The next day Peter found himself in the middle of one of the funniest and most embarrassing events of his three and a half years with Jesus!

On this morning they awakened to Jesus' cheerful voice, finding Him washed, dressed and having already spent more than an hour's time in the olive groves atop the mount, and, after a hasty breakfast, they followed curiously as He headed for the temple again.

They supposed that now the Feast of Tabernacles was over and the thousands of Jews and proselytes from all over the empire would be packing up and leaving (their early morning sleep had been interrupted by the echoes of hoofs on stone, guttural snorts of camels and muffled braying of asses as at least two caravans had wound their way along the brook below and had headed down the Jordan trails), and wondered why Jesus would bother going back now that the crowds were leaving.

But they went into the temple and Jesus sat down in the reader's chair—and the curious began to gather. Clearly He intended teaching again.

Peter and several others liked to flank Him, or even mingle with the crowd, to keep a sharp eye on them. They feared moments like that of yesterday and the day before when a man could be shoved here and there with the push of the crowd, tempers flaring. The leaders of the Jews were trembling with their helpless rage, obviously wanting to see Him dead.

Today it seemed the Pharisees were quiet.

It wasn't long before Peter saw why.

A noisy interruption began when a whole group of Pharisees pushed their way through the crowd, halting Jesus' words in mid-sentence, a sobbing woman struggling feebly against the grip of two of them.

The poor woman was striving to hide her face in her shoulders, her arms being pinned, and was looking down and weeping. She was being half dragged, half carried by the men.

The Pharisees halted squarely in front of Jesus, and their leader, gesturing to the woman, said, "This woman has been caught in the very act of adultery! Now, the law of Moses commands us to stone her to death, but what do You say we ought to do about her?"

Peter drew in his breath.

He knew the Lord would never condone stoning. He had spoken too much of mercy and forgiveness in their ears and had talked of the abuses of the law wherein false witnesses could condemn an innocent person to death just to get possession of their property or to remove a potential political competitor. Jesus would never say she ought to be stoned! Yet if He didn't it would make Him look like He was flying in the face of the sacred law, defying the written word that so plainly spelled out the exact punishments for specific sins! If He did that, they would have Him on a grave charge, one that could mean His actual death! Peter found a fine film of perspiration on his brow as he edged closer to Jesus, loosening his sword in its scabbard. He looked hard at Thomas, Simon and James, hoping they would stand with him for he may have to fight his way through this crowd. He would protect the Lord to the last!

What was Jesus doing?

No answer—just a dramatic gesture. Leaving the chair, He wrote with His finger in the dust of the floor. The Pharisees were completely baffled. The throng was pressing close, and several of the leading publicans were striving to see what Jesus was doing.

The Pharisees, true to their rigid pecking order, shuffled themselves about so that their eldest, and therefore the most respected, could maneuver into the best position behind Jesus to His right to see what He was doing.

By now Peter was at the Lord's side on the left. He peered over Jesus' shoulder and blinked.

The words were a series of names.

They read something like "Nabuis—Ronda; Nicolas—Rhoda; Judas—Lucia; Zebuliah—Priscilla" and seemed to be a series of men's and women's names linked together.

Peter was first puzzled. The elder Pharisee gasped, grasped his robe and flung it hastily over his shoulders and, struggling to regain his composure, his face settling into a rigid mask, pushed his way through the crowd and hastily left. Someone had whispered his name.

"Judas," wasn't it?

Peter glanced again at Jesus' writing.

By now the second of the Pharisees was taking the place of the first, and he, too, peered over Jesus' shoulder, casting a puzzled look at the hastily departing back of Judas-ben-Levi, who was leaving. He then stared down at the words.

Almost as if carefully rehearsed, he stiffened, gasped, flung his cape about him and stalked through the pathway Judas was making, quickly beating a retreat!

Then Peter understood.

But how could Jesus know? Obviously the linking of these names was so shocking, so stunning to these posturing, swaggering leaders of "righteousness," that there had been some hanky-panky in their own lives, and it was the same sin of which the woman was accused: adultery!

Peter began grinning broadly, and a low, rumbling chuckle came from his big chest. Jesus glanced up at him, answered him with a grin of His own (did it have just a hint of mischievousness around the edges?) and kept right on writing.

Here came the third, and the fourth, and the fifth.

And there they went, like a ridiculous, shamefaced parade, each one in his turn, from the eldest to the youngest, peering intently at the words Jesus was writing, wonderment growing into fright as each saw the other before him hurrying away, only to blush beet red and follow his elder as quickly as his feet would carry him.

Peter saw Jesus was determined to carry out the drama to its conclusion.

When the last Pharisee was heaving himself through the crowd, and while several of them could still hear His words, Jesus straightened up, and, looking at the woman who was by now staring at the letters, with tears still marking her face, He said, "Woman, whatever happened to your accusers? Isn't there anyone here to condemn you?"

No, Lord, there isn't anybody here," she said.

"Well, then, neither do I accuse you," said Jesus. "Go along now, and from now on, don't sin any more!"

With a grateful sob and blushing face, the woman cloaked her face, turned away and fled.

At this Peter burst out laughing, and so did several others in the front ranks who had seen the writing. But Jesus was compassionate to the last. With the mission accomplished, He quickly erased the names, and as an excited babble broke out He signaled to the disciples that He would go into the temple treasury room and teach there.

For hours He taught!

Peter wondered if He would ever tire as He said, "You judge after the flesh, and I do not judge anyone," and "If a man keep My word, he shall never see death! "

What amazed Peter was that the very Jews who originally had said they "believed 'on' Him" began to argue with Him, and within a few hours were so angry they wanted to stone Him.

Again Peter worried.

Why? Why did Jesus seem intent on antagonizing them? It seemed just as the masses were inspired to give Him popular acclaim He would single out a rotten attitude here and there, or enter into a lengthy diatribe with some simpering, posturing, self-righteous Pharisee, and, before you knew what was happening, a violent confrontation had developed.

By the time the session was over, Peter and the others had to once again protect Jesus from stoning!

A violent argument developed, swirling primarily around the Jews' extreme chauvinism and racial pride. It was triggered when Jesus said, "You shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free."

One of the Pharisees answered scornfully, "We are Abraham's seed and have never yet been in bondage to any man. How can You say, 'You shall be made free'?"

Peter barely suppressed an angry retort himself at that one.

Could that self-righteous nut be serious? Here they were, within only a stone's throw of a Roman garrison, kept nearby the temple because of the frequent religious altercations and the need for a show of Roman force; they were but a few minutes' walk of Pontius Pilate's sumptuous residence with its resplendent balconies and interior courtyard with fountains and pools. They were heavily taxed, and any citizen could be commandeered to carry Roman burdens or do task work at any time by some ugly Roman soldier. Yet this ridiculous Pharisee could claim "we have never been in bondage to any man"!

Jesus looked squarely at him and with rising voice said, "Truly I am telling you, everyone who commits sin" (with a finger pointing directly at the Pharisee) "is the bondservant of sin, and the bondservant will not abide in the house forever" (was He making oblique reference to the temple as well as the kingdom He would set up as "God's House"?), "but the Son abides forever!

"If the Son shall make you free, you will be really free! I know you are Abraham's seed, yet you seek to kill Me because my Word doesn't find any place to remain in you. I am telling you the things I have seen of My Father, and you can speak only of your father" (which Peter knew meant Jesus was contrasting His Father, God in heaven, with their "father," who was Satan the devil, and the father of liars).

"Our father is Abraham!" shrieked a balding, heavily jowled publican, plainly stung by Jesus' implication.

"If you were Abraham's children, then you would be doing the works of Abraham. But now you are trying to find a way to kill Me, a Man that has told you the truth, which I have heard from God. Abraham did nothing like this!

"You are doing the works of your father. . . " Jesus concluded with a ring of anger in His voice.

"We weren't born of fornication, shouted a tall, sallow-faced Pharisee near the back of the crowd. "Yeah, He's that illegitimate son of Joseph we heard about," said another. And "bastard" could be heard under the breath of several.

Peter was mad.

Leave it to some rotten Pharisee to stoop to the tactics of personal attack when argument failed! Every time the pseudo-intellectual ran out of fuel, he could only resort to personal attacks. To Peter, having heard Jesus comment on this peculiarity of blind, carnal human nature, it was one of the oldest dodges in the world. If you couldn't answer the other man's arguments, just attack him personally!

Peter made as if to move toward the man, but Jesus stayed him with a gesture and a look, and he stayed where he was.

Peter could see Jesus was growing very angry. His voice was ringing out, fairly shaking with indignation and echoing off the distant walls so that others were beginning to gather around. The crowd must number more than seven hundred, Peter thought, and more were calling to their friends outside.

"If God were your father," Jesus said in aloud voice, "you would love Me, for I came from God Himself. I do not speak of Myself, but He that sent Me. I'll tell you why you cannot understand My teachings, because it is impossible for you to hear and understand My word, since it comes from the Father above! No, you are of your father the devil, and the lusts of your father you will do. He was a killer from the very beginning and did not stand for the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he tells a lie, he speaks on his own, because he is a liar and the father of lies! But because I speak the truth you don't believe Me!

"Which one of you could convict Me of sinning? If I speak the truth—and it is the truth—then why don't you believe Me?"

"Isn't it true that you're only a Samaritan," said a little rotund man with dripping sarcasm, "and have a demon? "

"I have no demon!" Jesus answered in force. "But I honor My Father, and YOU DISHONOR ME! I seek not My own aggrandizement; there is another that seeks and that will judge! If you knew My words, you would never see death! "

"Now we know You are demon possessed," screamed one of the Jews as others were saying, "Yes, a demon! A demon!"

"Abraham is dead!" the tall Pharisee yelled, "and the prophets are dead, and yet You are saying if a man keeps Your word he will never see death? Well, then, are You claiming to be greater than Abraham, who is dead, and even the prophets, who are all dead? Just who is it You are trying to make Yourself into?"

"If I glorify Myself, then My glory is as nothing; it is My Father who glorifies Me, of whom you claim that He is your God! Yet you have never known Him, and I know Him; and if I should claim 'I don't know Him' just to satisfy you, then I would be a liar, just like you are. But I do know Him and I keep His word! Your father Abraham rejoiced to see My day, and he saw it and was glad!"

"What are you talking about. You can't be fifty years old yet and yet You claim to have actually seen Abraham?"

"Truly, truly, I am telling you, even before Abraham was I AM!"

That did it!

That reference to the very name God used when speaking to Moses out of the burning bush—"I AM" –that did it! With a shriek of rage, the tall Pharisee lunged for Jesus. Several others surged forward, tripping over the rotund balding fellow, who squealed, "Don't step on me, don't step on me! " :

Shoving, screaming, yelling—a wild melee ensued as Jesus ducked down between Peter and Andrew, and His other disciples formed a cordon of bodies around Him. If Thaddeus over there let a loose elbow bring that gasping look of glazed-eyed pain to the sallow-faced Pharisee who was struggling for breath, was it Thaddeus' fault?

Peter dearly longed to ring that tall fellow's bell for him, laying his Roman short sword up alongside his pompous head, but his first duty was to Jesus, and they needed to get out of here now before this screaming crowd could seize Him.

Covering the Lord's head, they jostled their way among the remainder of the disciples. The people were packed so thickly that the sheer weight of the crowd made it impossible to move for most of them. They were trampling each other, pummeling each other, and now and then a rock sailed over the heads of the rear echelons to thump an exposed head, shoulder or forearm, bringing forth a sharp cry of pain and outrage from the recipient.

They struggled through the screaming crowd with Jesus saying, "Careful, Peter. Don't hurt anyone. They don't know what they're doing," with Peter giving a shove here and there that even he knew was unnecessarily rough.

The soaring columns of the temple seemed to sway dizzily above them, and the cries, shouts, screams and yelling of the crowd echoed hollowly from the walls and the distant ceiling like a rising crescendo of a mad orchestra in dissonant rebellion.

It was a subdued group that trudged through the volubly talking crowds along the steep trails down to the brook Kidron, forded the stream and then climbed among the olive groves to camp that night. They all knew how near a thing it had been, but Jesus was almost nonchalant, quietly confident, seemingly unaware that His very life had nearly been forfeit. Did Peter overhear Him saying to John, in answer to another of John's interminable questions, "Because, John, it was not My time yet"?

They were dead weary by the time a meager supper was over, and Peter didn't even feel like singing.

Peter stretched his arms over his head, rolled over on his side and looked at the huddled figure of Jesus only a few feet distant, head resting on a pack, the firelight faintly playing over His wide shoulders, and wondered if the chill of this mountain was beginning to creep through that one robe He wore, and which He had gathered around Him now in sleep.

On impulse, Peter stealthily got up, fumbled in his pack that he was using for a pillow and, taking his big, rough fisherman's cloak, stepped softly to the Lord's side and gently covered Him with it. He turned, then, and was about to step back to his own pallet by the gnarled trunk of an olive tree when a quiet voice said, "Thank you, faithful servant. Thank you, Peter. "

"Thank You, Lord," Peter said, "And good night to You."

"Good night, Peter," He said.

It was another hour before Peter went to sleep, the distant keening of a wailer signaling the death of a loved one in a family that occupied one of the hovels across the valley coming to him faintly on the night breeze.

He kept starting at the slightest sound, wondering if a spy had discovered who Jesus was, or whether the Pharisees were even now creeping up on them with an armed guard. Peter had tucked his sword under his pack, and the familiar haft gave him comfort when he reached for it to make sure it was in its place.

If not now, if not during the Feast that was now past, then when? he wondered.

But Jesus knew what He was doing, and so Peter consoled himself, determined to remain by the Lord's side and see this thing through, no matter what.

The next few days were to bring another profound lesson in human nature.

Jesus noticed a beggar, well known about the gates of Jerusalem, who had been born blind. Some of the disciples, curious about cause and effect and the punishments for sin, asked Him, "Master, who sinned? Who caused this blindness? Was it this man, or his parents, that he should have been born blind?"

Peter was very puzzled over the answer.

"Neither this man nor his parents sinned; he was born blind so that the works of God should be made manifest through Him. We must work the works of Him that sent Me while it is day, for the night is coming when no man can work. While I am in the world I am the light of the world ."

After finishing this strong, short speech, He spat on the dust of the ground and, using His finger to stir it into a clay, took a little between thumb and forefinger and gently daubed it over the ugly, whitish, sightless orbs of the blind man.

Then He said, "Go, now, and wash off your eyes in the Siloam pool." Miraculously, as the blind man washed off the drying clay the accumulated matter on his eyes came off too, and he could see. He was reaching out, touching familiar places—the street corners he was so accustomed to, here a tree and there an awning in front of a shop, looking up in delight when remembered voices identified a familiar friend, staring in amazement when he saw their faces!

The miracle began an excited public stirring, and many of his friends became so ecstatic and curious they wanted him to accompany them to the leaders of the Sanhedrin, the Pharisees.

Many asked, "Isn't that the blind beggar?" and other said, "No, you must be mistaken. How could his eyes have been opened?"

"How did He open your eyes, if He really did?" asked one of the leading Pharisees.

"Well, He anointed my eyes with clay, and . . ."

"Who—who anointed your eyes?"

"Jesus—you know, the Man they call Jesus of Nazareth. He anointed my eyes with clay, like I was saying, and told me, 'Go and wash in Siloam,' and so I went down there and I washed off my eyes. When I did, I received my sight!" he finished, voice rising in joy, happily blinking about at his friends and grasping the forearm of one shopkeeper who had been a generous friend.

"Where is this Jesus of Nazareth?" asked the Pharisee.

"I don't know where He went," came the answer.

"Surely this man cannot be from God, because He does not keep the Sabbath!" said one.

"But," protested another, reasonably, "can a man who is not of God, who is a sinner, perform such miracles? " A babble of voices rose then as the group broke into shouts and arguments. At length, when the noise died down somewhat, the leader turned to the formerly blind again and demanded, "What do you claim about Him, since you say He opened your eyes?"

"I believe He is a prophet!"

"We'll see about that," said the leader and gave orders to call the parents of the man to the hearing.

The parents were brought before the leaders.

"Is this your son that you claim was born blind?" they asked.

"Yes, that's our boy all right. But as to how he now sees, we don't know," came the impossible answer. What was this? A parent so frightened of being "put out" from their cherished synagogue that they could not experience even the normal human emotions (what was "normal" about a miracle like this?) of the unbounded joy one would think they would feel?

Peter could not abide fear religion! To him the hated memories of Romans tramping through Bethsaida, and the many tales aged Jona had put deeply in his mind, made him yearn passionately for the freedoms and blessings of complete independence for this verdant land and an end to the stifling control of the religious leaders that made people act like these poor parents were.

Was it possible these parents were so brainwashed by the remembered ceremonies of a local synagogue, so totally convinced of the near infallibility of the religious leaders, that they could not stand before God alone?

Peter thought how it should have gone!

Why, if it had been me, he thought, I would have demanded, "Now, just wait a minute! Anyone knows a miracle can come only from God! You men claim to represent God! Therefore, you can only rejoice that this man has been healed by a great miracle!

"What's your problem? You passed by this man in the streets for years and none of you could heal him! Now here is the blind beggar before you—seeing—and you want to claim it is evil, merely because the blind was cured on the Sabbath day?" Peter thought of another example Jesus had used. He would say, "Doesn't your own law claim you can help a dumb beast out of a mud hole on the Sabbath so an animal doesn't suffer? How much more valuable is a precious human life, and eyesight, than the hind leg of old Judah-ben-Zith's off-ox?'' (Peter liked that line.)

" I demand to know where He is! " Peter would have said.

"I want to know why you religious leaders do not recognize Him!"

Then, if they "cast him out" from their tightly knit little group of huddled sheep, so be it!

But the parents had not taken a stand for God. They had been so afraid of their eternal destiny, so fearful to be ostracized from beloved friends and associates, so terrified of being "alone" in the world, without the feeling of security, of 'belonging' that was afforded by the rituals of the synagogue, that they cowed in fear.

His parents answered, "We know that this is our son, and that he was born blind. But how he now sees we do not know, or who opened his eyes, we know not. Ask him. He is of age; let him speak for himself!"

Unbelievable! Instead of tearfully grabbing their son, pounding him joyfully on the back and happily sharing the experience of seeing for the first time in his life, showing him flowers, trees, the countryside nearby and sharing his very first sunset, they cowed in fear before these posturing religious bigots.

Here were the leaders who "sat in Moses' seat," according to the Lord Himself, deliberately dividing a family because of their own desire for power and money!

Tragically, the parents could only stand with downcast eyes, trembling in fear. How could they abandon it all? Why, every day they were required to think about and to serve the synagogue. They attended faithfully, paid their tithes, watched the sacrifices, bought turtle doves and once or twice a year a young bullock or a goat. They fasted often and said their prayers. They rejoiced in the feasts, visiting happily with dozens of remembered friends from faraway places. If they took a stand now and grabbed their son and rejoiced, throwing caution to the winds and showing belief in this miracle and acceptance of Jesus Christ as a prophet, it would mean they would be put out. And that meant no more social life, and worse it meant being cut off from God!

That the parents were staying with a crumbling, dying religion, one of hatred, chicanery, persecution, power politics, avarice, greed, cunning and every evil, utterly devoid of love, mercy and goodness, never occurred to them. It was "their" religion; they had been reared in it, and they felt they should "stay with it"!

The parents knew through warnings from friends that the Jews had agreed already that if anyone dared to confess that Jesus was the Christ he would be put out of the synagogue!

Again the leader turned to the son and demanded pompously, "Give glory to God; we know that this man is a sinner! "

The son answered honestly, "Whether He is a sinner or not, I do not know. But one thing I know, that whereas I was blind—I have been blind for all my life and have never seen—now I see!"

"All right, you say He healed you, but what did He do, what did He use, how did He do it?" queried a Pharisee, hoping desperately to find some minor technicality of lawbreaking to use against Jesus.

"I just finished telling you the whole story, and apparently you didn't listen to me. Why do you want to hear it again?" the formerly blind asked, and then, with a smile and a chuckle (for he really didn't care what they thought at this point; what had the synagogue ever done for him?), "Are you thinking of training to become one of His disciples?"

This was too much!

"You are His disciple and we are the disciples of Moses! As for this Man, we don't know where He came from! "

"Why, here is an unbelievable thing. You, the religious leaders, claim you don't know where He came from, and yet He healed my eyes and I have my sight! We know that God does not hear sinners, and if any man be a worshiper of God, and do His will, him He hears! No one has ever heard of a man having his eyes opened who was born blind! If this man were not of God, He couldn't accomplish anything."

"Just who do you think you are, trying to teach us?" the leader shrieked. "You who were born in sins!" In a rage, they grabbed the young man by the arms, and, in front of the startled eyes of his parents, they half dragged, half carried him and threw him out of the building onto the street.

The parents remained where they were. They would have lost fellowship with the synagogue.

After hearing the story Jesus sought out the young man and finally found him joyously meeting friends and quizzically matching remembered voices with the new faces he was seeing—enjoying the marvels of his newfound vision.

"Do you believe on the Son of God?" Jesus asked.

"Who is he, Lord, that I may believe on Him?"

"You have already seen Him, and it is He who now speaks with you!"

Lord, I believe!" said the formerly blind and, kneeling and grasping Jesus' hand, pressed it to tear stained cheeks and worshiped Him in the crowded marketplace.

Knowing that several of the Pharisees were present, Jesus said loudly enough for them to hear, "For judgment I am come into this world, that they which see may not see, and they who see may become blind."

A Pharisee drew near and demanded, "Are we, then, blind'?"

"If you were blind, you would have no sin, for you would not be responsible. But you claim 'We see!' and therefore your sin remains."

The Pharisee nearly choked with rage and would have entered into another lengthy harangue, but Peter and the others urged Jesus to leave.