Resonding with mercy

Imagine a different scenario playing out after the death of Jesus. Peter has denied knowing him; he realises what he has done, leaves and weeps. He then returns to the other disciples, as I assume he did at some point, as he was found with them on the Sunday morning. If he told them what had happened, presumably they accepted him back. But what if they had not? What if they reacted to Peter’s tale of denial with scorn and contempt? What if they turned their backs on him, excluding him for his weakness? What if they had spent that time when Peter was in the High Priest’s courtyard confirming that their own behaviour was acceptable – and therefore turned all their feelings of shame and sorrow onto Peter, scapegoating him for the failure of all? What if, after all that time with Jesus, they had learnt nothing of love and forgiveness and treated Peter’s confession with judgement and condemnation? How dare he come back here after behaving in that way? What a terrible thing to have done, especially given Jesus’ own warnings to Peter! Now the head honcho gets his comeuppance – not so much of the main disciple now! I wonder what would have happened? How Peter would have managed during the subsequent hours, not only with his own memories of denial, but now of being excluded from the company of those with whom he had spent so much time, who should have been there to support him. Or, maybe, what would have happened if, after that denial, instead of crying, Peter had justified himself. Of course he could not acknowledge knowing Jesus – he had to save himself for whatever came after. How could anyone expect him to behave differently? He would not help Jesus by dying alongside him. Or if, overcome with shame, he had isolated himself from the other disciples. What would the history of the Church have been?

Of course, it did not happen that way and, in any case, Jesus is more than capable of setting things straight. With the exception of those the gospels place at the crucifixion, we do not know exactly what took place among the disciples in between Peter’s denial and Jesus’ resurrection. But we do know that they were together, and therefore we can assume that they did not turn on each other, although that is only an assumption. We do not know if Peter confessed his denials to the others immediately, or if they discovered that later on. But, given the place of that incident in all four gospels, it may well have been something he shared early on. One can imagine him returning to the others, heartbroken, to find them also in distress, and only too aware of their own failure when they deserted Jesus. Hopefully, they comforted each other. Maybe Peter’s tears had been healing, and he was able to strengthen the others, as Jesus had asked him to (Luke 22:31-2). Ultimately, Peter’s faith did not fail, and he was there, waiting, when Jesus appeared to the disciples after his resurrection. His first response, on being told while fishing that it is Jesus on the shore, is to jump out and go to him (see John 21:7). Peter is still following his Lord and his faith meant he was there when Jesus commissioned him to feed his sheep (John 21:15-19).

But I wonder how many of us react in the same way to the failings and stumblings of our fellow disciples? How many of us have faith enough to see through our own wrongs and the wrongs done by others to the love and mercy of God? How many of us are so focused on Jesus that our first reaction would be to run to him, untroubled by unfinished business as Peter was? How many of us truly realise the impact of our own sin, and the depths of God’s mercy towards us? and how many of us cover up our own infamy, and focus more on those of others? I am reminded of the log in our eye, that we do not notice, so focused are we on removing the speck from the eye of those around us (Matthew 7:1-5). Of course, it is likely that our neighbours have their own logs, but that is not our responsibility.

I am not talking about discipline here, nor am I talking about those wrongdoings which need disciplining. The history of the church in recent times has shown us that this is something we need to get right. Where there are victims, there needs to be a proper response, and a church needs leaders who can deal with that. There is behaviour which is wrong, and does need to be addressed. But I am talking about the failings we each have, the irritating characteristics, the times we all fail or when our behaviour does not match up. How do we respond in those times? Do we respond with the love and mercy that God shows each of us, or do we react with judgement and condemnation, driving our neighbour further away rather than uniting the body of Christ, as we could? We will always get this wrong; we do, after all, belong to a church of sinners. But we can pray that we will always be ready to turn again, to return to God and that, having done so, we may, like Peter, be able to strengthen our neighbour. Bear in mind that I am not saying Peter and the disciples did nothing wrong, merely that they seem to have understood and forgiven each other, rather than turning on each other, condemning and tearing each other to pieces. That response put them in the same place: waiting, even if they did not realise it, for Jesus’ resurrection. Only as we respond to our neighbour in full awareness of our own frailty, and how much mercy we ourselves have received from God, can we truly help remove the speck that is in our neighbour’s eye. It is then that we can be there, ready and waiting for Jesus.

There will be no blog next week.