This Easter Day I’d like us to think about Peter. Peter is sort of an everyman, and Peter’s story is our story, I think. Peter was a religious guy and a hard worker—a fisherman, not an academic, someone who would give you the shirt off his back or help you fix your roof, I’m sure. Like all faithful Jewish people of his day, Peter was waiting for the return of the Messiah—Israel, that once-powerful and strong nation, God’s chosen people, had been in captivity and ruled by others for centuries. It was Babylon in 600 BC, then Persia in 500 BC, then the Greeks and Alexander the Great in 300 BC, then the Syrians, and finally Rome in 63 BC. Peter and so many were crying with the words of Psalm 13, “How long, O LORD? Will you forget us forever? How long will you hide your face from us?” Peter wanted the Messiah to arrive and run the Romans out. The Messiah would come in power and authority and, with a mighty battle, set things right again once and for all.

Let’s get inside Peter’s head for a few minutes…

“Jesus is it!” Peter knows—the Messiah has finally arrived. Jesus is working miracles like feeding thousands of people with a few loaves and fishes. He’s healing people right and left; he’s casting out demons. Jesus is even standing up to those hypocrites the Pharisees and healing people on the Sabbath.

When Jesus takes Peter and James and John up to the mountaintop where he is transfigured, Peter is the one who wants to build a temple for Jesus there, a place suitable for the One about whom God just said, “This is my Son, the Beloved. Listen to him.” And so, understandably, Peter is confused when Jesus doesn’t want a temple, and he just takes them back down the mountain to continue their journey to Jerusalem. Peter is also understandably confused when, on that journey, Jesus keeps saying he’s going to Jerusalem to die—In fact, the first time that happens, Peter takes Jesus aside and rebukes him—and instead of saying, “thank you,” Jesus tells Peter, “Get behind me, Satan! You do not have in mind the concerns of God, but merely human concerns.” That just doesn’t make any sense at all. Then, too, there’s all of that “the first shall be last and the last first” nonsense, and talk about the Kingdom of God and little children. Oh well, charismatic leaders always have their quirks, don’t they?

Things start to make sense, almost, once they get to Jerusalem—there is a proper crowd to greet them, shouting “Hosanna to the King!” and waving palms. But…why did Jesus ride in on a donkey and not a white stallion? It’s not only confusing, it’s a little embarrassing. A proper king should make a proper entrance! And then it all starts to go really wonky. “To love God with all your heart, with all your understanding and with all your strength, and to love your neighbor as yourself is more important than all burnt offerings and sacrifices,” Jesus says. That can’t be right! Who are we if we don’t follow the rules?

Peter nearly loses his mind as they celebrate the Passover meal when Jesus says one of them would betray him—who is it! Who is the traitor? “Jesus, even if everyone else falls away,” Peter says, “I will not. Even if I have to die with you, I will never disown you.” Peter wonders if maybe Jesus had too much wine when he replies, “Before the rooster crows tonight you will deny me three times.” Peter thinks maybe he himself had a little too much wine, as he falls asleep three times while Jesus is praying in the garden. His spirit is willing, but his flesh is weak.

Then, after Jesus wakes him up the last time, suddenly, Judas, that scoundrel, comes in with a crowd armed with clubs and swords. This is it! The moment Peter has been waiting for! Let the battle begin! Peter takes a sword and cuts off the ear of a guard’s servant. Victory for the Messiah! But what is this? Jesus says, “Put your sword away!” and he heals the servant’s ear. They take Jesus away, and he doesn’t put up a fight at all. Peter can’t figure it out. He goes to where they’re holding Jesus, and sits in the courtyard, confused. He starts to feel betrayed himself—could it be that Jesus isn’t the Messiah we thought he was all this time? “Have I been a fool?” Peter thinks. Then he starts to be afraid—will they come after me, too? Some people say they recognize him as someone who was hanging around Jesus, and Peter says, “I’ve never met the guy.” Peter is no fool—he’s not going to risk his life for a failed Messiah.

Things get worse from then on. Peter sees in disbelief that Jesus doesn’t even try to defend himself. He just stands there as they accuse him, then whip him and mock him with a cruel crown of thorns. This cannot be the Messiah, the One who comes in the Name of the Lord. Peter hands back in shame at his naivete as Jesus is condemned, and crucified, and buried. Then he goes to hide, just in case they come looking for him and the other poor saps who were foolish enough to hope Jesus was the King. He hears Jesus say, “It is finished” on that awful Cross, and it really is. It is all over. Peter decides he’ll have to start looking somewhere else to find the Messiah he’s looking for…

Who’s the Messiah we’re looking for? A lot like Peter’s, I think. A strong man who’ll take charge and fix things whatever it takes. In my sermon last night, I talked about that phrase we use all the time, “the ends justifies the means.” We have always justified a lot of pretty awful things by using that phrase—whatever violence we have to use, whoever we have to grind under our feet…You can’t make an omelette without breaking a few eggs, right? The ends justifies the means. The Messiah will be coming with a mighty heavenly army, and it will be a terrible holy war, but when it’s all said and done, the ends justifies the means.

Here’s the thing—the thing Jesus tells his disciples many times, but having ears to hear they could never hear—the thing Peter can’t see because his eyes are not open: For God, the means and the ends are the same thing. God created the vast universe, the sun and the moon and the earth with all its plants and creatures—and us—because of love. God wanted to be with us in the Garden of Eden, but we turned away, because we thought the ends justified the means. We were made in God’s image, but, over and over again, we remade God in our own image: vindictive, angry, violent. Six hundred years before Jesus, the prophets said what really matters is to love God and love your neighbor, but we never listened to them.

God’s ends have always been to forgive us and love us and to be with us…and the means God chose to accomplish that are the same: to forgive us and love us and be with us. Jesus is both the means and the ends of God’s love. That’s what Peter can’t see, because he is still looking for the Messiah he wants, not the Messiah God sends.

But, finally, it is dawn on Easter morning. Peter hears a crazy message from Mary Magdalene—Jesus’ body isn’t in the tomb! Peter grabs John and they run, breathlessly, to that tomb. All the while, Peter is thinking, “Is it possible? Maybe it’s not all over, and I just never understood? Have I been wrong about the Messiah all this time? Did Jesus really mean all those things he said about peacemakers and little children and God’s kingdom coming like yeast and tiny sprouting seeds and not living by the sword? And then, Peter realizes, “Oh no…If Jesus is alive, what will he say to me? My arrogance has turned to bitter humiliation—I denied him three times. I hid in fear. I thought he was a stupid and foolish weakling…Maybe I should just turn around?”

But Peter doesn’t turn around. He finds the empty tomb, and later on the risen Jesus finds him, and the other disciples, and Jesus doesn’t blame them for their lack of understanding and fear and betrayal—he embraces them and says, “Peace be with you.”

Peter’s story is our story. It’s the story of despair turning to hope, death turning to life. It’s the story of failure, foolishness, and emptiness turning into the story of possibility, wonder, and joy. Peter’s eyes and ears were at last opened to the kind of Messiah Jesus is and to the life and light Jesus offers to the world. Peter’s eyes and ears were at last opened to see that the ends never justify the means—unless they are the same—unless they are forgiveness and love.

My prayer for you all on this Easter Day is for the same opening of eyes and ears. May you, like Peter, come to truly hear what Jesus has been saying all along the journey, and come to truly see God’s forgiveness and love and presence in Jesus’ embrace. May you know Jesus, not as the Messiah you thought you were looking for, but as the risen and living and loving Savior he is.