Appearances to the Apostles and Other Leaders

191:1.1It was near half past eight o’clock this Sun­day evening when Je­sus ap­peared to Si­mon Pe­ter in the gar­den of the Mark home. This was his eighth mor­ontia man­i­fes­ta­tion. Pe­ter had lived un­der a heavy bur­den of doubt and guilt ever since his de­nial of the Mas­ter. All day Sat­ur­day and this Sun­day he had fought the fear that, per­haps, he was no longer an apos­tle. He had shud­dered at the fate of Ju­das and even thought that he, too, had be­trayed his Mas­ter. All this af­ter­noon he thought that it might be his pres­ence with the apos­tles that pre­vented Je­sus’ ap­pear­ing to them, pro­vided, of course, he had re­ally risen from the dead. And it was to Pe­ter, in such a frame of mind and in such a state of soul, that Je­sus ap­peared as the de­jected apos­tle strolled among the flow­ers and shrubs.

191:1.2When Pe­ter thought of the lov­ing look of the Mas­ter as he passed by on An­nas’s porch, and as he turned over in his mind that won­der­ful mes­sage brought him early that morn­ing by the women who came from the empty tomb, “Go tell my apos­tles—and Pe­ter”—as he con­tem­plated these to­kens of mercy, his faith be­gan to sur­mount his doubts, and he stood still, clench­ing his fists, while he spoke aloud: “I be­lieve he has risen from the dead; I will go and tell my breth­ren.” And as he said this, there sud­denly ap­peared in front of him the form of a man, who spoke to him in fa­mil­iar tones, say­ing: “Pe­ter, the en­emy de­sired to have you, but I would not give you up. I knew it was not from the heart that you dis­owned me; there­fore I for­gave you even be­fore you asked; but now must you cease to think about your­self and the trou­bles of the hour while you pre­pare to carry the good news of the gospel to those who sit in dark­ness. No longer should you be con­cerned with what you may ob­tain from the king­dom but rather be ex­er­cised about what you can give to those who live in dire spir­i­tual pov­erty. Gird your­self, Si­mon, for the bat­tle of a new day, the strug­gle with spir­i­tual dark­ness and the evil doubt­ings of the nat­u­ral minds of men.”

191:1.3Pe­ter and the mor­ontia Je­sus walked through the gar­den and talked of things past, pres­ent, and fu­ture for al­most five min­utes. Then the Mas­ter van­ished from his gaze, say­ing, “Farewell, Pe­ter, un­til I see you with your breth­ren.”

191:1.4For a mo­ment, Pe­ter was over­come by the re­al­iza­tion that he had talked with the risen Mas­ter, and that he could be sure he was still an am­bas­sador of the king­dom. He had just heard the glo­ri­fied Mas­ter ex­hort him to go on preach­ing the gospel. And with all this welling up within his heart, he rushed to the up­per cham­ber and into the pres­ence of his fel­low apos­tles, ex­claim­ing in breath­less ex­cite­ment: “I have seen the Mas­ter; he was in the gar­den. I talked with him, and he has for­given me.”

191:1.5Pe­ter’s dec­la­ra­tion that he had seen Je­sus in the gar­den made a pro­found im­pres­sion upon his fel­low apos­tles, and they were about ready to sur­ren­der their doubts when An­drew got up and warned them not to be too much in­flu­enced by his brother’s re­port. An­drew in­ti­mated that Pe­ter had seen things which were not real be­fore. Al­though An­drew did not di­rectly al­lude to the vi­sion of the night on the Sea of Gal­i­lee wherein Pe­ter claimed to have seen the Mas­ter com­ing to them walk­ing on the wa­ter, he said enough to be­tray to all pres­ent that he had this in­ci­dent in mind. Si­mon Pe­ter was very much hurt by his brother’s in­sin­u­a­tions and im­me­di­ately lapsed into crest­fallen si­lence. The twins felt very sorry for Pe­ter, and they both went over to ex­press their sym­pa­thy and to say that they be­lieved him and to re­assert that their own mother had also seen the Mas­ter.