4. In Peter's case, good came out of evil. The sifting time formed a turning-point in his spiritual history : the sifting process had for its result a second conversion, more thorough than the first — a turning from sin, not merely in general, but in detail: from besetting sins, in better informed if not more fervent repent- ance, and with a purpose of new obedience, less self-reliant, but just on that account more reliable. A child hitherto — a child of God indeed, yet only a child — Peter became a man strong in grace, and fit to bear the burden of the weak.
^ The bone that is broken is stronger, they tell us, at the point of junction, when it heals and grows again, than it ever was before. J\.nd it may well be that a faith that has made experience of falling and restoration has learned a depth of self-distrusfc, a firmness of confidence in Christ, a warmth of grateful love which it would never otherwise have experienced.^
IIL
Duty.
" Do thou, when once thou hast turned again, stablish thy brethren."
Our Lord's meaning was that a new power of personal helpful- ness was to come to Peter through his sad experience, which he should use in strengthening others to meet temptation. Then, when he had passed through that terrible night, when he had been lifted up again, when he had crept back to the feet of his risen Lord and had been forgiven and reinstated, he had double cause for gratitude — that he himself had been saved from hopeless wreck and restored, and, still more, that he was now a better man, prepared, in a higher sense than before, to be an apostle and a patient, helpful friend to others in similar trial.
1. Peter had now the qualifications for strengthening the brethren. He has known by experience the unforgetting, rescuing love of the Christ — the grace of God. 0, what a reality it comes
^ A. Maclaren.
ST. LUKE XXII. 31, 32 465
to be when a man has lost the chaff of himself and feels that he himself is freer to be and to grow ! Pentecost rings yet with the eloquence of that once broken heart of Peter. Hope in Christ ? What a certainty did it have to him ! His first letter is called " the epistle of hope " ; God has always been making hopefulness in this way. Jacob the supplanter had been made Israel — Prince of God ; and now Peter was sifted out of Simon — sifted out with an experience which made him a ceaseless strengthener of men.
When Peter sank into the depths, his self-confidence was broken. At the moment of his lowest fall, while oaths were on his lips, " the Lord turned and looked upon Peter." There was an expression in the Master's face which made that look the turning- point in Peter's life. He did not speak. There are times when words are not wanted — times, perhaps, when real feeling cannot speak. Christ simply looked at Peter — a look which told of real sorrow and real love, and had in it something of the reproach that a great love, when deeply wounded, must feel. It was enough. It brought to Peter's mind all that had been so piteously forgotten ; it brought back the real Peter ; and " he went out and wept bitterly." rhey were tears, I doubt not, terrible to witness — the tears of a strong man in deep agony ; of a man broken down by remorse, a man who must shun his fellows, and creep away anywhere out of everybody's sight, that no one may remind him of his shame. So he went for those three days, we know not whither, into solitude, till John found him and brought him to the tomb on Easter morning ; but in those silent hours the work was done. His mind went back over the old story. He came to himself. The past lived again, as it does in such moments. How often he had been betrayed by his self-confident temper ; how again and again it had led him into sin and shame ; how long before he had boldly cast himself into the lake, only to fail, at the critical moment, in showing any real faith. And so he would be brought to feel that which marks a real stage in a man's development — when he pieces his life together, and sees that his weakness and error had early roots — that he had not to mourn a single faithlessness out of harmony with his real self, but that his denial was but the crown- ing catastrophe of a long story of self-confidence which was always poisoning his good, and plunging him deeper into sin and shame.
ST. LUKE — 30
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466 SIFTED AS WHEAT
2. Peter took up the task laid upon him and justified to the full his Master's confidence. He was a tower of strength to the Church, and warned all against the machinations of the Evil One, '' who, as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour." Indeed, Peter's fall, so far from damaging the cause of Christianity, was to be made an instrument for promoting its success. How strange ! When a number of men are joined together in carrying on an enterprise of this sort, any weakness or wavering on the part of their leader is commonly fatal to the whole undertaking. Here the very contrary was to happen. Peter's fall was to be the means of his brethren's recovery from their worse fall. Such is God's way of working in things spiritual. A pious man who has been betrayed into a great fall cannot recover himself in such a manner as to place himself only in the same situation as before he fell. He will be more earnest, more zealous, more watchful over himself, more anxious for the honour of God, than ever before. He will feel a desire, especially if his offence has been public and notorious, to make amends, humanly speaking, for the scandal he has brought upon religion. And not only is he disposed to promote the glory of God by stablishing or strengthening his brethren ; he is also more qualified to do so. He has learnt another lesson, in addition to his former experience, of the deceitfulness of man's heart and the deceits of man's ghostly enemy. So it was with Peter. He did not rest satisfied with strengthening and entrenching his own position; he made it the great object of his life and labours to warn, to admonish, to exhort, and to stablish his brethren. We can see the evidence of this in his speeches, as recorded in the Book of Acts ; we can see it also in his two Epistles, which we may regard as his legacy to the Church, his testamentary reparation for the scandal of his fall.