Good Friday: The Peter Condition

Peter said, "Master, I'm ready for anything with you. I'd go to jail for you. I'd die for you!"

Jesus said, "I'm sorry to have to tell you this, Peter, but before the rooster crows you will have three times denied that you know me."

[...]

Arresting Jesus, they marched him off and took him into the house of the Chief Priest. Peter followed, but at a safe distance. In the middle of the courtyard some people had started a fire and were sitting around it, trying to keep warm. One of the serving maids sitting at the fire noticed him, then took a second look and said, "This man was with him!"

He denied it, "Woman, I don't even know him."

A short time later, someone else noticed him and said, "You're one of them."

But Peter denied it: "Man, I am not."

About an hour later, someone else spoke up, really adamant: "He's got to have been with him! He's got 'Galilean' written all over him."

Peter said, "Man, I don't know what you're talking about." At that very moment, the last word hardly off his lips, a rooster crowed. Just then, the Master turned and looked at Peter. Peter remembered what the Master had said to him: "Before the rooster crows, you will deny me three times." He went out and cried and cried and cried.

- Luke 22:33-34; 54-62 (The Message version)

Sin has a way to creep on us just as how it had crept onto Peter. We don't realize the magnitude of our sin until we've committed it. Worse still, like Peter we commit the exact sin that we thought we wouldn't. And we become so ashamed of ourselves that instead of asking Him for forgiveness, we run away from the God who looks at us with mercy and love. Our God is one who believes that action speaks louder than words and by hanging on the cross, He shouts LOVE and FORGIVENESS to you and to me.