Beauty on the trails...Matthew 26:69-75...Peter's Path

The mountains are coming alive with color.  Here is a quartet of columbine.  The splash of color signifies new life after the season of snow.  The whiteness is replaced by all the colors of the rainbow.  The ultimate "whiteness" is Jesus as without sin and what comes from His sacrificial season here are those of us of different colors and from different places blossoming from the forgiveness of our sins and putting on a show for His glory.  There is my metaphor for the day.

We finished up chapter 26 of Matthew with a deep look at the denials of Peter.  The denials are actually lies and somehow that makes it more serious in my eyes.  These lies of Peter progress in intensity.  First, it is deflection back onto the servant girl that she is the crazy one to bring this up.  Second is Peter making physical distance and finding the shadows of the gateway.  Third, Peter vows with an oath upon himself that he doesn't know the man Jesus.  This puts some relational distance between him and the One he proclaimed earlier as, "You are the Christ, the Son of the living God."  Fourth, Peter now curses and swears and invokes the name of God into the equation.  It is if he had said, "Before God Almighty and as God as my witness, I do not know this man!"  This is flying in the face of all the front row seats that Peter occupied when Jesus did miracle after miracle and teaching after teaching.  Fifth comes the rooster crow and Peter remembering the very words Jesus had said and Luke tells us that Jesus and Peter make eye contact at this moment.  Peter needed to get alone and the scriptures say that he wept bitterly.

We can do what Peter has done.  We can deflect a comment about our connection with Jesus and change the subject to something else.  We can make some physical distance so we don't have to stand for Jesus.  We can disassociate with Jesus and make some relational distance when questioned about our faith and the powerful claims of Jesus.  It is easier to soften His words rather than stand upon them.  We can discredit Jesus by making His sacrifice less than it was.  We downplay His impact on our lives to save our face rather than showing them His face.  We can do the same when given the opportunity and that is what it is, an opportunity to share Christ or to shove Jesus under the bus.

I think this is a huge set up for Matthew to help us to compare the actions of Peter and the actions of Judas in the next passage.  Peter shows us a follower of Jesus Christ falling and what was the proper response to this event.  First, Peter remembers the words of Jesus.  He had been rejecting those words.  He was self-confident over the words of Jesus about all of them being made to stumble.  He was sleepy over the words of Jesus in the garden to watch and pray.  He was swordy to solve the situation with the cutting off of the servant of the high priest's right ear and Jesus scolding him for it.  He was scattered with the rest of them.  He was following at a distance to see what might happen.  He was sitting and listening to the scoffers who were in the mob to get Jesus.  He was more concerned about himself than the One who first called him from his fishing boat to "Follow Me."  

Second, Peter wept bitterly.  It was more than he just messed up.  It was more than the advice to pick yourself back up by your bootstraps or get back on the bicycle after you have fallen.  Peter broke down and was probably unconsolable.  His sorrow was very visible that he was cut to the core by what he had done and what level on which he did it.  I keep going back to the Luke's account were Jesus told him how this was all going down.  Satan had come to Jesus to ask permission to come after Peter; Jesus was praying for him; Jesus told him that he would falter and then told him he would get back up again; and finally Jesus told him that when he got back on his feet that he was to strengthen the brethren who would have felt that they had betrayed Jesus also.  

The weeping shows the remorse and the remembering of Jesus' words shows the repentance to turn again in submission to the footprints of Jesus.  Both are necessary for true repentance.  There needs to be remorse and there needs to be remembering so that you get back on the right track.  This is a great backdrop to this Sunday's passage on Judas.

Adam