“God’s anonymous: Peter’s wife”
Mark 1:29-31
Grace to you and peace from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior Jesus.
They say that behind every great man, there’s a great woman. Take, for example, Tom Wheeler, former CEO of the Massachusetts Mutual Life Insurance Company.
He tells the story of a time when he and his wife were driving along an interstate highway, when he noticed that their car was getting low on gas. So he pulled off the highway at the next exit where he soon found a small, rundown gas station with just one pump. He asked the lone attendant to fill the tank and check the oil, then went for a short walk around the station to stretch his legs.
But as he returned to the car, he noticed that the attendant and his wife were in the middle of a very lively conversation which quickly came to an end as he paid the attendant. Then as he got back in the car, the attendant waved and said, “It was great talking to you!”
As they drove out of the station, Wheeler asked his wife if she knew the man. She readily admitted that she did. She said they had gone to high school together and had dated steadily for about a year.
Wheeler bragged, “Boy, aren’t you lucky that I came along! If you had married him, you’d be the wife of a gas station attendant instead of the wife of a chief executive officer.”
“My dear,” replied his wife, “if I had married him, he’d be the chief executive officer and you’d be the gas station attendant.”
Behind every great man is a great woman.
So it was in the words of our text, from the book of Mark chapter 1. I’ll begin reading at verse 29: “And immediately He left the synagogue and entered the house of Simon and Andrew, with James and John. Now Simon’s mother-in-law lay ill with a fever, and immediately they told Him about her. And He came and took her by the hand and lifted her up, and the fever left her, and she began to serve them” (Mark 1:29-31).
As Mark tells us just a few verses before, by this time Jesus had already chosen the first of His twelve disciples. From the shores of the Sea of Galilee, He called four fishermen--Peter and Andrew, James and John. He said, “Follow Me, and I will make you fishers of men” (Mark 1:17). “Immediately they left their nets and followed Him” (Mark 1:18).
And as He taught in their synagogue the next day, a man possessed by a demon suddenly cried out, “What have You to do with us, Jesus of Nazareth? Have You come to destroy us? I know who You are--the Holy One of God” (Mark 1:24). And rebuking that spirit, Jesus said, “Be silent, and come out of him!” And convulsing and crying out, it came out of him.
Then as I read in the words of our text, immediately He left the synagogue and came to the home of Simon and Andrew, together with James and John.
And what should He find when He got there? Peter’s mother-in-law, sick in bed with a fever.
Let’s stop there for just a moment.
Now I know that every one you has an above average intelligence, so I know you won’t mind if I ask you a question. Don’t worry--it won’t be too hard.
So here it is--in order for you to have a mother-in-law, what do you have to have? You have to have a wife. You have to be married.
So Peter was married. What’s the big deal?
Well, really, it was kind of a big deal. You see, whenever we think of the apostles, we often think of them as being somewhere in their mid-to-late fifties, with a touch of grey hair and silver beards, single and completely unattached to any family or friends. And renouncing all earthly pleasures, these single celibates followed Jesus, in lonely solitude, wherever He chose to lead them.
But apparently, it wasn’t that way at all. In fact, Luke wrote that quite a number of women followed Him, including Mary Magdalene, Joanna and Susanna (Luke 8:2-3). And when the apostle Paul wrote his first letter to the Corinthians, he said in chapter 9: “Do we not have the right to take along a believing wife, as do the other apostles and the brothers of the Lord and Peter?” (I Corinthians 9:5).
In other words, not only did Jesus’ brothers have wives, so did many of the apostles and so did Peter.
So you see, when Jesus called Peter to follow Him, (not to mention the other apostles), it wasn’t as easy as you might think. Not only did they leave their jobs and livelihoods to follow Him, for a time, some left their homes and families too.
Even Peter himself would later say, “We have left everything, we’ve given up everything, to follow You” (Matthew 19:27).
Let’s get back to the text.
So Peter had a wife, okay. So what do we know about her? Really, not much at all. We don’t even know her name--which makes her one of God’s anonymous! But there are a few things we can guess.
For example, one day, when her husband, Peter, was at the synagogue, he heard Jesus teach and he saw Him silence a demon. And just as soon as their time of worship was over, guess who all came to her house? Jesus Himself, not to mention her husband Peter, her brother-in-law Andrew, as well as James and John.
And let’s not forget, at that very moment, her mother, (Peter’s mother-in-law), was sick in bed with not just a fever, but with a high fever. Her sheets were drenched, her breathing was labored and shallow, her head ached and she was drifting in and out of consciousness. But in the very moment that Jesus took her by the hand, all of a sudden her eyes opened, then she glanced around the room. Then she got dressed, went downstairs and did what she did best. She lovingly prepared food and made a fuss over everyone.
Then later that very same day, just as soon as word got out, the Bible says all their friends and neighbors began to show up in droves. Mark wrote: “At sundown, they brought to Him all who were sick or oppressed by demons. And the whole city was gathered together at the door” (Mark 1:33).
Who’s door? Peter’s door. Peter’s wife’s door.
And if all that wasn’t enough, just a few weeks later, as Jesus was teaching in their very home, the crowd was so thick, there wasn’t enough room for anyone else to stand, not even at the door. So not knowing what else to do, a paralytic’s four crazy friends suddenly chipped a hole in their roof! And as they lowered the poor man down to Jesus’ feet, He looked at him and said, “Stand up, pick up your bed and go home” (Mark 2:11).
And who saw it all happen before her very eyes? Peter’s wife.
Now if you don’t mind me saying, all that’s the good news. Thanks to her dear, devoted husband, she had a front row seat to some of the most wonderful teaching and the most amazing miracles of all time!
So that’s the good news. What’s the bad news? The bad news is she was married to Peter, as in bold, impulsive, impetuous, foot-in-mouth Peter.
Remember? When Jesus asked, “Who do people say that I am?” His disciples answered, “Some say John the Baptist, while others say Elijah or Jeremiah or one of the prophets.” But it was Peter who answered and said, “You are the Christ, the Son of the Living God!”
Good job, Peter! You got it right, Peter!
But a moment later, when Jesus talked about the cross, it was Peter who also said, “Never, Lord! This shall never happen to You!”
And what did Jesus say? “Get behind me, Satan, for you do not have in mind the things of God, but the things of men” (Matthew 16:23).
Or think of what happened that night in cold, dark Gethsemane. As soldiers came to arrest Jesus, Judas kissed Him and Peter flailed away with his sword.
“Put your sword away,” Jesus said, “for all who draw the sword will die by the sword” (Matthew 26:52).
Then later, as he stood warming himself by a fire, first one, then two, then three came to accuse him, saying, “You aren’t also one of His disciples, are you?!” And using every rude, vile and disgusting word he could think of, he said, “I don’t even know who you’re talking about!”
And then the rooster crowed.
But for all of Peter’s incredible sins and weaknesses, and there are many, God inspired him to write not just one, but two books of the Bible--I and II Peter.
And there in his first book, when he meant to encourage us to be like Christ and to live like Christ, of all the people he had ever known, he held up his wife as an example. He wrote, “Don’t let your adorning be external--the braiding of hair or the putting on of gold jewelry or the clothing you wear. Instead, let it be the imperishable beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which in God’s sight is the most precious of all” (I Peter 3:3-4).
So what can we learn from Peter’s wife? One author put it like this: “Her example shines from the shadows. Although she was not an apostle and we don’t even know her name, she is a true hero of faith.” She put her husband before her family. She was willing to submit to God’s leadership in her husband’s life. And she was willing to follow wherever God called her to go.
And no matter who we are, no matter who is your husband or wife, there’s a lesson there for every one of us--to submit to God’s leadership in our lives, and to follow wherever He calls us to go.
As you probably know, Ruth Graham was married to her husband Billy Graham for sixty-three years. And over their many years of life together, they had five children, nineteen grandchildren and numerous great-grandchildren.
But one day, as she was coming to the end of her life, she was driving along a highway through a construction site, where there were miles of detours and cautionary signs and machinery and equipment. Then when she finally came to the last one, the final sign read, “End of construction. Thank you for your patience.”
That’s when she had an idea. What a wonderful thing, she said, to have inscribed on her tombstone.
So when she died in June of 2007, four days after her 87th birthday, her body was laid to rest in a grave in Charlotte, North Carolina.
And over her grave lies a stone that reads, “End of construction. Thank you for your patience.”
Today, every one of us is under construction. And though we sometimes may lose our patience, we never, ever give up, because our Savior Jesus, by His grace, promises to make us whole again.
We could never thank You enough, dear Father, for the grace You’ve shown to us as well as to all the countless men and women of faith. Help us to remain strong in You, for You are strong in us, for Jesus’ sake. Amen