Blood Brothers

   Are Peter and I brothers? Are we cut from the same cloth?

   Peter was in the Garden with Jesus and the other disciples when the temple guard came to arrest Him. Most of the others scattered when Jesus was hauled off to the high priest, but it looks like two of them followed along with the crowd.

   Peter's denial of even knowing Jesus is well known. Three times he said he did not know Him, and then remembered what Jesus had foretold and went out and wept because of his shame over his refusal to acknowledge his Master. Peter, who had tried to defend Jesus against arrest with his sword, and who had at least the courage to follow the crowd into the courtyard of the high priest, then caved under the questions of the servant girl and the soldiers.

   This same Peter who had seen the miracles of Jesus, the healings, the feeding of the masses, and who had heard His words for the whole ministry time; the disciple who had told Jesus that he and the other eleven could not go away like the crowd because only Jesus had the words of life, ran for cover.

   Next month I have a talk to make at Kairos, to the men in Ware State Prison, in which I talk about choices. Choices that have been made in the past, choices that need to be made in the present, and the consequences of the present ones on the future. All of the men that I will speak to on that day have made choices that landed them in that incarcerated spot. Bad choices have bad consequences, and we all reap rewards for the bad ones we each have made.

   But the message of the talk, and the message that comes from the story of Peter's denial of Christ, is one of the possibility of forgiveness and a new beginning. Peter repented, sorrowfully, and was restored by Jesus after the resurrection, no doubt after many hours of misery and shame and uncertainty.

   In the talk, a statistic is given that those of us on the outside of the prison walls have about 225 choices to make in a given day. Some are simple like what kind of cereal to have for breakfast, but some may be profound like a denial of Jesus. Will I notice them when them come, and then how will I choose to respond.

   I realize that I can be forgiven for bad choices, if I truly repent of them, but would it not be so much better to make the right ones in the first place?

  Peter and I-----blood brothers.

  Yep