“The end of all things is near. Therefore, be alert and of sober mind so that you may pray.” Peter does not say, “Be alert and of sober mind so that you” can outsmart the bad guys and save yourselves. He says, “Be alert and of sober mind” (when I translated the text, I paraphrased that as “keep your wits about you – no fuzzy thinking”) “so that you may pray.”

You may feel a let-down when you hear that. It is anticlimactic. “So that you may pray” – that’s it? We’d rather Peter said, “Keep your wits about you – no fuzzy thinking – so that you can fight!” But Peter had tried that, remember? Jesus had said to him, “Watch and pray so that you will not fall into temptation” (Matthew 26:41). But Peter did neither. He didn’t watch and he didn’t pray. His thinking was fuzzy. When the temptation came, he lost his wits, found his sword, and tried to fight. It was a debacle