“Simon Peter said to Him, “Lord, where are you going?” Jesus
answered him, “Where I am going you cannot follow Me now, but you will follow
afterward.” Peter said to Him, “Lord, why can I not follow You now? I will lay
down my life for You.” Jesus answered, “Will you lay down your life for Me?
Truly, truly, I say to you, the rooster will not crow till you have denied Me
three times.” (John 13:36–38, ESV)
Jesus had said previously that He was going to leave and
when He does that no one would be able to find Him. The Jews, not knowing what
He meant, wondered where He thought He could escape to that He would be
unfindable. His disciples had been told in many ways that His time was close
and that He was going to return to the Father, and do so without them, but they
didn’t get it. Here Peter asks Jesus where He was going as Jesus had just told
them again what He had told the Jews. “Where I am going you cannot come.”
This time in responding to Peter He added one very important
word, “Now.” Jesus did not say that they could not follow Him EVER, but for NOW
they couldn’t. For a season, which we know varied with each of them, they were
going to remain before ultimately joining Him. Jesus affirmed this by adding,
“but you will follow Me afterward.” Of course, He did not mean a day or an hour
later, but later in the sense that each of them had yet to die and enter His
presence. This is how the transition was going to be made. On the day that they
stepped out of their bodies they would step into His presence. Some like John
would have a long time to wait, dying over sixty years later.
Peter would not settle for a not now answer. He pushed Jesus
as to why He could not follow Him right then. He insisted that He indeed was
willing to lay down his life for Jesus. He would be right there with Him in
whatever He had to encounter or endure. There was nothing that Peter would not
face for Jesus, according to Peter. But Jesus knew better. He answered Peter
asking if he really would lay down his life for Him, and without giving Peter a
chance to respond with a, “Surely I would,” Jesus told Him that before morning came
he would have already denied Him three times.
Near the end of his life Peter wrote about the path that he
had followed in serving Christ. “For we did not follow cleverly devised myths
when we made known to you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but we
were eyewitnesses of His majesty. For when He received honor and glory from God
the Father, and the voice was borne to Him by the Majestic Glory, “This is my
beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased,” we ourselves heard this very voice
borne from heaven, for we were with Him on the holy mountain. And we have the
prophetic word more fully confirmed, to which you will do well to pay attention
as to a lamp shining in a dark place, until the day dawns and the morning star
rises in your hearts, knowing this first of all, that no prophecy of Scripture
comes from someone’s own interpretation. For no prophecy was ever produced by
the will of man, but men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy
Spirit.” (2 Peter 1:16–21, ESV)
Peter had lived many years with the promise that he would
follow Jesus and that he would go after Him. In all of those years he did not lose
hope or wonder if he got it wrong. He trusted that God had that timing in His
hands and that He would do just as He said. In chapter 2 of his last letter he
wrote not about his own impending death, but the hope of all believers that the
Lord would return to take all believers with Him. “But do not overlook this one
fact, beloved, that with the Lord one day is as a thousand years, and a
thousand years as one day. The Lord is not slow to fulfill His promise as some
count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing that any should perish,
but that all should reach repentance. But the day of the Lord will come like a
thief, and then the heavens will pass away with a roar, and the heavenly bodies
will be burned up and dissolved, and the earth and the works that are done on
it will be exposed.” (2 Peter 3:8–10, ESV)
Consider the last words of Peter after having followed
Christ in hope for so many years. “Therefore, beloved, since you are waiting
for these, be diligent to be found by Him without spot or blemish, and at
peace. And count the patience of our Lord as salvation, just as our beloved
brother Paul also wrote to you according to the wisdom given him,” … “But grow
in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. To Him be the
glory both now and to the day of eternity. Amen.” (2 Peter 3:14-125, 18, ESV)
Peter lived with the confidence that there truly
is an “afterward”
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