St Peter and St Paul

Sts Peter and Paul

Can we empathise with Peter in his miraculous release from prison?  Is that not exactly what we’re feeling at the moment?

Freedom, release!  And so many of us are grasping at it just as Peter does.

What extraordinary, powerful accounts; Peter in chains and visited by an angel; freedom and he doesn’t wait  to be asked twice.  He’s off right away.

How like St Peter; bold, impetuous, grasping at the moment, flees. 

And again, when Jesus asks, ‘But who do you say that I am?’ he’s straight in there; “You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God.”

Do we have an answer ready if anyone was to ask us who Jesus is to us?

Years and years ago, some evangelists came to my front door; I don’t know who was more nervous, them or me!  Three questions – the last one; “If you were to die tonight, and you found yourself standing before God, and she asked you how you answered for your life, what would you say?”

“I have no defence,” I said, “save to lay claim on the promise of Jesus and in that I live”.

Well, you would have thought I had won the lottery!  They almost bounced up and down on the doorstep. Because it’s the answer that all of us want to give, want to hear.  And it had just come, unbidden, unrehearsed, from me.

And that joyful release is exactly the effect Peter’s later words have on Jesus,

Simon Peter answered,
            ‘You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God.’

  And Jesus almost bursts with his reply!   “Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah! For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father in heaven.

“And”, he goes on, “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, and whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven.”

Paul’s behaviour on being freed from prison in Acts chapter 16 is almost the complete opposite to Peter’s but the outcome is as joyous. 

Fearful for the well-being of his jailer Paul didn’t move.   The jailer called for lights, rushed in and fell trembling  before Paul and Silas.  He then brought them out and asked, “Sirs, what must I do to be saved?”

They replied, “Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved—you and your household.”  Then they spoke the word of the Lord to him and to all the others in his house.  

At that hour of the night the jailer took them and washed their wounds; then immediately he and all his household were baptized.  The jailer brought them into his house and set a meal before them; he was filled with joy because he had come to believe in God—he and his whole household.


Simon, “the watcher”; Peter, “the rock”. 
Saul, “he who questions”; Paul, “the small, the humble”. 

In some parts of the world, Name-Days are really important.      If you share a name with a saint, and many do, “your” day is feted rather like a birthday. 
I remember one of my Greek post-grads rushing off to the post to send a Name-Day card to his former tutor, a much older man and no relative.

If we were in Greece, the feast of St Peter would see me flooded with Name-Day cards. 

Peter and Paul;

What a strange thing, to celebrate together these two giants  of our faith, when there are plenty of underpopulated days in the calendar so that they could have
one each.

By long tradition, Peter and Paul died within days of each other, executed at the edict of Nero.  Whether this is true almost doesn’t matter.  What is true is that they were both executed, brutally, for declaring the Gospel of Jesus Christ, risen from the dead.

Celebrated together and yet they are rather like spiritual mirror images of each other.  The one recorded meeting – in Antioch – sees Paul chastising Peter for his intolerance towards gentiles.  And this is from Paul,“of the stock of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of the Hebrews; as touching the law, a Pharisee". The vigorous pursuer of followers of the Way, and Peter, who will come to be the most accepting of tradition and dietary custom.

See how life in Christ changes people.

Two men, two releases from prison.

We feel as if we are being released from prison; how will we react?                          

Shall we make haste joyfully to set it all behind us, like Peter; or shall we tarry with the experience, like Paul, taking care of those for whom just upping and going is not yet possible?

We have good reason to relax a little; to catch up with friends and family, even to take a little holiday.  And in that we can still give thanks, and bear witness for all that Jesus has done and still does for us.