Because Peter had honed his craft on the Sea of Galilee, he was familiar with the storms that appear suddenly. The fresh water lake, the lowest in the world, is surrounded by hills, causing warm air from the lower altitudes to collide with the cool mountain air. The most violent tempests are caused by eastern winds which blow off the Golan Heights. Justifiably, fishermen shudder at these storms, causing the early disciples to ask in awe: “Who is this that even the wind and the sea obey him?” when Jesus calmed the storm.In Matthew 14, Jesus walked on the water as such a storm blew in, prompting rash but easily distracted Peter to follow suit. True to the Galilean stereotype, Peter’s initial exuberance and success in walking on the waters was replaced by dread of the gale and descent into the waters.“Immediately Jesus reached out his hand and caught him,” we read in Matthew 14:31. “‘You of little faith,’ he said, ‘why did you doubt?”
At Caesarea Philippi, a sanctuary to the god Pan to whom the Greeks attributed fright and flight among their enemies during battle (giving birth to the word panic), against the backdrop of a solid rock mountain, Jesus asked Peter, “Who do you say that I am?”
Peter understood that Jesus was not like the pagan god Pan (from which the area, through Arabic, gets its modern name “Banias”) or the local pagan deities.“You are the Christ, the son of the living God,” he responded in Matthew 16:16.Jesus affirmed the disciple by offering a play on words using Peter’s name (which means “rock” in both its Greek and Aramaic forms).“I also tell you that you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not prevail against it.”Eusebius, the most prominent historian of the early church, passes on the Greek legend that the cave at Caesarea Philippi was “a portal into Hell.” It seems likely that Jesus’ words, “the gates of Hades,” were a direct reference to that cave in which water swelled until an earthquake in the 19th century diverted the stream.Before this colossal rock mountain which gives water and soil to the upper Jordan Valley, one of Israel’s most fertile regions, Jesus declared Peter will be the rock foundation of the Church.Christians are divided as to the interpretation and implications of this passage, but given the environs, it is reasonable to suggest Jesus is saying that Peter and other fallible disciples like him would nurture the Church as the rock mountain supplies the area with all it needs. This is certainly consistent with the last chapter of John, in which Jesus charges Peter to “feed my sheep.”But in the next passage, after Jesus pronounces Peter to be a rock, Jesus announces he must proceed to Jerusalem where he will suffer, die and be resurrected.The scripture records Peter’s rebuke, “Never, Lord!”
Jerome Murphy O’Conner, professor of New Testament at Jerusalem’s École Biblique et Archéologique Française, considers this impetuous.“When Jesus said he would go to Jerusalem and die, Peter responded, ‘No way! We can avoid this,’” Murphy O’Conner said. “And Jesus said, ‘Get thee behind me Satan.’”
According to Murphy O’Conner, “Peter protests against going to Jerusalem, out of fear he might suffer the same fate.”In spite of Peter’s objections, the final trip to Jerusalem occurs, featuring several instances of spontaneous but “facile commitment,” as Murphy O’Conner terms Peter’s inconsistency.Gospel writer John records that during the Last Supper, Jesus rose to offer a lesson by washing the disciple’s feet.But Peter again protested, with similar wording to his objection to going to Jerusalem, “You shall never wash my feet.”Murphy O’Conner , author of The Holy Land, a guidebook published by Oxford University Press, admits that Simon Peter here portrayed “facile commitment.”He paraphrases Peter, “No, boss. You shouldn’t be doing this!” Following the previous pattern, Peter is rebuked by Jesus: “Unless I wash you, you have no part with me.”Suddenly Peter, always one to dive in the deep end instead of wading in slowly, was convinced.“Then, Lord,” Simon Peter replied, “not just my feet but my hands and my head as well!”
Jesus explained, “Those who have had a bath need only to wash their feet; their whole body is clean.”Shortly after the supper, Jesus predicted that later that night all the disciples would “fall away” from him. Unrestrained in his facile commitment, Peter rushed to say, “Even if all fall away because of you, I will never fall away.”The Romans took Jesus prisoner hours later. Betrayed by his Galilean accent, Peter vehemently denied even knowing Jesus before Jerusalemites who accused him of being one of the Galilean band.“Peter was a complex character with strengths and weaknesses,” Murphy O’Conner explained. “Even though he had been selected by Jesus as leader, as the rock. The night that he denied Jesus just before the passion, he realized that Jesus had been taken prisoner, and he knew that if he admitted he was with Jesus he also would be taken prisoner.”Burdened with so many complexities, strengths and weaknesses, it’s reasonable to ponder why Peter was chosen as the primary disciple and leader of the early church.Murphy O’Conner insists it was a matter of credibility.“I think Jesus saw a shrewd businessman, one who was participating in the biggest business in the country, the sole supply of protein,” he said.Peter was doing well enough that he could afford to take off from his business for long periods of time. Murphy O’Conner suggests perhaps other brothers ran it while he was away.“The early disciples of Jesus had to explain to their friends and family what they were doing. A person like Peter wouldn’t be doubted. He could say exactly what he saw and heard. ‘I was there. I heard him.’”
According to David Bivin, a biblical scholar and editor of the Jerusalem Perspective, there was also a physical component to Peter’s ability to make his word heard.“These fishermen were strong,” he said. “Their work was backbreaking, pulling the nets in all night. They were tough as nails and muscular, since the nets were about 35 meters long and consisted of five layers. These guys worked in the water summer and winter.“Since their nets often needed attention, the fishermen had to dive into the water [frigid for most of the year, since about 75% of the Sea of Galilee’s feed comes off Lebanon’s snow-capped mountains].This explains Peter’s nakedness (John 21:7) when fishing.”In spite of his business acumen and physical presence, the leaders of Jerusalem considered Peter (and John) “uneducated and untrained men” according to Acts 4.“They were simply wrong,” Murphy O’Conner insists. “Jerusalem people always considered anyone who lived in a village to be peasants and uneducated. I suspect his first language was Greek.”Confused and shamed by his behavior after Jesus’ arrest, Peter’s default behavior was to return to fishing. We read in John 21 that the resurrected Jesus appeared to him and the others, who had experienced another unproductive night on the lake.“Throw your net on the right side of the boat and you will find some [fish].”Peter apparently had learned not to question and cast as instructed. Netting more fish than they could haul in, then hearing it was Jesus on the beach, Peter quickly swam ashore, where Jesus had prepared a breakfast of fish and bread.Having snagged Peter with the first miraculous catch, Jesus finally reeled him in. Using a pastoral metaphor, he charged the finally mature Peter to “feed my sheep” in the last conversation recorded between the two.Murphy O’Conner considers this the rehabilitation of this fisherman cum fisher of men.Peter became the unquestioned leader of the early church as thousands came to faith through his preaching (Acts 2), gentiles embraced the Gospel through his witness (Acts 10) and his word was pivotal that the gentiles’ need not keep Jewish law and practice to be received into the church (Acts 15).It was perhaps with a view toward his own impulsiveness and failings, followed by his eventual maturity in faith, that Peter concludes his epistles urging the church (in 2 Peter 3:17-18) to “beware lest, being carried away with the error of the wicked, ye fall from your own steadfastness. But grow in the grace and knowledge of our lord and savior Jesus Christ. To him be the glory both now and forever. Amen.”