Peter walked straight in. The burial
cloths were folded.
Who would steal a body and fold the grave cloths
and leave them?
John walked in and saw and believed. The burial
clothes were a sign
John chose to believe, but Peter wondered. Later
that morning Jesus
appeared to Mary and she believed. Mary ran to
tell the disciples that
she had seen Jesus, that he was alive, but they
were confused by her
words, being filled with doubt.
Then Jesus appeared to the disciples like
this: “On the evening
of that first day of the week, when the disciples
were together, with
the doors locked for fear of the Jewish leaders,
Jesus came and stood
among them and said, “Peace be with you!” After
he said this, he
showed them his hands and side. The disciples were
overjoyed when they
saw the Lord”... “Now Thomas (also known as
Didymus), one of the
Twelve disciples, was not with the disciples when
Jesus came. So the
other disciples told him, “We have seen the
Lord!”
But he said to them, “Unless I see the nail marks
in his hands and put
my finger where the nails were, and put my hand
into his side, I will
not believe.” A week later his disciples were in
the house again, and
Thomas was
with them. Though the doors were locked, Jesus
came and stood among
them and said, “Peace be with you!” Then he said
to Thomas, “Put your
finger here; see my hands. Reach out your hand and
put it into my
side. Stop doubting and believe.” Thomas said to
him, “My Lord and my
God!” Then Jesus told him, “Because you have seen
me, you have
believed; blessed are those who have not seen and
yet have believed.”
John 20:19 & 20 & 24-29
Sometimes we choose that we are going to
dig in our heels and
not believe and other times we passively “just
wonder”. Both of these
can end in unbelief. Many times we are waiting for
a sign, a sign that
that says, “Believe!” We can choose to wonder at
all the signs, or we
can choose to believe.
At the first sign we can choose to believe
in Jesus, at the
first sign we can choose to believe what he has
spoken. At the first
sign we can choose to believe in his goodness and
his faithfulness.
Belief is a choice.
If God is calling you, choose this day to
believe. If you have
turned away and he is calling you back, make a
choice to believe. If
God has spoken to you about life, family,
marriage, or whatever else,
just choose to believe what he has spoken. Belief
is a choice. Choose
to believe.
“For he says, ‘In the time of my favor I
heard you, and in the
day of salvation I helped you.’ I tell you, now is
the time of God’s
favor,
now is the day of salvation.”
2 Corinthians 6:2
“How long will you waver between two
opinions? If the Lord is
God, follow Him.” 1 Kings 18:21
This is meant to be a remembrance of the
gospel of John,
chapter 12-20
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