Peter

The hardest thing about being home from college is the things I see in myself that I don't want to see. My irritation, impatience, indirect attacks, judgment that all comes out. C.S. Lewis said that if we find rats in the cellar when we turn the light on really quickly, the rats don't appear because of the light, they just usually go unnoticed. He says our sin is the same way. If I am irritated or rude or whatever with my family, it is not their presence that creates that in me. Its natural, just usually suppressed when I am in a different environment. I desperately want to grow in Christ. Which I should. But I cannot see growth as anything but closeness to him and therefore an ability to watch and see what he is doing and let him do those things in me. And as soon as I am separated from him, my ability to be loving or caring or patient or selfless or obedient disappears. 

What is today? What does it mean? How do we even begin to celebrate something as lovely and crucial and precious as Christ resurrected?

I was hit so so hard today imagining the interactions Jesus had with people when he was back. The thought of this random collection of people who gave their whole lives away to this man...but then left him alone in his darkest hour. Who watched him die a thief. Who maybe were sure they had been wrong about everything and all were mocking them for following this guy who didn't turn out to be a king after all. Huddled in a room, deep in despair, and then he comes in. And how they must have felt when they first saw him. Like when your stomach swoops but you try to pretend its not true because if you really are mistaken it would be devastating. But it was true. And just the regret they must have experienced because he really did die and maybe they thought that his last thought of them would be that they did not love him enough to stand beside him. Maybe they thought they had failed him. Maybe that everything they put their hope in had dissolved. I don't know. But I can imagine. I can imagine the pain and I can imagine the victory in the eyes of the one who said I have forgiven you more than you have sinned against me and you cannot out-sin my forgiveness. I have ripped the gates of hell from their hinges and come back to tell you that the battle has been one and death has lost its sting. 

My pastor said yesterday that Jesus had a relentless desire to never abandon his children. They were primarily concerned with self preservation throughout their time with him. The first day one said "can anything good come from nazareth?" and the last day they were still sleeping when he said kept watch, still creating competition between them, still saying if you would just show us better we will be happy. And when it was made clear what was happening, they fled. But Jesus refuses to abandon his children. He came back to them, saying, death reins no more. Go and tell the whole world. If we reject him the way his closest men did, he says your sin matters enough that I would take it upon myself so we can be together forever. If we are like the thief on the cross who wasted his entire life and now, on the verge of death, wants to go to heaven, Jesus says you will be with me in paradise. 

But the thing I got choked up about was Peter. And what must have stirred in Peter when he saw Jesus again. And how he said he was going to give his life for Jesus, how he thought he loved Jesus in a way no one else did, and thinking he missed his chance. He abandoned his best friend. And how Jesus was always rebuking peter. Always calling him out. But how JEsus adored Peter. And he was hard him. But the harshness stemmed from sweet adoration. And can you imagine, seeing him making bread, saying lets have breakfast together just like before. Can you imagine that sort of reunion. Or hearing the person on the shore say lay down your nets, and the pangs the disciples must have felt remembering the first time they heard that demand and then John saying, Peter, its Him. And the flip flops peter must have felt in his stomach. 

I wish I could see Jesus's eyes after he was resurrected. Because he really did it. He really conquered death and bore the punishment and the significance of what he did is eternal. And he gets to go back to his dad but its better, a million times better, because he knew that because of what he did, his guys and his daugters are on their way. Would be with him in just a matter of moments. And all will be together. Forever. 

And I wish I could be there, see Jesus and Peter standing face to face. Jesus saying Peter, we never have to be separated again. And Jesus being able to look on Peter with deep, pure affection, proud of him. Pleased with him. Delighted in him. Not because of what Peter did. Not because he learned how to say the right things or got his act together. Peter abandoned JEsus and denied him but once Jesus conquered death, Peters denial had been paid in full and no longer existed. And to make that even more real he says to him, Do you love me? Do you love me more than these, Simon son of John? Giving him three opportunities to profess his love in an interaction just between the two of them, though he denied him three times in front of many. Showing him, that in the end, everything else will fade away, all other people and the world and we will be left face to face with Jesus, who conquered death for us with nothing left but that question 

Do you love me?

And nothing for this life except the words he said after

Follow me. 

Those same two words they heard the first time they ever saw this Jesus of nazareth, and now 3 years later they hear it again, right before he goes to the father and perhaps they know there is nothing else...