Lord, where are You going?

Simon Peter said to Him, "Lord, where are You going?" Jesus answered him, "Where I am going you cannot follow Me now, but you shall follow Me afterward." Peter said to Him, "Lord, why can I not follow You now? I will lay down my life for Your sake." Jesus answered him, "Will you lay down your life for My sake? Most assuredly, I say to you, the rooster shall not crow till you have denied Me three times."

- John 13:36-38

Today is Good Friday, and for our reading the lectionary has given us Jesus' foretelling of Peter's betrayal. In the Gospel itself, this prediction is placed in a very interesting context. It comes right after Jesus has told His disciples, at the Last Supper, "A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another; as I have loved you, that you also love one another. By this all will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another."

And on the other side of today's reading, just after the prediction of Peter's betrayal, Jesus teaches: "Let not your heat be troubled, you believe in God, believe also in Me. In My Father's house are many mansions; if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you to Myself; that where I am, there you may be also. And where I go you know, and the way you know."

Simon Peter said to Him, "Lord, where are you going?" Jesus answered him, "Where I am going you cannot follow Me now, but you shall follow Me afterward." My study bible notes on this verse: "Jesus is saying, 'You cannot die with Me now, but you shall later.' This is a prediction of Peter's martyrdom." After the Holy Spirit is sent upon the world, so much will change for the Apostles. In the great figures of the Gospels, perhaps none is illustrated so vividly as the change that will come to St. Peter. He is always the excessive, exuberantly emotional one -- he gets carried away with his feelings. When Jesus wished to wash the disciples' feet, Peter at first refused. When Jesus explained that He must do this, that otherwise, Peter "would have no part with Him," Peter exclaimed, "Lord, not my feet only, but also my hands and my head!" Throughout the Gospels, we see similar evidence of his character. But he truly will become the "Rock" of the name which Jesus has given Him, a great leader of the Apostles and of the early Church. All that is in his character will be crystalized to shape and form someone upon whose shoulders (among others, of course) the church could be built. And in his death, he will die among the greatest of martyrs, and in humility he will ask to be crucified upside-down, so as not to claim equality with His Lord. It will be extraordinary courage and wisdom that will be the hallmark of his apostleship and leadership.

Peter said to Him, "Lord, why can I not follow You now? I will lay down my life for Your sake." Jesus answered him, "Will you lay down your life for My sake? Most assuredly, I say to you, the rooster shall not crow till you have denied Me three times." And so, with the understanding we have of what Peter will indeed become, we read again of his fast exuberance, his great declarations of love, and of loyalty even to the death. But Jesus knows him, as He also knows us. Peter will deny Him three times that very night. And this will be done out of cowardice before a servant girl.

So, what do we gather from today's passage, and its context of the Commandment of Love, and the promise of the "many mansions" that await those who will be gathered to him? Just this, that love encompasses all of who we are, that Jesus knows who we are -- He, as Christ, is the "heart-knower," as the Apostles (notably Peter) will later refer to Him. Given Peter's vacillating and emotional character, how else does Jesus come to name him "Rock"? (This is the meaning of the Greek word "Petros" - which in English has become "Peter.") We recall also Peter's centrality to our faith: it was at his confession of faith that Jesus was the Christ that this happened. "The rock" is the confession itself; it is this rock of faith upon which the Church is built, against which the gates of hell cannot prevail. But it was Peter who made that first confession recorded in the Gospel. And in that faith -- in that confession, which belongs to all of us who do the same in truth in our hearts -- we find this powerful bond, this rock, against which the gates of hell shall not prevail nor conquer. In that bond of faith we find our Friend, the Comforter, who shall lead us into the mansions of which Jesus speaks, through the love of God. After Peter's denial, he returns to the fold of the Apostles. He may as well have repeated his words from the Gospel, "Lord, to whom else shall we go?" He returns, and he is forgiven, and he will go on to lead and to establish the Church in so many fundamental ways. Together with the other Apostles (and martyrs) who are "sent out," and with St. Paul, that other towering figure who underwent tremendous change as a disciple of Christ, Peter establishes for us what it is to live in love in that bond of faith which in which is held the strength of this impregnable rock. It includes all that we are, and Christ's forgiveness in our repentance and transformation into those who may enter those mansions. May we remember this as we go through our lives with our own weaknesses and lack of character and courage, and have the strength and love of that rock of faith to go forward, following Christ in repentance from our failings, and know forgiveness, growth, service, love.