Peter and Judas

When he had left, Jesus said, “Now the Son of Man is glorified, and God is glorified in him. If God is glorified in him, God will also glorify him in himself and will glorify him at once. Little children, I am with you a little while longer. You will look for me, and just as I told the Jews, so now I tell you, ‘Where I am going, you cannot come.’

“I give you a new command: Love one another. Just as I have loved you, you are also to love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.”

“Lord,” Simon Peter said to him, “where are you going?”

Jesus answered, “Where I am going you cannot follow me now, but you will follow later.”

“Lord,” Peter asked, “why can’t I follow you now? I will lay down my life for you.”

Jesus replied, “Will you lay down your life for me? Truly I tell you, a rooster will not crow until you have denied me three times. John 13:31-38 (CSB) 

In the end, they all abandon him regardless of what they say they will do(Matthew 26:56 referencing Zechariah 13:7). In this way, Peter is not all that different from Judas. Judas betrays Jesus for some silver, but Peter does so to save his own hide. What’s the difference? 

I wonder, perhaps, if this is the Gospel. The Good News. We know what we must and should do. Love one another and love God as Jesus lays out multiple times. I hope that this has registered with us by now. We know the secret to a happy and good life. We know what it looks like to be faithful. But the truth is, we’re terrible at it. Downright awful. Even those closest to Jesus, those he knew best, and spent time forming and shaping, leave him. One outright betraying, and eleven running away and hiding. So much for Jesus as a mere example for how we should live as some churches portray him. If it was just that, he failed at his own mission with his own disciples. The incarnational experience would have been a colossal waste of time and effort. 

But in this story, we see two responses to the Gospel. The first, Judas, gave into the god of greed and envy, allowing it to consume and corrupt him. Satan’s lies about who Jesus was infiltrated Judas so deeply, that after the betrayal he finds the ends (or product) of sin which is death by hanging himself (Matthew 27:3-5). Quite grotesquely at that (Acts 1:18-19). He obviously had a twinge of conscience, but that conscience, instead of leading to repentance, leads to self-destruction and self-loathing. Satan was satisfied, I’m sure, completing the separation between God and man, and destroying the man in the process. In what I know about Jesus, there is not one small part of me, not the least bit of doubt, that had Judas brought that shame, even to the foot of the cross, fully seeing the implication of his betrayal, that Jesus would have redeemed him even then as he does for those who actually crucify him (Luke 23:34). Judas’ destruction was not his betrayal, as bad as that was, but his attempt to hide from his condition and solve it himself using death as an escape. If he had even just waited. Just hid, as Peter did, I wonder if the experience would have been different. 

For Peter also had the same twinge of guilt. The same twinge we all have when we are doing something we know isn’t right. And, just like Judas, he didn’t do anything about it. There was no confession at the foot of the cross for Peter either. But, unlike Judas, he does not allow his sorrow to lead to despair. Unlike Judas, he did not run away from Jesus, but ran towards him (Luke 24:12). Unlike Judas, he didn’t try to hide from his shame, meaning there was still hope and faith. And it would be that hope and faith that saved him, as Jesus revealed himself to Peter several times, most promisingly in perhaps the most beautiful image in all scripture (IMHO) when Jesus invites Peter back into full communion by cooking him breakfast on the beach (John 21:15-19; Peter’s Primacy pictures in today’s photo).

See the Gospel is not that we’re going to love perfectly or get it right. Nor is it that we shouldn’t bother trying. It is that, even in our worst and most shameful failure, the Lord is always inviting us back into communion with himself. It is his Grace, that operates through our faith, like it did with Peter(Ephesians 2:8-9) He doesn’t dismiss the betrayal, but neither does he hold it against us. He heals it. In fact, in the final scene, which we won’t touch in this series, it is not Jesus who withholds full communion from Peter, but the lingering shame of Peter that will not allow Peter to fully accept Christ’s love. How often that is the case with ourselves. So when people will later come to Peter and ask what they must do to be saved, he tells them, repent, and be baptized, and you will receive the Holy Spirit (New life — Acts 2:38). Don’t let your sin destroy you, consume you, or separate you from God. Don’t run away from it and him out of shame or stubborn pride, but bring it to him,  confess it, that he might heal it, and draw you further and further into his loving embrace. Allow his Grace to heal you.