Favorites XVII

When Simon Peter stepped forward out of the crowd to preach to the gathered crowd on the Day of Pentecost, there is nothing about him which reminds us of the Peter we saw in the dark courtyard where he denied knowing Jesus.  In the courtyard he had cursed and denied knowing Jesus out of fear for his own life, but on the day known as Pentecost, he stood boldly and fearlessly.  Prior to that moment of the Spirit's empowering, he along with the other disciples had been meeting behind closed and locked doors for fear that their fate might be the same as Jesus.    

It was surely a moment for Simon Peter of claiming and accepting the person Jesus had called him to be.  After Peter declared Jesus to be the "...the Christ, the Son of the living God,"  (Matthew 16:16), Jesus cast a heavy mantle upon the once upon a time fisherman, "And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock, I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not prevail against it.  I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven..." (Matthew 16:18-19).  It was a mantle he picked up and wore boldly on that day of wind and fire.  The crowd to which he spoke that day was a hostile crowd and from it were raised voices accusing them of being "filled with new wine."  (Acts 2:13).  

Anyone wanting to see the difference the Holy Spirit can make only need look at the fisherman who fished as a breadwinner only to become the Chief Fisherman of the church that was being breathed into life on that day.  It would be a church that would finally break the bonds of conventionalism and regionalism and spread out across a world which was present in that moment and unfolding into the generations to come.  It was a church that had as its first preacher, Simon Peter, the one who had cursed and sworn an oath saying of Jesus, "I do not know the man!"  (Matthew 26:75).  It is the church that it still standing and still prevailing against the evil that would destroy it.  And, so, it always will!