Set It Off: The Unauthorized Peter Edition

There are some things that will not make sense until Sunday.

I hate that sentence.

Not because I don’t believe it. Because I do.

I know resurrection comes. I know graves open. I know stones roll away. I know God wins. I have read the end of the story enough times to know that Friday does not get the final word.

But knowing Sunday is coming does not make Friday hurt less.

And lately, I have been wrestling with what it means to believe God is good while simultaneously wondering why a good God is allowing something to continue.

That distinction matters.

I am not questioning His goodness.

I am questioning His intervention.

“God, I know You can.”

That is not the problem.

The problem is:

“God, I know You can…so why aren’t You?”

Why haven’t You changed this yet?

Why haven’t You stopped this yet?

Why haven’t You opened the door yet?

Why haven’t You healed it yet?

Why haven’t You moved them yet?

Why haven’t You moved me yet?

Why am I still hanging here?

Mark 15:25 says, “It was nine in the morning when they crucified him.”

Mark 15:34 tells us that at three in the afternoon Jesus was still there.

Six hours.

And yes, Jesus died for my redemption.

But He also lived, suffered & died as my Rabbi.

My Teacher.

Which means there is something about the way He behaved while hanging there that I am supposed to pay attention to.

And I would really prefer not to.

Because apparently Jesus did not just come to teach me how to live.

He also showed me how to suffer.

Rude.

Respectfully.

Because I know how to shout.

I know how to serve.

I know how to testify once the testimony has a cute little bow tied around it.

I know how to say, “Won’t He do it?” once He has, in fact, done it.

But suffering while the story is still unresolved?

Waiting while I still have questions?

Serving while I am bleeding?

Worshipping before anything changes?

That is where my theology starts getting audited.

Because at 9:00 a.m., I can tell you, “God is good.”

At 11:00 a.m., I can confidently announce, “He’s an on-time God.”

At 1:00 p.m., I can pull out Romans 8:28 like I have been personally retained as Paul’s publicist: “All things work together for good…”

But 3:00 p.m.?

After I have been hanging there awhile?

“Okay, but…where are You?”

Same God.

Same faith.

Different hour.

And Mark 15 has been making me ask myself a deeply uncomfortable question:

Who am I when it is not 3:00 yet?

Because while Jesus was on the cross, He worked.

Luke 23:39-43 records Jesus ministering to the criminal hanging beside Him.

Read that again.

Jesus was wounded & still working.

He was actively suffering & still attentive to somebody else.

One of the criminals turned toward Him & Jesus told him, “Truly I tell you, today you will be with me in paradise.”

Jesus was dying & still doing ministry.

Meanwhile, let somebody inconvenience me while I am emotionally overwhelmed & suddenly my office hours are CLOSED.

“Please contact the Holy Spirit during normal business hours.”

Because pain has a way of making me believe I am temporarily exempt from being who God called me to be.

And please hear me carefully: I do not believe God asks us to destroy ourselves in the name of serving everybody else. Rest is biblical. Boundaries are biblical. Grief is biblical.

But there is a difference between resting because I am wounded & allowing my wound to determine who I become.

Jesus did not let pain make Him stop being Jesus.

That convicted me.

Because sometimes pain puts us in proximity to people who are part of our assignment.

Acts 16 gives me another picture of this.

Paul & Silas were unjustly beaten, severely flogged & thrown into prison. Their feet were fastened in stocks.

And around midnight?

They were praying & singing hymns.

Wounded.

Working.

Worshipping.

Not after the prison door opened.

Before.

That part matters.

Because I tend to think worship is what I do after God changes my circumstances.

Scripture keeps showing me people worshipping while they are still inside them.

And then there is Jesus.

“My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”

For years, I heard that only as anguish.

And it absolutely carries anguish.

But Jesus is also quoting Psalm 22.

A song.

A psalm that begins in agony:

“My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”

But it does not end there.

Jesus was suffering & reaching for Scripture.

He was hurting & connecting Himself to the Father through words already written.

That changed something for me.

Because worship is not pretending I am okay.

Worship is bringing God into the place where I am very much not okay.

It is saying, “I do not understand You right now, but I am not going through this without You.”

His presence may not remove the fire.

Sometimes His comfort is found inside it.

And that brings me to Jeremiah 29.

Everybody loves Jeremiah 29:11.

“For I know the plans I have for you…”

Put it on the mug.

Put it on the graduation card.

Put it on the wall in Hobby Lobby.

We LOVE a plan.

What we conveniently leave off the merchandise is Jeremiah 29:10.

“This is what the Lord says: ‘When seventy years are completed for Babylon, I will come to you and fulfill my good promise to bring you back to this place.’”

Excuse me?

SEVENTY?

And even before that, Jeremiah 29:4-7 tells the exiles to build houses.

Settle down.

Plant gardens.

Eat what they produce.

Marry.

Have sons & daughters.

Increase.

Seek the peace & prosperity of the city where they had been carried into exile.

In other words:

Get comfortable in an uncomfortable place.

Not because Babylon is home.

But because you are going to be here awhile.

And THAT is the part of Jeremiah 29 that gets me.

Because I want verse 11 without verse 10.

I want the plans without Babylon.

I want restoration without residence.

I want God to tell me, “I know the plans I have for you,” & preferably those plans include getting me up outta here by Tuesday.

Instead, sometimes God says:

Build.

Plant.

Live.

Grow.

Pray.

Seek peace.

I have not forgotten you.

But you are not leaving yet.

And that terrifies me.

Because I can trust God with a destination much easier than I can trust Him with a duration.

I can believe there is a promised land.

I struggle when He will not give me the estimated arrival time.

Sometimes I am asking God for deliverance & He is giving me instructions for how to live faithfully in Babylon.

Not because Babylon is good.

Not because what happened to me is good.

Not because pain suddenly becomes holy just because God can use it.

But because God refuses to waste even the places I never would have chosen.

And Jeremiah 29:12-14 continues:

“Then you will call on me & come & pray to me, & I will listen to you. You will seek me & find me when you seek me with all your heart. I will be found by you…”

There it is.

His presence.

Again.

God does not simply promise, “Eventually I will change your location.”

He promises, “You will find Me there.”

In Babylon.

Before restoration.

Before release.

Before the thing makes sense.

Which brings me to perhaps my least favorite spiritual discipline in the entire Kingdom of God:

Waiting.

I hate waiting.

There.

Very theological.

Waiting feels passive to me.

Waiting feels like nothing is happening.

Waiting feels like everybody else got called into the doctor’s office & I am still sitting in the lobby reading a People magazine from 2017.

But Jesus shows me something completely different.

Waiting is strategy.

Waiting is warfare.

Because Jesus could have gotten down.

Let us be extremely clear about that.

Jesus had options.

Matthew 26:53 records Him saying He could call on His Father & have more than twelve legions of angels at His disposal.

TWELVE LEGIONS.

Jesus could have Set It Off.

Queen Latifah, Jada, & Vivica could have been spiritually queued up in the background because BABY, He had backup.

He could have shut the entire operation down.

He could have looked at everybody standing there like, “Y’all have exactly three seconds.”

Jesus could have been OUT.

But He stayed.

The nails did not ultimately keep Jesus on the cross.

Obedience did.

And that wrecks me because I have spent so much of my life believing that having the power to leave means I should leave.

Having the ability to respond means I should respond.

Having the perfect comeback means somebody clearly needs to hear it.

Having a justified reason to be angry means my anger must be righteous.

Then I remember Peter.

John 18:10-11 tells us that when they came for Jesus, Peter pulled out a sword & cut off the right ear of Malchus, the high priest’s servant.

Peter was ready to SET. IT. OFF.

And unfortunately?

I understand Peter.

I have been Peter.

“Lord, I got this.”

No, Jazmin.

“Say less.”

Jazmin, put the sword down.

“But they deserve…”

Sword.

Down.

Because I can dress my impulsivity up in righteousness with remarkable speed.

I can call retaliation “boundaries.”

I can call rage “discernment.”

I can call my need to make somebody understand exactly who they tried today “standing on business.”

Meanwhile Jesus is standing there like:

“Ma’am.”

Because Peter believed he was defending Jesus.

But Jesus never asked Peter to defend Him that way.

And Luke 22:51 tells us Jesus touched the man’s ear & healed him.

That moment is breathtaking to me.

Jesus is being arrested.

He knows what is coming.

He knows the beating.

He knows the mocking.

He knows the cross.

And before they take Him away, He pauses to repair damage one of His own disciples caused.

Jesus healed the victim.

And in doing so, He also removed the physical evidence of Peter’s assault.

That is redemption.

Jesus restored the person Peter wounded & simultaneously covered Peter.

Whew.

I have been Peter.

I have swung swords because I thought my anger was justified.

I have reacted because I believed somebody deserved my reaction.

I have hurt people while convincing myself I was defending something righteous.

And Jesus has had to clean up things I damaged while claiming I was doing it for Him.

I have been Judas too, but we are going to save that particular episode of The Real Disciples of Galilee for another post because I only have so much emotional exposure available before breakfast.

But Peter?

Peter hits close.

Because sometimes faith does not look like fighting my way out.

Sometimes faith looks like putting the sword down.

Sometimes warfare looks like restraint.

Sometimes victory looks like waiting.

Sometimes obedience looks suspiciously like doing nothing when everything inside me is screaming:

DO SOMETHING.

I keep thinking about the hours of the crucifixion.

9:00 a.m.

God is good.

11:00 a.m.

He’s an on-time God.

1:00 p.m.

All things work together for good.

3:00 p.m.

Where are You, God?

And maybe spiritual maturity is not pretending that 3:00 p.m. never comes.

Maybe it is learning how to remain His when it does.

To work while wounded without worshipping productivity.

To worship while hurting without pretending the hurt does not exist.

To wait without assuming God has forgotten me.

To put the sword down when retaliation feels justified.

To trust that Sunday is coming even when Friday has lasted much longer than I expected.

Life is lived forward.

But so much of it is understood backward.

There are things I am living right now that I may not understand until Sunday.

There are prayers whose silence I may someday recognize as protection.

There are delays I may someday recognize as strategy.

There are Babylons I may someday realize taught me how to find God somewhere I never wanted to be.

But right now?

Some of it just hurts.

Some of it is confusing.

Some of it makes me ask God questions I wish I were spiritually mature enough not to ask.

And maybe that is okay.

Because I am learning that questioning His intervention is not the same thing as abandoning His character.

“God, where are You?” can still be a prayer.

“My God, why?” can still be worship.

Because I am still talking to Him.

Still reaching.

Still bringing Him into it.

Still hanging in there.

And maybe that is what faith looks like before Sunday.

Not certainty.

Not a perfectly curated testimony.

Not shouting because I already know how the story ends.

Sometimes faith is simply refusing to climb down from what God told me to endure just because I finally figured out that I could.

Jesus had the power to come down.

He stayed.

Jesus had the authority to retaliate.

He restrained Himself.

Jesus was wounded.

He worked.

Jesus was suffering.

He worshipped.

Jesus could have ended the waiting.

He waited.

And I am beginning to understand that waiting is not always the space between me & the victory.

Sometimes waiting is part of how the victory is won.

So if it is 3:00 p.m. in my life right now, if the prayer has not been answered, if Babylon still looks like Babylon, if I am wounded, tired, confused & staring toward heaven asking where God is…

I do not have to pretend it is Sunday.

I just have to remember:

Friday is not proof that Sunday is not coming.

And silence is not proof that God is absent.

Sometimes He does not get me out.

Sometimes He comes in.

Sometimes He says build here.

Plant here.

Seek Me here.

Worship here.

Wait here.

I know the plans.

And maybe the hardest act of faith I will ever perform is believing Him while it’s only 2:15 p.m.