Jesus had prayed for Peter that his faith might not fail, and though Peter went out and wept bitterly, he did not go away and hang himself like Judas did. The look that broke Peter’s heart, brought the sorrow and tears of true repentance. The chaff of self-confidence was winnowed away, but the precious grain of love to his Lord remained.
How Peter bore those terrible, sorrowful hours when Jesus hung in suffering on the cross, those hours when the dead body of his Lord lay in the tomb and it seemed as if His enemies had gained the victory, we cannot tell, but they must have been the saddest in his life.
And then the third day came, and very early in the morning the first day of the week, Jesus rose from the dead.
When the women who had followed Him from Galilee came to the sepulchre, they found the stone that had covered the entrance rolled away, and going in they found a young man sitting on the right side, clothed in a long white garment. He was one of God’s messengers, and he said to them, “Be not afraid; ye seek Jesus of Nazareth, which was crucified: He is risen; He is not here: behold the place where they laid Him. But go your way, tell His disciples and Peter that He goeth before you into Galilee: there shall ye see Him, as He said unto you.”
The women were frightened, too frightened to give the message, but one of them, whose name was Mary of Magdala, ran to Peter and John and said, “They have taken away the Lord out of the sepulchre, and we know not where they have laid Him.”
And so, of the twelve disciples whom Jesus had chosen to be with Him, it was Peter, the disciple who had boasted of his love to Jesus, but had failed when it was put to the test, and John, who so knew the love that Jesus had for him that he writes of himself as “the disciple whom Jesus loved,” who ran together to the tomb. But Peter’s heart was heavy, and that made his feet heavy too, he did not run so quickly as John, and John reached the tomb first. He stooped down and looked in and saw the linen grave clothes lying, but he did not go in. Then Peter came up, he went right inside the tomb, and he too saw the linen grave clothes lying, he also saw that the handkerchief which had been upon the head of Jesus was not lying with the linen clothes, but was folded up in a place by itself. And then John went into the tomb, and “he saw, and believed.”
Jesus had told them that He would rise from among the dead on the third day, and when they found that the tomb was empty and the grave clothes all left behind, they did not linger there, but went away again to their own home. John believed, but Peter went home wondering at what had happened.
Mary of Magdala was the first to whom Jesus appeared when He had risen, but later in the day He came to Peter when he was alone, for Jesus had something to say to Peter that not even John must hear. And do you not think that Peter must have had something he very badly wanted to say to Jesus? All we know about that meeting is that when the disciples were gathered together that evening they were saying to one another, “The Lord is risen indeed, and hath appeared to Simon.”