Calvary – Minocqua
Lenten Mid-week Worship
April 9, 2025
Mark 14:71-72
By The Rev. Paul f. Heykes
People of every time, culture and language have enjoyed playing with words. That includes Jesus. And in particular, tonight I’m thinking about the nickname Jesus gave to his disciple Shimon bar Yonah – or, in English – Simon the Son of John. In fact, the nickname Jesus gave to Simon might very well have been the first in a long tradition of geology puns.
You might have heard some of them. Like:
When the geologist prospecting for precious minerals left for work and his wife said, “May the quartz be with you!”
Or when Sherlock Holmes and Watson were on a case and Watson asked. “What kind of stone is that?” And Holmes replied, “It’s sedimentary my dear Watson.”
And the ever popular, “I know it’s limestone but I take it for granite.”
So, I’m sure by now you have figured out the nickname given to Shimon bar Yonah. In Aramaic and Hebrew, it is Cephas. In Greek, it is Petros. In English, it is Peter. And in all of these languages the name means, “Rock.”
To call Peter “The Rock” is most definitely a play on words because there are times when he is rock solid – the leader of the team of twelve disciples, and the foundation of the early church formed after Jesus’ resurrection and ascension.
And yet, there are other times when Peter is just plain dense. Times when he does not understand what Jesus is talking about. Times when he does not understand what Jesus is doing. Times when he is so impetuous that he ends up like a rock sinking to the bottom of the sea.
And what is remarkable is how quickly Peter “The Rock” can swing back and forth between the positive and negative dimensions of what his name, “The Rock” means.
Now clearly, Peter was, from the beginning, one of the most important of Jesus’ disciples. In several of the gospels he is the first disciple called by Jesus. It is reported that Jesus took one look at Simon and said, “You are to be called Cephas.” In other words, “Peter, The Rock.”
In all of the gospels, whenever Jesus opts to take only a few disciples with him, it is invariably Peter, James and John who are selected to accompany the Lord.
Peter always seems to be the one who steps in as spokesman for the whole cohort of disciples when they have a question, or when Jesus has a question for them.
And, as we will see, it is usually when Peter speaks that we see him at his “Rocky-est,” both in terms of his rock-solid faithfulness, and his rock-solid stupidity and selfishness.
One of the first and clearest examples of this is when Jesus and the disciples were traveling to the region of Caesarea Philippi. Caesarea Philippi was a place full of religious history and relics. There you could find temples built to honor Caesar right along side shrines dedicated to pagan gods. It was no accident that Jesus chose this place to ask the disciples, “Who do people say I am? A god like Pan? A ruler like Caesar? A prophet like Elijah, or Jeremiah or John the Baptist? Or someone else?”
The disciples had no problem telling Jesus what others thought. But Jesus wasn’t interested what others were thinking. He wanted to know what his disciples were thinking. So, he asked them, “Who do you say I am?”
Peter was the only one to speak up, saying, “You are the Christ. The Son of the Living God.”
Jesus knew that it was only by the power of the Holy Spirit that Peter could confess this. Jesus knew it was the first expression of Peter’s rock-solid faith, the faith upon which Christ’s church would be built. And Jesus said, “I tell you; you are PETER! And on this rock, I will build my church and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.”
Then Jesus empowered Peter and the rest of the disciples with the “Keys to the Kingdom of Heaven,” saying, “Whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven.”
After that, Jesus told his disciples what would happen in the days to come. How he would go to Jerusalem where he would suffer at the hands of the religious leaders and be tortured and killed.
And immediately we see the other side of Peter. The death of Jesus was not something Peter envisioned so he tried to dissuade Jesus from undertaking what sounded like a suicide mission, saying, “Heaven, forbid that this should happen to you!” No longer the Rock of Faith, Peter unwittingly became a tool of Satan.
A week or so later Peter displayed the same kind of rockiness when Jesus took him along with James and John to the mountain top where Jesus was transfigured. Though the disciples were privileged to get a foretaste of Jesus in his resurrected glory, Peter was too dense to comprehend what he witnessed. All he could think of was building three shrines to honor the event, one for Moses, one for Elijah, and one for Jesus.
Eventually, Jesus and the disciples arrived in Jerusalem. Fully aware that his suffering and death was immanent, Jesus said that one of the twelve was about to betray him. One after the other the disciples said, “Surely, not I!” Peter even declared that even if everyone else betrays Jesus, he would remain with him, even if it meant that he would die too.
And we all know what happened next. Jesus said that before the cock crows, Peter would deny him three times. Of course, Peter said. “That will never happen.” But several hours later, all of Peter’s zeal and love for Christ evaporated into self-serving fear and cowardice. As he kept watch outside the high priest’s house, three times he was confronted and accused of being one of Jesus’ disciples and three times he declared, “I do not know the man!”
And the cock crowed.
It was a stroke of genius when Jesus decided to call Peter to be one of his disciples, for in the end Peter turned out to be the perfect disciple.
But by that, I do not mean perfect in the sense of never failing, never being stupid, never doubting and never sinning.
I mean perfect in the sense of being the perfect example of how a sinful, less than perfect human being can still be a faithful follower of Christ. And how, despite our sin, Christ and God can forgive us and renew us and empower us to accomplish that which God wants done.
Like Peter, we too have denied Christ in thought, word and deed. By what we have done, and left undone. And we’ve probably done it a whole lot more than three times.
And yet, despite our denials, Christ allows us to confess our sins and reaffirm our love and commitment to the Lord. When we do this, we ARE forgiven. Christ reaffirms his love for us, promising that there is nothing in all creation, not even death, that can stand between us and the Lord.
That’s not just gneiss – that’s Good News! That’s the Gospel. That’s what our faith is all about.
Amen.