We can only come into the position rightly to understand its
precious significance, if we try to represent to ourselves the state
of mind of the man to whom it was granted. I have already touched
upon that; let me, in the briefest possible way, recapitulate. As I
have said, the momentary impulse to the cowardly crime passed, and
left a melted heart, true penitence, and profound sorrow. One sad
day slowly wore away. Early on the next came the message which
produced an effect on Peter so great, that the gospel, which in some
sense is his gospel (I mean that 'according to Mark') alone contains
the record of it--the message from the open grave: 'Tell my
disciples _and Peter_ that I go before you into Galilee.' There
followed the sudden rush to the grave, when the feet made heavy by a
heavy conscience were distanced by the light step of happy love, and
'the other disciple did outrun Peter.' The more impulsive of the two
dashed into the sepulchre, just as he afterwards threw himself over
the side of the boat, and floundered through the water to get to his
Lord's feet, whilst John was content with looking, just as he
afterwards was content to sit in the boat and say, 'It is the Lord.'
But John's faith, too, outran Peter's, and he departed 'believing,'
whilst Peter only attained to go away 'wondering.' And so another
day wore away, and at some unknown hour in it, Jesus stood before
Peter alone.
What did that appearance say to the penitent man? Of course, it said
to him what it said to all the rest, that death was conquered. It
lifted his thoughts of his Master. It changed his whole atmosphere
from gloom to sunshine, but it had a special message for him. It
said that no fault, no denial, bars or diverts Christ's love. Peter,
no doubt, as soon as the hope of the Resurrection began to dawn upon
him, felt fear contending with his hope, and asked himself, 'If He
is risen, will He ever speak to me again?' And now here He is with a
quiet look on His face that says, 'Notwithstanding thy denial, see,
I have come to thee.'
Ah, brethren! the impulsive fault of a moment, so soon repented of,
so largely excusable, is far more venial than many of our denials.
For a continuous life in contradiction to our profession is a
blacker crime than a momentary fall, and they who, year in and year
out, call themselves Christians, and deny their profession by the
whole tenor of their lives, are more deeply guilty than was the
Apostle, But Jesus Christ comes to us, and no sin of ours, no denial
of ours, can bar out His lingering, His reproachful, and yet His
restoring, love and grace. All sin is inconsistent with the
Christian profession. Blessed be God; we can venture to say that no
sin is incompatible with it, and none bars off wholly the love that
pours upon us all. True; we may shut it out. True; so long as the
smallest or the greatest transgression is unacknowledged and
unrepented, it forms a non-conducting medium around us, and isolates
us from the electric touch of that gracious love. But also true; it
is there hovering around us, seeking an entrance. If the door be
shut, still the knocking finger is upon it, and the great heart of
the Knocker is waiting to enter. Though Peter had been a denier,
because he was a penitent the Master came to him. No fault, no sin,
cuts us off from the love of our Lord.
And then the other great lesson, closely connected with this, but
yet capable of being treated separately for a moment, which we
gather from the fact of the interview, is that Jesus Christ is
always near the sorrowing heart that confesses its evil. He knew of
Peter's penitence, if I might so say, in the grave; and, therefore,
risen, His feet hasted to comfort and to soothe him. As surely as
the shepherd hears the bleat of the lost sheep in the snowdrift, as
surely as the mother hears the cry of her child, so surely is a
penitent heart a magnet which draws Christ, in all His potent
fullness and tenderness, to itself. He that heard and knew the tears
of the denier, and his repentance, when in the dim regions of the
dead, no less hears and knows the first faint beginnings of sorrow
for sin, and bends down from His seat on the right hand of God,
saying, 'I dwell in the high and holy place, with him also that is
of a humble and contrite spirit, to revive the spirit of the humble,
and to revive the heart of the contrite ones.' No fault bars
Christ's love. Christ is ever near the penitent spirit; and whilst
he is yet a great way off, He has compassion, and runs and falls on
his neck and kisses him.