Mark 13, 14

January 19, 2011

Mark 13, 14

Not really Peter's finest hour, but not his worst either.
Jesus shares the Passover with his disciples and then tells them that they will all desert him.  Peter is quick to disagree, vowing that even if the rest of the disciples cut and run, he, Peter, will remain strong.  Then he falls asleep, literally.  Jesus takes Peter, James and John (which would probably be the winning answer in Family Feud if the question was "Disciples of Jesus Christ, top three answers on the board...") off to Gethesemane.  Jesus is "distressed and agitated".  He tells them to keep vigil with him then goes off to pray.  And they fall asleep.  The keep repeating this cycle until Judas comes to help with Jesus' arrest.  Ouch.  Skip to later and Peter is denying Jesus, just like Jesus said he would.
In Peter's defense, he did have the courage to put himself in the position to deny Jesus in the first place.  The other eleven were all long gone by the time it got to the courtyard outside of where the trial was going on.  We focus on the denial, but overlook the fact that Peter showed uncommon courage to follow Jesus that closely that far along.  It's not perfect, but it's worth considering, in part because perfection wasn't something Peter was going to accomplish and it's not something we are going to accomplish.  We can so easily dwell on our sins and failures that we begin to imagine that there is nothing we can get right.  That's not so.  God had big plans for Peter and God has important work for us to do as well.