At the end of the Last Supper, Jesus says to Peter, “Simon, Simon, behold Satan has demanded to sift all of you like wheat, but I have prayed that your own faith may not fail.”
But Peter cannot even allow for the possibility that he would ever let the Lord down. “Lord, I am prepared to go to prison and to die with you.” Then Jesus says to him that “before the cock crows this day, you will deny three times that you know me.” This same disciple was only a few hours away from doing exactly what he said he wouldn’t do. Have we ever done that? How often have we done things we say we would never do? I know I’ve done things I said that I’d never do.
When the supper was over, they go out to the Mount of Olives, and Jesus asks them to pray that they may not undergo the test, but they fall asleep, and Jesus has to remind them again! And this is the same Peter who says “I’ll die with you, but I won’t deny you.” Really? You can’t even stay awake for an hour! Doesn’t this kind of mirror our own desire to pray sometimes, but we get so distracted, or so caught up in ourselves that sometimes we can’t stay with Christ for 10-15 minutes, let alone one hour.
This should tell us that maybe we’re not so strong as we thought we were. And maybe, just maybe, we need God’s grace if we are going to grow in holiness. But of course we need God’s grace! Because if we’re left to our own strength and our own devices, we’ll just be found sleeping in the Garden, while Jesus is being crucified.
Then later as Jesus is being tried, Peter is outside in the courtyard, where he is approached by three different people who said he was with Jesus. And each time Peter volunteered an oath that he doesn’t even know Jesus. It seems almost unthinkable. Unfortunately, no sin is unthinkable.
When it comes to sin, there is no sense wallowing in self-pity or self-misery. That can just become an excuse to keep on sinning. We are all sinners. We can’t achieve goodness fully on our own, which means we can’t become holy on our own. Our sinfulness is a result of our fallen humanity that only the grace of God can mend.
But then something remarkable happens. When the cock crowed, the Lord turned and looked at Peter. Can you imagine the look from Jesus and how Peter must have felt? This was probably not a look of condemnation or disappointment, but rather of love and compassion. And Peter remembered the word that Jesus had spoken: “Before the cock crows today, you will deny me three times.” And then Peter went out and wept bitterly. But this was not despair. He had clearly denied Jesus before others. And when he realizes what he has done, he repents, trusting in the Lord’s forgiveness.
There is something about “The Word” of Jesus that does something in his heart that he couldn’t do by himself. It heals something in him that he couldn’t heal by himself. It makes him understand his own weakness and his own sinfulness in a way that he never would have understood on his own. So Christ allows Peter to fall, precisely in order to raise him up. And he does the same with us.
It is the Word of Christ that convicts us. The Word that is proclaimed, the Word that is heard, and the Word that is lived out in our daily lives that transforms us; that allows us to turn from a life of sin to a life of discipleship, and moves us from a love of self to a love of Christ
This story of Peter should remind us that we are all vulnerable to sin. No matter how much we might say “I will never deny you,” too often we give in to temptation, to peer pressure, to our own pride. But this story should also encourage us. Peter’s tears of repentance stand in sharp contrast to the despair of Judas, which we hear about later in the story of the Passion.
Given the choice between repentance and despair, choose repentance.