When Jesus of Nazareth, the Savior, was walking the earth in this mortal existence, He had a mission to fulfill, a task set before Him by Our Heavenly Father. To help fulfill His purpose He called certain men, Apostles, to assist Him. These Apostles were not men of stature in their communities, and were not men seemingly of great potential, except in the eyes of the Savior. When He chose Peter and Andrew, James and John, they were are all four humble fishermen. But He told them, “I will make you fishers of men.”
The Apostles who the Savior chose were His companions throughout his mortal ministry. The Apostles walked with Him, talked with Him, ate with Him. They heard His teachings, and His prayers to Our Heavenly Father, with their own ears, from His very lips. These Apostles saw Him perform miracles in person, with their own eyes. They walked the same paths, slept at the same places, ate at the same table. They knew Him like no one since.
Despite all the advantages these Apostles had in strengthening their testimony of His mission, His very being, and Our Heavenly Father who sent Him, these Apostles were not without their own failings. Despite hearing from the Savior Himself that “there is none good but one, that is God,” they argued amongst themselves about who was the greatest among them.
Despite their closeness to Him, these Apostles were not immune from sinning against the Savior. In our Savior’s hour of great sorrow, when the Apostles’ mentor and companion sought to pray to Our Heavenly Father in the Garden of Gethsemane, He only asked that the Apostles that accompanied Him stay awake and keep watch. And each time they slept. “The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is week.”
Afterwards, when the Savior was taken away by His enemies, when the chief priests, elders, and council sought to bear false witness against Him in order to put Him to death, only Peter, of all the Apostles, had the courage to follow, albeit from a distance. But even Peter, in our Savior’s hour of great need, denied even knowing the man, not once, but three times. When asked about the man who had reached out His hand and saved Peter from drowning, Peter said, “I know not the man.” When Peter realized that he had denied the Savior, despite his own boast that he would never do what he just done, he wept bitterly.
How do we know about these weaknesses and failings of the Apostles? Do we hear of their lack of faith, their struggles, from their enemies? From the records of the Sadducees and Pharisees, or Pontius Pilate? No. Besides, who else could have known that Peter wept at that moment and why, other than Peter? No one. We learn of the Apostles’ weaknesses only because the Apostles themselves felt the need to tell us. We know because just as the Apostles felt the need to record the Savior’s words and deeds for all humanity, and did so, the Apostles felt the need to tell us of their own weaknesses and failings, and did so. The Apostles knew the difficulty of the path the Savior set before us because they too had struggled to not stray from that path. The Apostles told us of their struggles and falling short, their sins, to give us courage to stay along that path, or return to it. The Savior’s chosen Apostles did not, and should not, cover their own sins. Perhaps this is why these Apostles succeeded in becoming fishers of men, and too many others throughout the centuries who have come after have not.
The true Apostles are one with us in our struggles to stay upon the path.