I’ve been thinking about Peter lately. I know he hasn’t lost his way, but he did have a moment that tortured him. There are a couple of paintings of Peter that touch me in different ways. They’re both painted by the great religious painter Carl Bloch. The first is called Peter’s Denial of Christ. That’s the one I’m sure you’ve seen where Peter is outside the palace walls with a rooster nearby. His head is bowed with shame and horror at what he’s done, and in the distant background through the marble pillars is the Savior with the plaited thorn crown looking at Peter—there’s a sadness in His expression. For the longest time, I’ve thought Christ was sad because Peter denied Him, yet lately I’m seeing this differently. I now see that sadness because the Savior loves Peter so much that He knows how deeply troubled and ashamed Peter is for a moment’s weakness. I now see the Savior feeling Peter’s pain despite His own humiliation—the Savior seems to want to come to Peter’s rescue and to comfort him.
The second painting is called Peter’s Remorse. Peter is so bowed down with anguish he has slipped down to the base of the column, and is curled in pain. He is so alone and lost.
There’s something about this Peter that is so human—a man who is frail alone, but when he is with the Savior, he is so strong, powerful, and all things are possible. Here is the man who is strong enough that right before he is called to be a “fisher of men,” he is pulling near-breaking nets of thrashing fish from the water. Here is the man who witnesses the raising of Jairus’s daughter from the dead, the man who does walk on water, and the man who is in the midst of a Transfiguration. Then when he receives the Holy Ghost and realizes the power of the Holy Priesthood, he blesses lives of all within his reach, and even those who are healed when his shadow passes on them.
One of my favorite accounts is when he and John are at the temple and a man who has been “lame from his mother’s womb” was begging for money. Peter doesn’t move along; instead he “fastening his eyes on him” and seeing the goodness of that seemingly forsaken man, Peter says so deliberately, “Silver and gold have I none; but such as I have give I thee: In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth rise up and walk” (Acts 3:1-6).
Now here’s where the real Peter shows through—Luke continues to tell us in this account, that Peter didn’t just content himself by commanding the man to walk, but he “took him by the right hand, and lifted him up. . . .” Here is that strong fisherman, who probably puts his arms around this stunned beggar helps and lifts the man. Peter probably steadies him while he takes his first few steps. And then, there must be that embrace.
One of my favorite President Harold B. Lee quotations is, “You cannot lift another soul until you are standing on higher ground than he is. . . . You must be sure, if you would rescue the man, that you yourself are setting the example of what you would have him be. You cannot light a fire in another soul unless it is burning in your own.
A example of a true leader is one who lifts and steadies another who has falter or who is weak. I have no doubt that you are that type of leader in your own, private way.
Continue to lift and steady others, and you will find that you will also stand taller and be more firm.
No comments:
Post a Comment