I Have Prayed for You: When Sifting Becomes Salvation

Part II

Luke 22:31 “Simon, Simon, look out. Satan has asked to sift you like wheat. 32 But I have prayed for you that your faith may not fail. And you, when you have turned back, strengthen your brothers.”

Peter has just heard Jesus speak words that ought to stop him in his tracks: “Simon, Simon, behold, Satan has demanded permission to sift you like wheat” (Luke 22:31). But Peter doesn't hear the gravity in Jesus’ voice. Something within him, something hidden deeply beneath his passionate sincerity and surface courage, prevents these words from penetrating his heart. Why does Peter immediately leap to defend himself rather than reflect, pause, or even ask a question? What is it within him—and within all of us—that keeps us from truly hearing truths we'd rather not face?

To understand what is at stake here, we have to begin by exploring Peter's interior landscape. Before the denials, before the rooster crows, before the moment at the charcoal fire, Peter's greatest obstacle is internal. His blindness to his own vulnerability is the very thing Jesus is trying gently to expose, not to shame him, but to free him. This blindness isn’t unique to Peter—it speaks to the hidden realities within each of us, realities shaped by unconscious pride, unresolved fears, and assumptions about ourselves that we have carried from childhood onward, quietly dictating how we respond to God, others, and the truth of who we really are.

When Jesus says, “Simon, Simon, behold, Satan has demanded permission to sift you like wheat” (Luke 22:31), something within Simon Peter cannot quite let these words fully penetrate. It’s not just a failure to listen carefully; it’s that Peter cannot yet see himself clearly enough to understand the gravity of what Jesus is telling him. Even though Peter is sitting face-to-face with God in the flesh, something within him resists the truth about himself that Jesus is transparently endeavoring to reveal. This resistance runs deeper than mere stubbornness—it is anchored in Peter’s own hidden pride and unresolved wounds. Dietrich von Hildebrand speaks directly to this struggle when he reminds us,

“We have two great enemies to combat within us: pride and concupiscence... pride is the primal source of the malignancy within ourselves… Every virtue and every good deed turns worthless if pride creeps into it—which happens whenever in some fashion we glory in our goodness.”^[1]

Peter’s immediate reaction reveals precisely this subtle pride: rather than hearing what Jesus is truly saying, he quickly insists, “Lord, with You I am ready to go both to prison and to death!” (Luke 22:33). We have all felt something similar—a defensive urge to prove ourselves, believing deep down that even God might underestimate how devoted, faithful, or strong we truly are. Yet in those moments, as Peter painfully discovers, we unwittingly expose our lack of self-awareness. We reveal how little we truly grasp about ourselves, and even more significantly, how little we understand about the depth and tenderness of Christ’s knowledge of us.

Maximus the Confessor sheds light on the hidden spiritual dynamics beneath Peter’s surface confidence:

“The one who has not yet obtained divine knowledge activated by love makes a lot of the religious works he performs. But the one who has been deemed worthy to obtain this says with conviction…the words which the patriarchs uttered: ‘I am earth and ashes.’”^[2]

Peter, in this critical moment, is precisely the one Maximus describes as “not yet deemed worthy of divine knowledge,” who therefore is “easily carried to and fro by” what Maximus calls “the spirit of vainglory”.^[3] Peter’s blindness comes not simply from lacking a deeper knowing born of love, but from lacking an encounter with truth and the numinous—the tangible presence of the Holy embodied in Jesus—which alone can illuminate the soul clearly enough to expose the subtle distortions pride creates within us. He is still caught up in his performance and bravado. He believes his intentions—his determination—are sufficient. He does not yet know himself as “earth and ashes”^[4] as Abraham did. Neither do we, when confronted with uncomfortable truths about our weaknesses.

Insights From Depth Psychology

When we turn to Carl Jung's insights, we're doing so cautiously and reflectively. It's important to remember that we're working with an ancient text—one which doesn't provide us direct psychological access to Simon Peter's inner world. We do not know Peter’s interior experience firsthand. What we have is the recorded account, given to us in scripture, from which we discern patterns and behaviors that resonate deeply with common human experience, including our own.

Jung helps us explore the kind of hidden inner forces that might influence anyone in Peter's position. Jung writes:

"The remnants of the child-soul in the adult are his best and worst qualities; at all events they are the mysterious spiritus rector of our weightiest deeds and of our individual destinies, whether we are conscious of it or not. It is they which make kings or pawns of the insignificant figures who move about on the checker-board of life…"^[5]

Applying Jung here is not a claim to absolute psychological certainty about Peter, but rather a thoughtful, reflective exploration of how similar unconscious dynamics might be at work within him—and indeed, within all of us. When Peter responds defensively, it seems consistent with patterns we recognize within ourselves: pride masking insecurity, bravado covering deeper anxiety, or unconscious assumptions that distort our understanding of reality. Jung’s insights give language and depth to the idea that hidden forces, shaped in early life, often influence us at critical moments without our explicit awareness.

And so, we apply Jung’s perspective gently, carefully, and humbly—not asserting absolute knowledge of Peter's mind, but allowing Jung’s insights to illuminate how Peter’s story speaks similarly to our own human struggles with self-awareness and spiritual blindness.

Marie-Louise von Franz also sensitively identifies this shadow hidden in our attempts at being "good" and "Christian":

“Under the cloak of being Christian and kind...negative reactions hide under the cloak of ‘forgiveness’ and a virtuous and superior attitude.” She warns, “If someone just pardons a fellow human being, then nothing happens; the negative assumptions remain for the next ten years!”^[6]

Such false humility, according to von Franz, prevents genuine relationships, leaving us stuck in silent judgments and unresolved conflicts. Peter's resistance seems to reflect precisely this shadow—masked by devotion yet quietly harboring a fundamental misunderstanding of himself. Jesus confronts Peter not to shame him, but to lovingly expose these hidden assumptions and unspoken conflicts that threaten to keep him spiritually stuck.

Years later, a humbled and softened Peter will write of believers who become “blind or shortsighted,”forgetting how deeply they needed grace themselves (2 Peter 1:9). The wisdom Peter offers then is clearly born from his painful yet transforming life experiences, experiences he could not avoid, and neither can we.

Peter’s defensive reaction is not only understandable, it’s quite familiar. It strikes at the heart of Peter’s existential anxiety. Something acutely embedded within Peter’s psyche immediately resists. The resistance isn’t simple stubbornness; it’s a deep-seated, existential avoidance rooted in his own unfinished journey. At its core, existential anxiety is

"the unease people experience about meaning, choice, and freedom in life"—the unsettling sense that "the foundation on which their life was built is crumbling".^[7]

When Identity Is Threatened

In this moment of confrontation, Peter’s very sense of identity and security is threatened. It’s not simply fear of danger but a crisis about the meaning of his life and his relationship to the One he calls Christ. Rather than pausing to reflect, Peter rushes to assure Jesus of his unwavering devotion—revealing how deeply unsettled he truly is. He cannot yet face the possibility that his understanding of himself might be incomplete or that his strength might fail him precisely when it matters most.

What Jesus communicates here is that everything the disciples have known is about to change in very striking ways. The comfort of divine provision they experienced previously—traveling without bags or money and yet lacking nothing—will starkly shift toward hostility. As Joel Green describes clearly, this shift is radical:

“Even if Jesus has attracted hostility within the Lukan narrative, the apostles have been spared from want thus far. This state of affairs is about to undergo a radical shift...marked by Jesus words, ‘but now.’… Although the vocabulary is not literal, similar to the sword Jesus mentions, it marks a metaphorical reference to the coming reality.…His words, ‘It is enough!’ are an expression of his exasperation”.^[8]

Peter, however, does not grasp this shift. He interprets Jesus’ warning too literally, missing the deeper metaphor. Jesus’ words about buying a sword are misunderstood because Peter, gripped by his own anxiety and pride, mistakenly believes Jesus advocates armed resistance. Craig Keener addresses precisely this confusion:

“By mentioning the ‘sword’ here Jesus is not inviting revolution… To be without one’s outer cloak at night would leave one cold; yet Jesus suggests that it is better than being unprepared for the conflict these disciples are about to face”.^[9]

F.W. Farrar underscores this misunderstanding vividly:

“Of course, the expression was not meant to be taken with unintelligent literalness. It was in accordance with that kind metaphorical method… it symbolized the coming reality of severe testing and danger”.^[10]

Peter’s pushback signals his existential confusion and anxiety, leading him to literalize a metaphor as a way of regaining control. His nagging existential anxiety—that underlying fear that he was losing his bearings and his grip on meaning—led him and leads us to oversimplify, distort, or avoid the deeper truths God is revealing about ourselves and our lives.

Luke Timothy Johnson captures the symbolic depth beautifully:

“Selling one’s outer garment for a sword has not a literal but a symbolic point: they are entering a state of testing in which they will be without external resources and in danger”.^[11]

In other words, Peter’s reaction arises not merely from stubbornness, but from a desperate attempt to regain footing in a world that seems suddenly uncertain. In his anxiety, he misses the point of Jesus’ warning entirely. And if we are honest, we can see ourselves in Peter. When our foundations are shaken, we too tend to resist or oversimplify uncomfortable truths, seeking comfort in superficial interpretations rather than opening our hearts to the deeper implications of God’s word. Peter's struggle mirrors our own modern tendency to weaponize or misinterpret spiritual truth, confusing faithfulness with fighting, devotion with defensiveness.

This is why Peter pushes back. He is experiencing a stark existential crisis. The sifting has begun—not externally but internally—as Jesus carefully is seeking to draw Peter toward a deeper self-awareness, humility, and ultimately, healing.

Johnson carefully clarifies that the sword Jesus mentions is symbolic, marking a state of vulnerability rather than aggression. Yet, how easily even we ourselves, miss this subtlety, interpreting Jesus' words through our fears rather than hearing their precise yet challenging invitation. Peter himself does exactly this, responding defensively in an anxious attempt to regain control. His reaction mirrors our own. And in this light, we begin to understand why we, like Peter, so easily lose sight of Christ's deeper meaning, drifting from humility into defensiveness, and ultimately confusing our calling with the temptation toward power.

The Current Cultural Moment

Yet, somehow, we’ve lost sight of this metaphorical depth. Like Peter, we find ourselves caught up in the current culture anxiety of uncertainty. Rather than remaining open and vulnerable before Christ—rather than facing what the numinous presence of Jesus is exposing within us—we've allowed our existential fears to drive us toward a kind of misguided triumphalism. Instead of facing our shadows honestly, we've often projected our insecurities outward, conflating spiritual fidelity with worldly power, strength with aggression, and courage with control. This is what happens when we weaponize the Cross and confuse our political aspirations with our call to bear witness to Jesus.

Why has this happened to us? Jung suggests something crucial here: we’ve projected onto our culture and politics the unconscious fears and unresolved struggles hidden deeply within us. Rather than honestly wrestling with these truths in our own souls, we externalize the conflict, turning our neighbors into enemies and losing touch with our true calling. When we replace humility with defensiveness, we undermine the Gospel itself, marginalizing those who actually strive to embody Christ’s teachings of humility and peace. The blindness Peter experienced in that moment of anxious reaction is mirrored vividly in our own contemporary struggles.

It’s essential to realize that Peter’s blindness isn’t unique—it mirrors a broader, more subtle blindness affecting us all. To see ourselves clearly in Peter’s struggle is to recognize how deeply our hidden anxieties shape our perceptions, reactions, and relationships. Luke's account of the scene in Gethsemane offers us a vivid and unsettling picture of precisely this dynamic at play within Peter.

The Chaos in Gethsemane

Peter’s reaction in Gethsemane reveals something deeper within him, something he has not yet faced within his own heart. Judas approaches Jesus with a kiss, an intimate gesture that Craig Keener notes is turned into “a special act of hypocrisy”^[12]. The intended sign of devotion becomes distorted, twisted into betrayal. Here the chaos begins to swirl, unsettling everything Peter thought he knew.

In the confusion that follows, the disciples anxiously ask, “Lord, should we strike with the sword?”(Luke 22:49). Before Jesus can even reply, Peter impulsively lashes out, striking Malchus, the high priest’s servant, and cutting off his right ear. John’s Gospel later makes explicit what Luke leaves anonymous—that it was Simon Peter who struck, and Malchus who was injured (John 18:10). David L. Jeffrey points out this detail carefully:

“Malchus…is named only in John’s Gospel (18:10), in the others being identified merely by his office”.^[13]

Peter’s desperate attempt to regain control spills over into sudden violence. Luke Timothy Johnson draws attention to how strikingly Jesus remains centered in the middle of this storm:

“What Jesus was from the beginning he remains to the end: a bringer of healing”.^[14]

While Peter grabs at a sword, Jesus extends a healing hand, gently restoring Malchus’s wounded ear. Even here, amid confusion and violence, Jesus remains the healer.

Peter’s violence, his pure aggression, however anxious he may have been, was fueled by an adrenaline rush triggered by his impulsive anger. The sword Peter wields is no longer symbolic—it's dangerously literal. He lashes out not merely because he feels vulnerable but because he is enraged, overwhelmed by an instinctive drive toward retaliation and control. Beneath the surface is raw emotion, erupting suddenly into rampage as Peter attempts to fight off what he perceives as threat and betrayal.

F.W. Farrar suggests something significant when he notes Peter “perhaps stung by our Lord’s previous warnings to him—impetuously acted”.^[15] When Farrar describes Peter as acting "impetuously," we sense a deeper truth about Peter’s reaction. Peter doesn’t pause, doesn’t breathe, doesn’t give himself space to truly hear what Jesus might be saying or doing. Instead, something raw and instinctual leaps forward from within him, overriding reason, relationship, and restraint. In his rush to violence, Peter is deafened—not only to Jesus’ earlier teachings, but to the quiet authority of the Christ who stands beside him in that moment. It’s as if anger blinds and deafens Peter, isolating him in a storm of reactive emotion, causing him to forget who he is, who Jesus is, and what Jesus is actually calling him toward.

What Haunts Us?

Carly Simon’s lyric—“There’s always someone haunting someone... I’m locked inside of you”^[16]—captures the unsettling possibility that each of us harbors hidden influences quietly shaping our lives. James Hollis speaks to this same reality when he asks:

“And what guiding intelligence weaves the threads of an individual biography; what hauntings of the invisible world invigorate, animate, and direct the multiple narratives of daily life?”^[17]

Hollis points out that we carry “genetic stories” and “archetypal stories,” along with “splinter stories, splinter identities, splinter scripts,” all of which can “bind us to trauma, immaturity, and outdated prejudicial perspectives.” These unseen forces, or “complexes,” can surface unexpectedly and overwhelm our better judgment. We cannot know precisely how this played out in Peter’s inner world—no one can claim that—but we can wonder if his sudden, violent impulse was fueled by fragments of an older story embedded within him, plunging him, as Hollis says, “into [his] replicative past”.^[18]

Hollis then describes how these invisible threads often cling to us through “the fallacy of overgeneralization,” maintaining scripts from our past that persist in new situations:

“All of us suffer the fallacy of overgeneralization, namely, what was ‘true,’ or appeared true, remains a defining point of reference, a prompting script for us in ever-new situations. What past wounds to our self-esteem show up today...?”^[19]

Might Peter’s impulsive strike be traced back to some unacknowledged wound, a hidden perception of threat or shame that compelled him to lash out in anger? We cannot say for certain. Yet Hollis’s question resonates that perhaps old, unexamined narratives do appear in our most vulnerable moments, overshadowing the good intentions we think define us. If that was true for Peter, it might help us understand how one so devoted to Jesus could suddenly react in a way that contradicts everything Jesus stood for.

Hollis reminds us that when these complexes take over, we tend to rationalize our behavior—even if it’s destructive:

“Try telling a person in the grip of a complex... that he or she is in one and they will not only deny your assertion but most likely have a ready justification… we are all, much of the time, prisoners of history, haunted by the spectral ‘instructions’ that float up from the past…”^[20]

Peter’s swordplay, then, might have been driven by some “spectral instruction” from his own past—an inner script that shouted, “Fight now!” rather than wait, trust, or listen. It’s humbling to consider how little we often know about the forces moving within us, how quickly hidden fears can hijack our behavior. If even a disciple standing beside Jesus could be “locked inside” these deeper hauntings, then perhaps we too need to tread gently with our own judgments, staying open to the possibility that what surfaces in our most intense reactions sometimes originates from stories we’ve yet to understand.

Yet these personal hauntings do not arise in a vacuum. The world around Peter is also changing, and that upheaval presses on his interior vulnerabilities, amplifying his unconscious scripts. He stands on the brink of a radically different reality—one that feels suddenly unstable and threatening. This collision between Peter’s hidden anxieties and an external environment marked by growing hostility sets the stage for what Joel Green underscores next.

Green makes clear, the disciples’ previous comfortable experience of divine provision was shifting dramatically toward hostility and danger^[21]. This dramatic shift left Peter disoriented, vulnerable, and afraid. Instead of staying open and honest in his vulnerability, Peter turned to aggression. Without even knowing it, he enacted precisely what Jesus was soberly trying to expose in him earlier—his hidden fear, his unacknowledged weakness, his anxious drive for control. Peter’s struggle mirrors ours, especially in times of cultural anxiety and existential uncertainty. Too easily, we confuse aggression with faithfulness, control with courage. In doing so, we risk compromising the very witness we claim to uphold.

This scene in Gethsemane invites us gently but honestly into our own shadows. It shows us how quickly our anxieties can distort our understanding of Jesus. Even today, when our fears run deep and uncertainty overwhelms us, we can find ourselves reaching for power rather than humility, control rather than trust, a sword rather than healing hands. Like Peter, we must confront these hidden impulses—yet the very presence of Jesus at the center of this chaos invites us, gently and clearly, toward something far deeper: healing, humility, and genuine surrender.

In the next installment, we’ll follow Peter into the courtyard, where a charcoal fire crackles in the night air. There, hands extended toward the warmth, his sifting continues. And perhaps ours does too.

When we, like Peter, resist facing the truth within ourselves, we miss the opportunity for genuine transformation. But Jesus, lovingly, insistently, sees through all our defenses. The sifting, though painful, is ultimately redemptive. Jesus’ words, “I have prayed for you” (Luke 22:32), remind us that the exposure of our hidden weaknesses does not lead to despair. It leads, instead, to humility and healing—precisely because it is Jesus who holds us.

This is where our journey, like Peter’s, begins—not by trusting our own limited self-understanding, but by opening ourselves, vulnerably and humbly, to the One who knows us fully and loves us perfectly.

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^[1] Dietrich von Hildebrand, Humility: Wellspring of Virtue, Manchester: Sophia Institute Press, 1990, chapter 1, Kindle Edition.

^[2] Maximus the Confessor, Selected Writings, ed. John Farina, trans. George C. Berthold, The Classics of Western Spirituality (New York; Mahwah, NJ: Paulist Press, 1985), 39–40.

^[3] Ibid.

^[4] Ibid.

^[5] Jung, C. G.. Collected Works of C. G. Jung, Volume 17: Development of Personality (The Collected Works of C. G. Jung), New York: Bollingen Foundation, 1981, (pp. 45-46), Kindle Edition.

^[6] Marie-Louise von Franz, Shadow and Evil in Fairy Tales: Revised Edition, Boulder: Shambhala, 2017, pp. 46-48, Kindle Edition.

^[7] Arlin Cunic. Existential Crisis: What It is and How We Cope, 2024, https://www.verywellmind.com/coping-with-existential-anxiety-4163485#citation-9

^[8] Joel B. Green, The Gospel of Luke, The New International Commentary on the New Testament (Grand Rapids, MI: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1997), 775.

^[9] Craig S. Keener, The IVP Bible Background Commentary: New Testament (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1993), Lk 22:36–38.

^[10] F. W. Farrar, The Gospel according to St Luke, Cambridge Greek Testament for Schools and Colleges (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1893), 373–374.

^[11] Luke Timothy Johnson, The Gospel of Luke, ed. Daniel J. Harrington, vol. 3, Sacra Pagina Series (Collegeville, MN: The Liturgical Press, 1991), 347.

^[12] Craig S. Keener, The IVP Bible Background Commentary: New Testament (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1993), Lk 22:48.

^[13] David L. Jeffrey, A Dictionary of Biblical Tradition in English Literature (Grand Rapids, MI: W.B. Eerdmans, 1992).

^[14] Luke Timothy Johnson, The Gospel of Luke, ed. Daniel J. Harrington, vol. 3, Sacra Pagina Series (Collegeville, MN: The Liturgical Press, 1991), 352–353.

^[15] F. W. Farrar, The Gospel according to St Luke, Cambridge Greek Testament for Schools and Colleges (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1893), 376–377.

^[16] Carly Simon. Haunting, from the album Boys In The Trees, 1978

^[17] Hollis, James. Hauntings: Dispelling the Ghosts Who Run Our Lives, Asheville: Chiron Publications, 2013, (p. 20), Kindle Edition.

^[18] Ibid.

^[19] Ibid. p. 22.

^[20] Ibid. p. 62.

^[21] Joel B. Green, The Gospel of Luke, The New International Commentary on the New Testament (Grand Rapids, MI: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1997), 775-776.