Peter’s Failure Was Not Final

An angel came with striking instructions from the resurrected Lord: “Go, tell his disciples and Peter” (Mark 16:7). Today, Sinclair Ferguson explains the hope swelling in these words for the one who denied Jesus—and for us.

Welcome to another edition of Things Unseen. This week, we’ve been walking away from the garden tomb, as it were, and reflecting on the experience of some of the people we meet on Easter Sunday. The events of Easter Day are recorded in four different gospels, and since they don’t all give us every single detail, it’s sometimes difficult to piece the picture together. That’s actually quite natural and a confirmation that these are authentic accounts.

So, there are some details in one gospel that aren’t in the others. And perhaps like me, you’ve sometimes been struck by one such detail in Mark’s account. It’s got to do with the women who came to the tomb: “They saw a young man sitting on the right side, dressed in a white robe, and they were alarmed. And he said to them, ‘Do not be alarmed. You seek Jesus of Nazareth, who was crucified. He has risen; he is not here. See the place where they laid him. But go, tell his disciples and Peter that he is going before you to Galilee. There you will see him, just as he told you.’” That’s Mark 16:4–7.

What strikes me here is the words, “Go, tell his disciples and Peter”—“and Peter.” You’ve noticed, I’m sure, that every time the disciples’ names are listed, Peter is always the first in the list. But here Peter comes last, a kind of added extra. And yet, while he’s last, he’s still the first one to be named. I think the message is fairly clear. It’s really this: “Make sure Simon Peter, especially, hears this.” Later on, of course, after the great fish sandwich breakfast beside the fire on the shore of Galilee, Jesus would take Peter aside and painfully but lovingly work through his failure on the evening of our Lord’s crucifixion, when Peter, beside another fire, had three times denied his Lord. But that was still to come.

Here’s something I sometimes wonder about: at this stage, less than forty-eight hours after Peter had denied that he even knew Jesus and had done it with curses and then realized Jesus had actually seen and heard it, did anyone apart from Jesus know that Peter had done it? If not, then these words take on a special significance, don’t you think? No mention of details, just: “Tell Peter I’m risen. Make sure Peter knows. Make sure he knows there is still hope for him.”

Simon Peter was given a special role in the disciple band. He was the first to open the doors of the kingdom to those who believed on the day of Pentecost. He was the first Apostle to preach the gospel to gentiles in the house of Cornelius. But on that Sunday, all this lay in an unknown and—he must have felt—a hopeless future.

For now, Peter must have been a broken man—so sure of himself, yet so disastrously wrong about himself. Surely, he could still feel the rush of shame that came over him when he realized Jesus had been watching him across the courtyard and heard him denying that he knew Jesus of Nazareth. Hardly surprising that he had fled from the high priest’s courtyard into the darkness of the Jerusalem night to weep his heart out. Was he another Judas?

That’s why the angel’s words must have meant a very great deal to him. Not only was Jesus alive, but He had a special message for him. Think of it: “Peter, the Lord you denied is not dead. He’s been raised from the dead and will meet His little band of disciples again. And He wants you, you in particular, Peter, to know it. Your denying Him may have added to His sorrows, but it has not destroyed His love for you.”

I think I was twenty-three and just a very young minister when my senior minister preached a sermon, actually on the book of Jonah, and the title he gave it has lodged itself permanently in my memory banks: “Failure Need Not Be Final.” That was the message for Peter. Peter’s failure need not be final, nor Sinclair’s failure either, nor yours. That’s the good news that comes to you today from the risen Savior. So, whatever your failure has been, come and tell Him all about it. Your failure need not be final, because Jesus is risen.