Good Friday Homily
”Just as I am”I remember when I first saw him. He came walking along the shore of the lake like the Pied Piper, with this big sprawling cluster of people pressing in on him to hear every word. I was sitting on the dock cleaning the nets. It had been a tough night: all work and no fish. Anyway, he stepped into my boat and asked me to shove off a few feet from the shore. I thought having an itinerant rabbi on deck couldn’t be bad for business, so I did. He sat there and spoke to the people. When he was finished I made to go back to the mooring, but he said I should put out into deep water and drop the nets. What do you say to a holy man, maybe a prophet? The guys groaned but jumped in with the nets and we made for deeper water. Well, when we let the nets down we hauled in so many fish I thought it would sink the boat. I’m no fool; I realized what we had on board and I dropped to my knees. I sputtered that I am a sinner and that he shouldn’t get near me. All he would say to us was, “Don’t be afraid; from now on you will be fishing for people.”
So we began to hang out with him, traveling around, listening to him talk about a coming kingdom of justice and peace as the Most High—blessed be he—promised our ancestors. Eventually he made a move I didn’t expect. He had spent the night in prayer on a hilltop, and when he came down in the morning, he stopped in the middle of that crowd that was always chasing him, people from all over. Then he called twelve of us to be his disciples, and he called me first. What a feeling that was. I was never prouder in my life. Simon the fisherman from Capernaum, one of his twelve!
Sometime later we were in the area of Caesarea Philippi and he asked us, “Who do people say I am?” The guys began to chime in, “Some think you’re John the Baptist; some think you’re Elias, some say Jeremiah, or one of the other prophets.” “And what about you,” he asked, “who do you say I am?” That’s when I blurted out, “You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God!” I can remember his reply. “Good for you, Simon, son of John! Flesh and blood didn’t make this known to you, but my Father in heaven. So let me say, You are rock; and on this rock I will build my Church.” Wow! I didn’t know what to say. I’m just a fisherman. I’m a family man, and here I was being singled out to be the foundation of his movement. He said I was someone that God spoke to! From then on the guys called me Rock.
But it wasn’t long before things began to change. He began to say how he would have to go to Jerusalem and that the authorities would kill him. I took him aside and said, “God forbid! This can’t happen to you!” He looked around and said, “Get out of my way, you devil! These ideas don’t come from God, their all too human. Don’t get in my way.” I was so hurt; so humiliated. One day I’m going to be the foundation of his movement, and the next day he’s calling me a devil. But he was right; all too right.
We eventually made our way to Jerusalem, and what a welcome we got. People were waving palm branches, throwing their cloaks on the road for his donkey to walk over, shouting “Hosanna; blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord. Hosanna to the Son of David!” We walked around like we were dreaming. But then he went to the Temple and drove out the money-changers and the people selling animals for sacrifice. Even a fisherman from the Galilee knows that kind of thing could get you in big trouble with the priests, and it did.
It was finally Passover, and we sat down for the Seder. You could tell he had something heavy on his mind. At one point he said, “One of you is going to betray me.” We were stunned. We all began to ask, “Am I the one?” A little later he said that we would all run away that night and abandon him. That was too much for me. I almost screamed at him, “They can all leave you; I never will.” He just looked at me and said, “Peter, before the rooster crows tonight you will deny three times that you even know me.” I should have learned by now to keep my mouth shut. I was humiliated again, and hurt. I blurted out, “I would never do that, even if I had to die with you!” “O Simon, Simon!” he said, “I’ve prayed for you so that your faith doesn’t give out. But then, when you turn back, you must strengthen your brothers.”
We finished the Passover supper and went out to Gethsemane. He had me and James and John go with him a little further into the garden and he told us to pray. I have to admit, with that big meal and all the wine, we all nodded off. But our pulse began racing when we heard the noise of a band of guards closing in on us. They arrested him and we bolted. I don’t think we looked back until we were safely hidden among the olive trees. John and I followed the t rail of their torches to the high priest’s house. John knew the girl at the door and he got us admitted to the courtyard. We could see him inside, standing by a window. I just stood outside near the fire trying to get warm when one of the maids saw me and said that I was one of “them.” I didn’t know what to do. I just muttered that I didn’t know him. It wasn’t long before some guy said, “Yeah, you’re one of them too.” I could feel the panic rise in my throat. I just shouted, “I am not!” I thought I would get away with it when an hour later someone must have heard me say something and said, “Sure he’s one of them; he’s from Galilee.” And just then, just as I heard the rooster crow, he looked straight out the window at me. I got out as fast as I could and cried like a baby. All I could hear in my head was what he had said at supper, “Before the rooster crows tonight you will deny three times that you even know me.”
That was the end of him. At dawn this morning they hustled him before the governor, who put on a charade of a trial before sending him to the cross. I could only see from a distance, but I watched Joseph and Nicodemus take his mangled body down from the cross and quickly lay it in a new tomb nearby, one that Joseph had just commissioned to be cut from the rock face.
So here I am: I’m cold, exhausted and tired of crying. I have never been so ashamed of myself, exposed as a braggart with no sense of my weaknesses, shown for the coward I am. He had seen it all: he knew what I was before I did. He could see it all so clearly, while all I did was kid myself. And still he loved me; he believed in me. Still he picked me to be one of his disciples. Even though he knew I would disown him, he said I would be the foundation of his movement. He knew the worst about me, but still loved me. What do I do now? I guess I’ll try to find some of the others. Maybe I can give them a little comfort, a little strength, at least a shoulder to cry on. Maybe you can help, too. Then we’ll just see what happens.