By the end of this passage, Peter is at home, alone and amazed. He had been sitting among the (male) "apostles" when some women disciples arrived from visiting the tomb and told their "idle tale" or Easter gospel proclamation (depending on one's interpretation) that shining angels had announced to them that the tomb was empty because Jesus had risen, as he had told them ahead of time, and that the angels had asked them, "Why do you seek the living among the dead?"

While the other apostles sat there disbelieving and dismissing the women's testimony, "Peter got up and ran to the tomb; and stooping and looking in, he saw the linen cloths by themselves, and he went home wondering what had happened." Or, depending on the translation, Peter went home, and sat alone, amazed at what had happened. Indeed this verse about Peter is completely left out of some translations--that is, verse 12 is sometimes entirely gone, and the text jumps from verse 11 to verse 13.

In the beloved RSV Bible that I hold in my hands, a footnote (v) tells us that "Other ancient authorities add verse 12, 'But Peter rose and ran to the tomb; stooping and looking in, he saw the linen cloths by themselves; and he went home wondering at what had happened.'"

So we have various footnotes and translations. Yet whether Peter was "amazed" or "wondering," he is the one follower of Jesus here who, upon hearing the witness of the women, is moved to leap up and run to the tomb to get as close as he can to what is happening.

Wonderment can be, perhaps, the beginning of amazement, and can lead a person from despair to the inward stirrings of a faith that opens us to deeper understandings, and to a rising strength that can make it possible for us to lift up our voices like the women did, and like Peter will do, and like the shepherds did, when they decided together, in response to the angels, to run to Bethlehem to "see this thing that has happened," and then returned home "glorifying and praising God, for all they had heard and seen." (Luke 2:8-20, Acts)