Poor sorrowful Peter! Ah, no one can fathom what he went through that night, and the next awful day of the Crucifixion: and the two following days, when the Lord's Body lay in the grave, and Peter recalled with agony that he had forsaken Him when He needed his love most! We can only picture it to ourselves; but it must have been truly dreadful. At length came the third day, when Jesus had told the disciples He would rise from the dead. Their hearts were so heavy with grief, and so slow to take in what our Lord had so constantly told them, that they did not expect, when they visited the grave on that third day, to find it empty! The women with their loving hearts were the first to reach the spot, carrying sweet spices to anoint their Lord! They had expected to find His dearly loved Body lying in the grave—dead. Instead, they found the grave empty and a Vision of Angels! They were so frightened that they were hurrying away, but the Angel who was sitting within the empty tomb told them not to be frightened, for though they sought Jesus of Nazareth Who was crucified, yet He was not there, for He was risen! And then the Angel gave them this message from God: "Go tell His disciples, and Peter, that He goeth before you into Galilee: there shall ye see Him, as He said unto you." Why was that separate message sent to Peter? Oh, the graciousness of the forgiveness of Jesus! Peter had said "he was not one of them," meaning not one of His disciples. And it may be, that if the Angel's message had only been "Go, tell His disciples," that Peter would have been utterly hopeless. But the sorrowing man had a message all to himself! Ah, what that must have meant to Peter! And we have another sweet assurance of the forgiving love of our God and Saviour. We read, in the last chapter of Luke, that those two whom Jesus had met going to Emmaus after His Resurrection, had hurried back to Jerusalem to tell the eleven that they had seen the Lord; and were greeted with the joyful news which the other disciples had also heard—that "the Lord was risen indeed, and had appeared to Simon Peter!" We have no account of what Jesus said to Peter, nor what Peter said to Jesus. But the fact is full of deepest comfort to all of us who so often grieve Him, that, in spite of Peter's sad denial, his risen Lord appeared to him, forgave him his sin, and restored him to his place among the others. Thenceforward Peter became one of the most faithful of Christ's disciples; and when he preached that wonderful sermon at Pentecost, a few weeks afterwards, God gave him the honour of bringing three thousand souls to love and believe in our Lord Jesus Christ, Who was dead, but is alive again!