In the Des Moines Register, some years ago, was a story titled, “Man, Believed Killed by Log, Sits on It.”  William Bartelt, 71 was hit by a large limb cut down by his hired hand at his Wisconsin farm.  The limb knocked him out and the hired hand, determined that Bartelt was not breathing.  He called relatives to the scene. Coroner Mary Nelles was alerted.  She called a funeral home to recover the body.

       Can’t you see the face of the funeral director as he pulled up and found the deceased sitting on that log?

       We don’t know what Coroner Nelles said or what the other farmers said or even what the deceased man come back to life said.  But we do know what an angel said when women came to the tomb on Easter morning to care for Jesus’ body:  “Don’t be alarmed!”  Wow!  Imagine those women who saw Jesus killed on a cross and buried in a tomb with a rock at the door.  Now the tomb is empty and He is gone.

       “So, they entered the tomb, where they saw a young man sitting at the right, wearing a white robe, and they were filled with alarm.  ‘Don’t be afraid,’ he said. ‘I know you are looking for Jesus of Nazareth, who was nailed to the cross.  He is not here – He has been raised.’”

       Those are powerful words.  But I believe that the most precious words in this passage are two words that are only found in the Gospel of Mark.  “Go,” said the angel, “give the message to His disciples and Peter.”

       During the past six Sundays, we have looked at this Peter’s walk with Jesus.  The last time we saw Peter, last Sunday, he was crying.  He was crying because he had failed Jesus.  He had promised Jesus, “Even if everyone else fails you, I never will.”  Jesus had responded, “before the cockcrow, you will deny three times that you even know Me.”

       Peter, in the courtyard of Annas the high priest had done exactly what he said he would never do.  So Peter wept and he wept bitterly.  And the bitterness of his tears are magnified by a detail recorded by Luke, “Peter said, ‘Man I do not know what you are talking about.’  And immediately, while he was speaking, he heard the cockcrow.  “And,” Luke says, “the Lord turned and looked at Peter.”

       The rough soldiers guarding Jesus passed the time of waiting in baiting their prisoner.  Luke records that they blindfolded Him and struck Him on the face crying, “O great prophet of God, tell us which one of us struck you!”  There was much merriment and laughter.  But perhaps while they were looking for a cloth to put across Jesus’ eyes, and the noise died down for a moment, then there rang out clearly the voice of Peter -- His good friend -- calling down vehement curses upon himself if he had ever so much as known the prisoner.  “And the Lord turned and looked at Peter.”  That was Peter’s last contact with Jesus before the crucifixion.

       A little over a year ago in Pennsylvania, a woman named Jennifer Langston pleaded guilty to vehicular homicide, reckless endangerment and reckless driving.  Prosecutors said Langston was drunk and talking on a cell phone in 2002 when she crossed the center line and hit a pickup truck carrying Glenn Clark and his pregnant wife, Annette.  Glen Clark died      

       A judge sentenced Langston to 30 days in jail, plus house arrest and probation, and, during her probation, ordered her to carry with her a picture of Glenn Clark.  He wanted her to remember what she had done. 

       The picture Glenn Clark’s mother chose for Langston to carry was a picture of Clark in his casket.  When she protested at the choice, the judge ruled that Langston would have to carry the chosen photo.  Clark’s mother said, “That’s where she put him – in a casket.  That’s what she did for him. I’d just shut my mouth if I was her.”

       Well that’s what Peter is doing.  He is carrying about with him the image of Jesus being crucified, the image of Jesus in His tomb.  He’s carrying the image of that last look as he loudly swore that he’d never even known Jesus.

       A medical doctor suffered a serious heart attack while still in his thirties.  He described the pain of that event as different from any other pain he had ever felt.  He had always experienced every prior injury or hurt, whether a broken arm or a sore knee, as a hurt to a part of his body.  In some measure he could separate himself from the pain.  “But during my heart attack,” he said, “I was in the pain.  There is no other way to describe it.”  The notion conveyed is instructive-that the very organ that should have been pumping life was instead disseminating pain.

       That’s where Peter is.  He’s in the pain.  He’s in the pain of his denial.  He’s in the pain of that last look.

       But now the women report the words of the angel, “Go, give the message to His disciples and Peter.”

       Just imagine what those words meant to Peter.  We can see him asking, “Did the angel really say me by name?”  Remember that Peter had denied three times that he even knew Jesus.  Perhaps Peter no longer numbered himself among the disciples.  Was this Jesus’ attitude?  Was Peter the ultimate three strikes and your out?  Then came the words of the angel, “Tell Peter.”  The angel even uses the name Jesus had given him “Peter the rock.”  Jesus’ message through the angel was “Tell the rock I’m alive.”

       John tells us that Peter and another disciple who is almost certainly John run to the tomb.  The other disciple runs faster and gets there first.  Peter arrives, pushes past John and goes right in.  He saw the linen wrappings lying there and the face cloth in a place by itself.  John says that he then entered and believed.  But he doesn’t say that Peter believed.

        Simon Peter comes in and sees all of this, but he’s a man’s man.  He lives in the world.  He’s a fisherman.  He knows all the dirty jokes, and he does some cursing on the side.  He’s done a lot of cursing recently to try to prove to people that he did not know the Jesus.  Now he’s consumed with the guilt and the brokenness and the darkness of his own life.  Although he ran to the tomb, hopeful maybe, he also knows that when you’re dead, you’re dead.  He knows that when it’s over, it’s over.  Simon Peter is the Yogi Berra of the disciples.

       But that great baseball theologian, Yogi Berra, also said, “It ain’t over till it’s over.”  In baseball there is always the possibility that the unexpected will happen.  There is always time for redemption.

       That is especially true on Easter.

      “Go tell His disciples and Peter.” 

       That command was the first step in the restoration of Peter. The second step we know only by inference. Apparently there was a private meeting between the risen Jesus and Peter on Easter day. Luke mentions it in the place where the disciples on the road to Emmaus come running into the Upper Room with their great news. Before they can say a word they are told: "The Lord has really risen and has appeared to Peter." Paul also refers to this solo encounter in 1 Corinthians 15 where he writes that after the resurrection, Jesus "first appeared to Peter and then to the twelve."

       The apparent purpose of this private encounter was the reestablishment of the relationship between Peter and Jesus -- the confession of failure, the giving of forgiveness.  That was the second step in Peter's restoration.

       We don’t know the details of this private encounter.  But I think I can safely say that Jesus did not chew Peter out.  He did not scorch him with a sermon, with an “I told you so” or an “I knew you’d fail me.”  Jesus came back with scarred arms – but arms to reach around Peter to say, “Peter, I love you.  I came back to say your failure wasn’t the end.  You cannot dig a ditch so deep, you cannot run away so far, you cannot accumulate any amount of curses, bad things, or denials that can take you out of reach of My love.  If death can’t stop Me, if they can’t nail Me down with real nails, you can be sure that you can’t get far enough away that my hand can’t reach you.  Simon Peter, I came back for you.  It may take you a while to get that, but I came for you!”

       The third crucial step in Peter’s restoration is found in John 21. This is the public restoration of Peter to a place of leadership in the presence of the other disciples.

       The scene opens by the Sea of Tiberius or Galilee. The disciples have seen the risen Lord and have received great promises from Him and have been called once again to His service. But day after day goes by and nothing happens.

       Then Jesus appears to His disciples on a beach by the sea. He tells the disciples as they pull up on shore, "Bring some of the fish you have just caught." Peter runs to the boat and drags the net to shore. 

       Jesus now invites the disciples to have breakfast.  Apparently the disciples don't start eating, for John records that Jesus picks up the fish and the bread and hands it to them.  Then comes one of the most dramatic encounters in the Bible.  Jesus turns to Peter after they have eaten breakfast and asks him, "Simon, son of John, do you love Me more than these?"

       Let's look at Jesus' question. There are two ways His question: "Do you love Me more than these?" can be interpreted. As far as the language is concerned, they are equally valid.

       It may be that Jesus sweeps His hand around the boat and nets and equipment and the catch of fish and says to Peter; "Simon, do you love Me more than these things?" Peter had given up his fishing once before to follow Jesus. Now he has returned to fishing. Is he willing to leave his nets once again and follow? 

       Or it may also be that Jesus looks at the other disciples, and said to Peter: "Simon, do you love Me more than your fellow disciples do?" It may be that Jesus is calling Peter back to the night when Peter boasted: "Though they all fall away, I will never fall away." Jesus may be asking, "How is your boast, Peter?"

       Peter used to like to make comparisons. He liked it a lot. But he isn't making comparisons any more. He has learned some humility. He replies simply, "You know that I love You."

       Jesus asks the question again and then a third time. 

       John says that Peter is grieved because Jesus asks him to state his love a third time. But there is a purpose in it. Three times around a charcoal fire in the chief priests' courtyard, Peter had denied his love for Jesus. Now, three times around the charcoal fire by the Sea of Galilee, Peter has the opportunity to declare his love -- a proclamation to wipe out each denial. 

       And with each proclamation of love, Peter is given a task -- given a task in front of the other disciples so that they cannot question his calling -- "Feed My lambs, tend My sheep, feed My sheep."

       Three years earlier by the same sea, Jesus had called Peter on to follow Him and become a “fisher of people.”  Now, in spite of Peter’s failure, Jesus says to Peter and to the whole church, “You’re still the man for the job.”

       It is no wonder that Peter later writes in wondrous awe “Thank God, the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ that by His great mercy we have been born again to a living hope through Christ rising from the dead.”

       Peter had the experience.  We can too.

       The resurrection shows that the very life-giving power which brought the universe into being, the life-transforming power that brought Jesus from the dead, is fully available to us today in the Risen Savior.  Jesus is the Lord of new beginnings, the author of the new creation not only in the proverbial “sweet by and by” but also in the sometimes grim here and now.

       This is the theme Peter works out in his letter.  He writes of being “born again to a living hope” to real people facing real crisis in a real world.  Easter gives birth to hope for today in the face of today’s sufferings, disappointments, frustrations and worries.  Easter did it for Peter. It will do it for us.

       Poet James Russell Lowell said: “I take great comfort in God.  I think He is considerably amused at us many times, but He loves us, and he would not let us get at the matchbox as carelessly as He does, unless he knew the framework of His universe is fireproof.” 

        What Lowell is saying is that God has arranged things so that even our sin will not ultimately spoil God’s good plan. We can’t burn it down even at our most pyrotechnic moments.  Easter tells us this – that God means good and that good will come to us.  It’s guaranteed.

       “But” you say, “Peter doesn’t know my circumstances.  He wouldn’t talk about new hope if he knew what I am facing.”  Some people would say, “You don’t know what it’s like to face the people I have to face at work.”  Others might chime in, “You don’t know what it’s like to be alone with no friends.”  Others say, “You have no idea what its like to hear the news that you or your wife have only a few pain filled months to live.”  Still others: “If you knew the emotional damage done to me by my past you wouldn’t mock me with talk of living hope.”  Some say, “You don’t know the despair of having a personality make-up like mine, easily hurt, set off balance by the slightest irritation.”  The chorus goes on and on:  “Don’t you know about the nuclear threat.  Don’t you know about the problem of pollution?  Don’t you know what will happen to the economy, including my job, if downsizing and outsourcing continue?”

       And then the witnesses to the resurrection responds: “If Jesus won the victory over death, death itself, the greatest enemy of human existence, and if He is truly alive today, do you really think your crisis can bury Him?  You surely don’t believe that the power that brought Him from death is going to be overcome by you and your crisis!  If you feel that you are living in a graveyard, remember that God’s resurrection power works best in graveyards.