Eye witness
Apr. 5th, 2026 09:36 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
baroque_mongooseWe don't have Peter's direct testimony, other than Mark's Gospel, for which he appears to have been the primary source. But if we did, I suspect it would go a bit like this.
"Oh no. Don't you go telling me women can't be witnesses. I'll be frank with you - those women were far more faithful than I ever was. There was I thinking I was so strong and brave, telling him I'd stick by him whatever happened, even if they arrested me too and put me to death; and he looked me straight in the eye and told me I'd deny I even knew him. Three times. Of course I thought, no, Rabbi, you've got me all wrong, I'll be faithful even if nobody else is; but he was dead right. I was about as much use as a pot made from sand and water, and you can imagine how I felt... until I realised that he knew all that and he still thought I was worth something. That was what gave me the courage to come back, in the end.
But the women! They followed him the whole way, and even if they couldn't do more than mourn, they did that. And then they were the ones who prepared all the spices to put in the tomb; I'm not sure they knew Nicodemus and Joseph of Arimathea had already done that, but, after all, more wouldn't have hurt. If he'd still been dead, of course.
What? Yes, obviously he was dead. Do you think Roman soldiers don't know when someone's dead? They kill enough people, after all. And just to make doubly sure, they stuck a spear in his side. Oh, he was dead all right, and it seemed like the end of everything. We'd all completely forgotten everything he said about how he had to die and then rise again. It's not that we're stupid, but it just didn't really go in at the time. You know? We were all expecting he'd deliver us from the Romans. We couldn't get our heads round the fact that he had a much bigger problem than the Romans to deal with, and he wasn't planning to deal with it in any way we were expecting. We knew he was a king, of course we did. But we also knew what kings were like. Power. Majesty. A throne. A big army. Well, he... it's hard to explain... he both had all that and he didn't. And he was always wrong-footing us, but... in a good way. He was trying to get us to see. And it took all this before we did.
So, yeah, I was feeling pretty terrible. I heard Judas went off and hanged himself. That was sad; he was in just the same position as I was, but he never saw far enough to understand that Jesus knew all about him and still called him "friend". He could have come back the way I did, but that's not what happened. Poor blighter. What he did was awful, but... the rest of us weren't exactly so much better, were we?
And then two of the women came rushing in to say the tomb was empty. He wasn't there. They said he'd been raised, and even then I still couldn't remember he'd predicted exactly that - well, the state I was in, I suppose it wasn't too surprising. I went and got John. He's changed so much; he used to have such a hot temper, but he's so wise and quiet and stable these days. He was just the person I needed alongside me. We ran to the tomb, and... no stone. No Roman soldiers. No body. Just two angels - they couldn't have been anything else - confirming exactly what the women said. I'll never forget what they said. "Why do you look for the living among the dead?"
Good question. The answer, of course, was because that was where we expected him to be, because... you know, when you boil it right down, I reckon we pretty much stopped listening at the point where he said he'd have to die, so we never got as far as hearing the bit afterwards about rising again.
It took a while to find out what had happened to the soldiers. Joseph and Nicodemus told us later that they'd been terrified when the angels appeared and rolled away the stone, and they'd run away. It takes a lot to frighten a Roman soldier, so it must have been quite something. And they ran straight to the high priest and his cronies, who said, "don't worry, we'll cover for you", and cooked up some story about how we'd come along and stolen the body. I mean, yeah, as if we'd have had a chance against heavily armed professional soldiers, especially when we were all shattered, demoralised, and scared witless. Still, it saved the soldiers from getting crucified themselves, which is what probably would have happened otherwise; and they weren't nice people, but I still wouldn't have wished that on them.
You know there are still people saying that? Saying we stole the body and then claimed he'd been raised? All right, people can think what they want, but I'd love to know why they think we'd cheerfully risk our lives for a lie. I asked someone that once. He stammered something about how maybe I didn't know it was a lie, maybe the people who stole the body were people I didn't know, or something. So I asked him how come several different people, over a period of more than a month, had seen him since he rose from the dead. That one stumped him. One thing you can't fake is multiple independent eye witnesses.
And, you know what? Because he did exactly what he said he was going to - because he did die, and he did rise - I ended up with the strength and courage I always used to think I had. But there's a difference. Now I know it doesn't come from me."
"Oh no. Don't you go telling me women can't be witnesses. I'll be frank with you - those women were far more faithful than I ever was. There was I thinking I was so strong and brave, telling him I'd stick by him whatever happened, even if they arrested me too and put me to death; and he looked me straight in the eye and told me I'd deny I even knew him. Three times. Of course I thought, no, Rabbi, you've got me all wrong, I'll be faithful even if nobody else is; but he was dead right. I was about as much use as a pot made from sand and water, and you can imagine how I felt... until I realised that he knew all that and he still thought I was worth something. That was what gave me the courage to come back, in the end.
But the women! They followed him the whole way, and even if they couldn't do more than mourn, they did that. And then they were the ones who prepared all the spices to put in the tomb; I'm not sure they knew Nicodemus and Joseph of Arimathea had already done that, but, after all, more wouldn't have hurt. If he'd still been dead, of course.
What? Yes, obviously he was dead. Do you think Roman soldiers don't know when someone's dead? They kill enough people, after all. And just to make doubly sure, they stuck a spear in his side. Oh, he was dead all right, and it seemed like the end of everything. We'd all completely forgotten everything he said about how he had to die and then rise again. It's not that we're stupid, but it just didn't really go in at the time. You know? We were all expecting he'd deliver us from the Romans. We couldn't get our heads round the fact that he had a much bigger problem than the Romans to deal with, and he wasn't planning to deal with it in any way we were expecting. We knew he was a king, of course we did. But we also knew what kings were like. Power. Majesty. A throne. A big army. Well, he... it's hard to explain... he both had all that and he didn't. And he was always wrong-footing us, but... in a good way. He was trying to get us to see. And it took all this before we did.
So, yeah, I was feeling pretty terrible. I heard Judas went off and hanged himself. That was sad; he was in just the same position as I was, but he never saw far enough to understand that Jesus knew all about him and still called him "friend". He could have come back the way I did, but that's not what happened. Poor blighter. What he did was awful, but... the rest of us weren't exactly so much better, were we?
And then two of the women came rushing in to say the tomb was empty. He wasn't there. They said he'd been raised, and even then I still couldn't remember he'd predicted exactly that - well, the state I was in, I suppose it wasn't too surprising. I went and got John. He's changed so much; he used to have such a hot temper, but he's so wise and quiet and stable these days. He was just the person I needed alongside me. We ran to the tomb, and... no stone. No Roman soldiers. No body. Just two angels - they couldn't have been anything else - confirming exactly what the women said. I'll never forget what they said. "Why do you look for the living among the dead?"
Good question. The answer, of course, was because that was where we expected him to be, because... you know, when you boil it right down, I reckon we pretty much stopped listening at the point where he said he'd have to die, so we never got as far as hearing the bit afterwards about rising again.
It took a while to find out what had happened to the soldiers. Joseph and Nicodemus told us later that they'd been terrified when the angels appeared and rolled away the stone, and they'd run away. It takes a lot to frighten a Roman soldier, so it must have been quite something. And they ran straight to the high priest and his cronies, who said, "don't worry, we'll cover for you", and cooked up some story about how we'd come along and stolen the body. I mean, yeah, as if we'd have had a chance against heavily armed professional soldiers, especially when we were all shattered, demoralised, and scared witless. Still, it saved the soldiers from getting crucified themselves, which is what probably would have happened otherwise; and they weren't nice people, but I still wouldn't have wished that on them.
You know there are still people saying that? Saying we stole the body and then claimed he'd been raised? All right, people can think what they want, but I'd love to know why they think we'd cheerfully risk our lives for a lie. I asked someone that once. He stammered something about how maybe I didn't know it was a lie, maybe the people who stole the body were people I didn't know, or something. So I asked him how come several different people, over a period of more than a month, had seen him since he rose from the dead. That one stumped him. One thing you can't fake is multiple independent eye witnesses.
And, you know what? Because he did exactly what he said he was going to - because he did die, and he did rise - I ended up with the strength and courage I always used to think I had. But there's a difference. Now I know it doesn't come from me."
