Having walked side by side with Jesus, you’d think that I would have understood all He said and did, but by no stretch of the mind did I. In writing these memoirs I am now in my old age, and looking back I can see clearly who and what I was. At this age of sixty-four, and having gone through the whole process of my growing and understanding, it is unmistakable evidence from the trials and tribulations that I Peter was destined to go through, that growth, at least for me, had to be achieved. There were times the sun would shower us with its’ warmth and beauty, yet I would still be cold and miserable, and the rainy days, when we were wet and soaked, I might have felt energetic and full of joy. For in these early days, that is my walk with Jesus, I knew very little about things of the Spirit, but with reason. At this time in my life I was really not a hot head, but I did have a tenancy to speak quickly, that is, before I thought anything through, and there were struggles because of this. So reminiscing with you through this epistle is not meant to justify myself, but to explain that thinking through the carnal mind about the things of God, just won’t work. During the years of my thirties, at least the first part of them, it was my senses, the eyes and ears and so on, that did my thinking for me, that was a mistake, but then again, I’d not as yet received the Spirit.
*************************
It was not long after our experience of walking on the water, and many a wonderful days together, we were all sitting one night under the waning moon just talking about one thing and then another. The night was cool, and this night, the stars were in greater abundance, we all had gathered around a small fire as one would do on a special outing, the mood cheerful, everyone rested, we sat and talked for hours. We were discussing several of the topics brought up by Jesus in the past weeks, such as the mustard seed, the trees and their fruits, and the little girl that was restored. But the subject that caught my attention and wanting to talk about was; that Jesus said he came not to bring peace.
Now I knew of the talk all over the region, and my feelings on this subject of the King of Israel, but didn’t as yet understand how He was going to rule over our nation. I’d heard loud and clear that He came not to bring peace, but a sword, and wanting a few more details, I asked Him to speak on this. For to set father against son, and mother against daughter and so on, it seemed like a real full blown battle was to take place. Even though Jesus elaborated on this privately in detail, it still took well over a year for me to understand this warfare. I didn’t get the tone of His conversations, none of them, at the time it was going on, but all the sayings, and all the doings were hid in my heart until I was readied to grasp them in some detail.
Come to find out, the sword and all the dividing was really not about fighting Romans, nor any that wanted our country for themselves, nor about the soldier king that most were praying for. For it was taught by most of the elders that the coming messiah was to rule severely as king from a military platform, conquering the Romans back into their place.
The father and mother were the inside of man, flesh, the teacher of carnal knowledge, the keeper of the material world. The old man that doesn’t want to let go, our past that is addicted to this world and the façade that it claims is real. Therefore the father of carnal man becomes at odds with the Son of Spirit, “and his enemies will be those of his own household”. Both father and son, or mother and daughter, and so-on, dwell in the same person, the same household, until Gods’ transformation is complete; therefore causing turmoil within, or division. Jesus came to bring that sword of division to separate the carnal from the Spirit.
The sword is Truth and Spirit, the divider of the Real from that which just seems real. This same sword, I came to find out, that cuts in both directions, is a good thing. For without the cutting, man would be lost in himself, no place or direction of his own accord would bring him into the mind of Christ, only Spirit can do that. The sword can cut, to those that seek Truth, the gulf that lies between the Spirit that dwells within, and the fleshly approach that carnal man views things from through his darkened eyes.
So will there be peace on earth in the flesh man when this division is taking place in the individual; no, not on the earth man, but it will begin inside of the Man that it is taking place in; the transformed creation of Gods’ work, the inner man. The sword of division should be welcomed, but seldom is.
I struggled many times while walking with and listen to Jesus. And I also know that several of the other disciples, especially Matthew and Judas, did some struggling about understanding the symbols also. We were torn, and this new way of thinking didn’t take within us at the beginning, but Jesus was patient, and His longsuffering toward our reluctance to change was incredible.
Jesus wasn’t with us all of the time, for He too had things that had to be done. There was time taken, occasionally, when He would spend time with His family, and especially with His friend Lazarus. So it was at these times that the twelve of us would acquaint ourselves further with each other, and often discuss these matters to obtain clarity, which seldom happened.
It was one morning, early, and the sun had rose a crimson red, with streaks of yellow and pink in the curly clouds that covered only the eastern half of the sky, when James , John and Nathanael were cutting up with each other over cooking breakfast. The rest of us were still asleep, that is, all but me, for I usually lay quiet in my bed roll for an hour or so before stirring. This is my time to think, and thinking on the things that were happening in my life, was what mornings are for. But the ruckus going on between the two trees where the fire was built was more than a sleepy body, much less one contemplating, could handle, so I went over to see what all the shrieks and scrambling was about.
Should it be flat bread or some with a little leaven? They were teasing each other in fun, for none would really care, but the tossing of the flour back and forth and the mess it made was what all the shrills were about. All three were covered in the white dust, and James, with only his eyes revealed under it, sought to make his brother look the same.
Usually after we ate, all would sit and toss back and forth the sayings and doings of our leader, trying to make practical sense out of the many things said, and the healings that were taking place where ever we went with Jesus. We talked amongst ourselves what it meant to worship in Spirit, what He meant when telling us that He is the living Bread, how He would heal a man that was blind or had a withered arm, but on this day the conversation meandered to the overturning of the Temple.
Although I grew up close and around the Synagogue, and went to the Temple on many occasions, I wasn’t stuck in their rituals and laws like many were, but I knew their traditions. On this particular day, not so long ago, Jesus had an issue with the people that were selling goats, sheep, oxen and doves at the Temple that our group was passing by, and I strained to understand the heart felt anger that he had. This had been going on all through my life and really didn’t see anything out of the ordinary, but evidently He did. So, this day, after the younger boys got through with their horsing around, I attempted to turn the subject to the men changing the money in the Temple. Matthew said that since he had made his living handling money, and grasping what he could in his walk with the Lord, he thought maybe the business should have been done outside the walls. Another argued that by rights they were allowed to do business in the temple and didn’t understand the commotion. Me, the one that’s usually quick to speak, said that I thought it was the manure that shouldn’t have been there, but at this point, anything the Lord did, had to be right. But after some few hours of discussing and debating, we finally figured out the house of God was a place of worship and not that of entertainment, nor of making money. So then the things of God really didn’t pertain to money in the first place, and turning everything upside down must have been His disapproval of those that had made His Fathers’ house, a den of thieves, and Philip spoke up and s
aid that that makes sense because they pilfered the attention that is supposed to go to God and put it on the animals and money, the things of this earth. But again, later in life, I again saw that the turmoil of the temple was man within himself being divided, rightly being separated. And we are that temple of God in which Jesus came to bring division, so each could establish our rightful relationship with the Father, and not of that made of stone, nor by the hand of man.
Anyway, this is how it went many of the days that we were in wait for Jesus’ return, and sometimes we might have even saw through a few of the happenings. We’d all become close friends and enjoyed immensely each day that we had a chance to spend with each other in the Lord, but our growth, at this point was slow..
It took us, especially me, several years to grasp that we were with Jesus to learn, and that coming up with solutions was not why we were following Him. The times that one of us would speak up clarifications with of our daily happenings and position our self to act as if we really knew; we would then, most of the time, and with the gentleness of a lamb, be set back on our heels, for our understandings were limited by the carnal, earthly way we were thinking.