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I tell you that the children of
yesteryear are walking in the funeral of the era which they created
for themselves. They are pulling a rotting rope that may break soon
and cause them to drop into a forgotten abyss. I say that they are
living in homes with weak foundations. As the storm blows - and it
is about to blow - their homes will fall upon their heads and thus
become their tombs. I say that all their thoughts, their sayings,
their quarrels, their compositions, their books and all their works
are nothing but chains dragging them because they are too weak to
pull the load.
But the children of tomorrow are the
ones called by life, and they follow it with steady steps and heads
high. They are the dawn of the new frontiers; no smoke will veil
their eyes and no jingle of chains will drown out their voices. They
are few in number but the difference is as between a grain of wheat
and a stack of hay. No one knows them but they know each other. They
are like the summits, which can see and hear each other - not like
caves, which cannot hear or see. They are the seed dropped by the
hand of God in the field, breaking through its pod and waving its
sapling leaves before the face of the sun. It shall grow into a
mighty tree; its roots in the heart of the Earth and its branches
high in the sky.
Kahlil Gibran
2.
SIMON PETER
139:2.1
When Simon joined the apostles, he was thirty years of age. He was
married, had three children, and lived at Bethsaida, near Capernaum.
His brother, Andrew, and his wife's mother lived with him. Both
Peter and Andrew were fisher partners of the sons of Zebedee.
139:2.2
The Master had known Simon for some time before Andrew presented him
as the second of the apostles. When Jesus gave Simon the name Peter,
he did it with a smile; it was to be a sort of nickname. Simon was
well known to all his friends as an erratic and impulsive fellow.
True, later on, Jesus did attach a new and significant import to
this lightly bestowed nickname.
139:2.3
Simon Peter was a man of impulse, an optimist. He had grown up
permitting himself freely to indulge strong feelings; he was
constantly getting into difficulties because he persisted in
speaking without thinking. This sort of thoughtlessness also made
incessant trouble for all of his friends and associates and was the
cause of his receiving many mild rebukes from his Master. The only
reason Peter did not get into more trouble because of his
thoughtless speaking was that he very early learned to talk over
many of his plans and schemes with his brother, Andrew, before he
ventured to make public proposals.
139:2.4
Peter was a fluent speaker, eloquent and dramatic. He was also a
natural and inspirational leader of men, a quick thinker but not a
deep reasoner. He asked many questions, more than all the apostles
put together, and while the majority of these questions were good
and relevant, many of them were thoughtless and foolish. Peter did
not have a deep mind, but he knew his mind fairly well. He was
therefore a man of quick decision and sudden action. While others
talked in their astonishment at seeing Jesus on the beach, Peter
jumped in and swam ashore to meet the Master.
139:2.5
The one trait which Peter most admired in Jesus was his supernal
tenderness. Peter never grew weary of contemplating Jesus'
forbearance. He never forgot the lesson about forgiving the
wrongdoer, not only seven times but seventy times and seven. He
thought much about these impressions of the Master's forgiving
character during those dark and dismal days immediately following
his thoughtless and unintended denial of Jesus in the high priest's
courtyard.
139:2.6
Simon Peter was distressingly vacillating; he would suddenly swing
from one extreme to the other. First he refused to let Jesus wash
his feet and then, on hearing the Master's reply, begged to be
washed all over. But, after all, Jesus knew that Peter's faults were
of the head and not of the heart. He was one of the most
inexplicable combinations of courage and cowardice that ever lived
on earth. His great strength of character was loyalty, friendship.
Peter really and truly loved Jesus. And yet despite this towering
strength of devotion he was so unstable and inconstant that he
permitted a servant girl to tease him into denying his Lord and
Master. Peter could withstand persecution and any other form of
direct assault, but he withered and shrank before ridicule. He was a
brave soldier when facing a frontal attack, but he was a
fear-cringing coward when surprised with an assault from the rear.
139:2.7
Peter was the first of Jesus' apostles to come forward to defend the
work of Philip among the Samaritans and Paul among the gentiles; yet
later on at Antioch he reversed himself when confronted by
ridiculing Judaizers, temporarily withdrawing from the gentiles only
to bring down upon his head the fearless denunciation of Paul.
139:2.8
He was the first one of the apostles to make wholehearted confession
of Jesus' combined humanity and divinity and the first -- save Judas
-- to deny him. Peter was not so much of a dreamer, but he disliked
to descend from the clouds of ecstasy and the enthusiasm of dramatic
indulgence to the plain and matter-of-fact world of reality.
139:2.9
In following Jesus, literally and figuratively, he was either
leading the procession or else trailing behind -- "following afar
off." But he was the outstanding preacher of the twelve; he did more
than any other one man, aside from Paul, to establish the kingdom
and send its messengers to the four corners of the earth in one
generation.
139:2.10
After his rash denials of the Master he found himself, and with
Andrew's sympathetic and understanding guidance he again led the way
back to the fish nets while the apostles tarried to find out what
was to happen after the crucifixion. When he was fully assured that
Jesus had forgiven him and knew he had been received back into the
Master's fold, the fires of the kingdom burned so brightly within
his soul that he became a great and saving light to thousands who
sat in darkness.
139:2.11
After leaving Jerusalem and before Paul became the leading spirit
among the gentile Christian churches, Peter traveled extensively,
visiting all the churches from Babylon to Corinth. He even visited
and ministered to many of the churches which had been raised up by
Paul. Although Peter and Paul differed much in temperament and
education, even in theology, they worked together harmoniously for
the upbuilding of the churches during their later years.
139:2.12
Something of Peter's style and teaching is shown in the sermons
partially recorded by Luke and in the Gospel of Mark. His vigorous
style was better shown in his letter known as the First Epistle of
Peter; at least this was true before it was subsequently altered by
a disciple of Paul.
139:2.13
But Peter persisted in making the mistake of trying to convince the
Jews that Jesus was, after all, really and truly the Jewish Messiah.
Right up to the day of his death, Simon Peter continued to suffer
confusion in his mind between the concepts of Jesus as the Jewish
Messiah, Christ as the world's redeemer, and the Son of Man as the
revelation of God, the loving Father of all mankind.
139:2.14
Peter's wife was a very able woman. For years she labored acceptably
as a member of the women's corps, and when Peter was driven out of
Jerusalem, she accompanied him upon all his journeys to the churches
as well as on all his missionary excursions. And the day her
illustrious husband yielded up his life, she was thrown to the wild
beasts in the arena at Rome.
139:2.15
And so this man Peter, an intimate of Jesus, one of the inner
circle, went forth from Jerusalem proclaiming the glad tidings of
the kingdom with power and glory until the fullness of his ministry
had been accomplished; and he regarded himself as the recipient of
high honors when his captors informed him that he must die as his
Master had died -- on the cross. And thus was Simon Peter crucified
in Rome.
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