MEETING ST. PETER

There is a myth that St. Peter is heaven’s gatekeeper. It originated from a literal interpretation of Matthew 16:19, where Jesus granted Peter "the keys of the kingdom of heaven." Catholic tradition interprets this as Peter’s complete authority over the Church and perhaps depicting him as giving a thumbs up or thumbs down at the “pearly gates.”

An alternative phrase to meeting St. Peter is to “meet our maker,” and it can point to a future judgment by God. We can also talk about “meeting again,” most often referring to loved ones and friends in heaven.

The "pearly gates" are described in Revelation 21.21 as twelve gates made of single, massive pearls and are the entrance to heaven. In Catholic tradition, Saint Peter is the guardian, holding the keys to the kingdom. He checks the “book of life” to decide who can enter heaven.

Most comments on St. Peter as gatekeeper to heaven are most likely pure nonsense, as are many of our imaginary views of heaven, where people become angels with wings, float on clouds, and are often playing harps (perhaps guitars now). When we view heaven like that, we do not see it as a literal place, but a space-like ethereal, with ghost-like mystical somethings, devoid of the concreteness of earth. 

That might be a place to meet St. Peter, but it is not what God has in mind for believers. We first meet Peter in the Bible when Jesus saw him and his brother Andrew. They were fishermen and Jesus told them, “Follow Me, and I will make you fishers of men.” He was part of the inner circle of Jesus, along with James and John, and witnessed the Transfiguration and the raising of Jairus’s daughter.

We will not need Peter to escort us into heaven. According to 1 Corinthians 15.42-44, we will have bodies with physical substance, and be capable of talking, walking, touching, and being touched. There will be unimaginable joy there because we will be with God and his people, with Jesus as our master and savior, and with the Holy Spirit as our teacher and guide. You can’t have joy and happiness without singing and all of us will be able to sing there—which is good news for me!

There will also be a beautiful combination of rest and work: of what God has always provided and wanted, because is what we were created “Our time here was the preliminaries, not the main event, the tune-up not the concert” (from Randy Alcorn, In the Light of Eternity).

Alcorn encourages us “to prioritize spiritual realities, prayer, and the gospel, ensuring current actions align with long-term eternal consequences. This perspective challenges people to live in the "long tomorrow" and prepare for the afterlife.”

Consequently, I don’t believe that we will meet St. Peter at some “pearly gates,” checking for our name in a book and looking very wise.

However, Peter was a very important disciple and was the first to declare that Jesus was the Christ, “the Son of the living God.” Jesus informed him that he was an important building block for the church. However, he does not hold the keys to let us into God’s Kingdom. In fact, Peter often misunderstood Jesus, although he was zealous in his interactions, even leaving his boat and trying to walk on water to meet Jesus.

After his resurrection, Jesus reaffirmed the leadership of Peter, telling him to “feed my lambs.’ Peter was also a part of divine healings: In Acts three, he encounters a lame beggar at the Temple gate and commands him, “in the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth” to walk, and in Lydda, he healed a man named Aeneas who had been paralyzed for eight years. His healing power must have been well known because people would even take the sick to the streets, hoping that Peter’s shadow would fall on them and they would be healed.

During Peter and the apostle’s ministry, they were imprisoned in a maximum-security prison (the Mamertine Prison) in Rome (Acts 5). However, “an angel of the Lord came at night, opened the gates of the jail, and brought them out.”

St. Peter wrote two Epistles, which help us understand the necessity of living a holy life and why suffering is a part of it and the danger of false teachings. He also issued a dire warning when he told Christians to live godly lives as they looked “forward to the day of God and hurrying it along. On that day, he will set the heavens on fire, and the elements will melt away in the flames.” (2 Peter 3.12)

However, no reference to beautiful pearly gates is necessary in that statement!