Peter gets a bad rap. You know…Peter…the one who denied Jesus 3 times on the night he was crucified. People love to talk about Peter whimping out on Jesus, his friend and teacher, when Jesus needed him most. This is true. However, remember how Peter regretted it and remember that Peter became one of the most influential persons in the Bible ever! God will still use us even when we fail him.
I began to think about Peter the other night and wondered how he felt day in and day out living with that regret. Knowing that what Jesus had predicted came to pass as that rooster crowed a third time. I like to put myself in a Bible story when I read it; it helps me to grasp it. I can see Jesus in the hands of the religious people…I can see Peter telling a person “no! I don’t know who He is and I have never followed him!” About that time….in the distance….a rooster crows. This is the third crow Peter has heard in just a few hours. He turns, looks at Jesus and realizes…the prophecy has come to pass. Jesus looks at him… not with judgment or anger. No, he looks at Peter with love. He looks at Peter with forgiveness. He looks at Peter because he knows how it feels to be human. He knows the temptation, the fear, the doubt, and the hurt of being human. And he understands. He wasn’t mad at Peter. On the contrary, he knew that now…now that Peter had fallen…now Peter would be used beyond all comprehension. Even Peter could not fathom how he would be used in the kingdom of God. You see, in the words of Kay Warren, that “Kingdom of Me” must fall. That pride and that self preservation that we have.
Jesus doesn’t get mad at us. He doesn’t hold our failures against us. So…why do we do that to ourselves? When Jesus forgives, He forgives. Why do we beat ourselves up? I wonder if Peter lived with that regret every day for the rest of his life. I can imagine he did. But, he let that regret and that determination to never let God down again drive him to becoming a great man of God. Can we do this? Can we let our failures go? If we can’t let them go…can we let them drive us to not make the same mistake again? Can we allow them to mold us into the person we are called to be?
I don’t want to give Peter a bad rap anymore. I think Peter did pretty good myself. Ok…he made a mistake. Ok…he made a really big mistake. But…so have you and so have I. We all make mistakes…we all have regrets. We are human. Jesus understands that because he was too.
