One can only speculate about the first post-Easter experience of “seeing Jesus”, that is left undescribed in Paul’s reference in 1 Corinthians 15 (“first to Peter”), that was perhaps in the original ending of Mark’s Gospel (or the continuation of the story known to that author), and perhaps alluded to in John 21 and in the lost ending of the Gospel of Peter.
Peter returned to fishing. He wrestled with the failure of his expectations, with his own failure in denying Jesus, and perhaps with questions about whether things might have turned out differently had no one drawn a sword and cut off the ear of the high priest’s servant.
He goes fishing, taking some of Jesus’ other closest followers with him. They catch nothing, and much of the time is spent in silence. Then, they see a figure on the shore. He asks if they have caught anything, and they say no. He tells them to try again, and suggests a spot. They lower the net – and catch a huge number of fish. Peter makes a connection – isn’t this the spot where he first met Jesus? He looks up, but the figure on the shore has vanished. Suddenly, Peter knows: it was Jesus. He tells the others, but they are skeptical, unpersuaded.
Peter spends much of the days that follow in prayer, seeking information and advice from rabbis and experts in the Law. What would the Messiah be like? Could the Messiah suffer? Could the Messiah return from the dead?
He contacts the rest of the Twelve, and they gather to hear what Peter has to say. They listen, and then he leads them in the prayer Jesus had taught them. “Father…” they begin. When they reach those words, “Your will be done”, they mean it as they had never truly meant it before. “Not our will, but yours”. A sense of peace washes over them. A sense of certainty that Peter is right, that Jesus has in fact been raised. And in their dreams, and in glimpses in crowds, and in mysterious encounters with unknown individuals, perhaps even in mystical visions, they too experience this phenomenon of “Jesus appearing”.
The act of surrendering has transformed many lives. It seems to have been central to Jesus’ own spirituality. There would be something fundamentally appropriate if it was central to the rise in the earliest disciples of the conviction that Jesus had been raised, as it has been for Christians all through the ages since then.
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