I sometimes walk into the grocery store and tell myself that I'm only going to guy the things I need, and then I walk out with some obscure thing that I rarely buy but looked good and I was hungry and so I threw it in the cart without thinking and I end up telling myself that I'll do better next time.
For this reason alone, and so many others, this story is such a wondrous inclusion in the Gospel.
Take a step back and think for a moment -- Peter was the one who was charged to lead the church after the ascension of Jesus. Now, Peter could easily have killed this story, and everyone would have went along with it, because who wants the leader of the church to look bad? Or later on, the Catholic Church could've found a way to bury this story. But they didn't.
Why?
Because it's so accessible. For all the different stories in the Bible where we read them and think to ourselves that we could never do that or be that... here we are, looking at the leader of the church, who bravely told Jesus that he would die at the side of Jesus before he ever let him down, and as soon as he's confronted by a servant girl, he denies even knowing the very man who he has followed for the past 3 years, such is Peter's fear and desire to save his own skin.
I can relate to this.
You can probably find a way to relate to this.
This is the same Peter who, when he meets Jesus on the shores of the lake after the resurrection, will be embraced by Jesus and charged with leading the church. This Peter, the one who fails, has a big role to play.
So do you. Even when you fail. There is a place for you in the church and in the lives of others. We forth to feed Christ's sheep, to tend to his beloved. Just like Peter.
No comments:
Post a Comment