Grace and failure

Matthew 27: 3-5; Luke 22: 61

Judas is forever remembered as the one who betrayed Jesus. His sin was certainly an awful one. The Gospel writers are blunt in their assessment of "the one who became a traitor". In the end he found that he could not live with the consequences of his own actions. He could not face the pain of being identified for the rest of his life with an action he wanted to erase from his memory and his history. And he could see no way out except the desperation of suicide. He could not accept that there is grace even in failure.

Although Judas betrayed Jesus, he was not the only one to abandon Jesus or let him down in the events of that night. All the disciples fled in fear from the scene of Jesus' arrest. Even Peter, the one who had sworn openly that he would die for Jesus, found his resolve crumbling and denied his Master three times.

But Peter was reconciled with his dear Master. He found grace in his failure. "The Lord turned and looked straight at Peter" (Luke 22: 61). He saw Jesus' look and remembered the word he had spoken to him. And Peter wept bitterly, full of remorse but also full of hope for he had finally been released from the bondage of his self-confidence. The real Peter was exposed. No more illusions about the Peter he had tried to be.....Peter the strong, the man of integrity, the faithful friend, superior to the other disciples...The Lord's look penetrated the facade...and Peter received grace in the depths of his failure.

I too "failed" the Lord in my early years as a Christian. I made choices that did not honor him...and there was a time when I did not even know whether I was still a Christian. I could not face the truth about myself....let alone hope that the Lord would accept me. The journey took a turn when I came to the end of my illusions....when I finally faced the truth about myself. And yes, even more than that, I allowed myself to look at the face of my loving Lord and gaze into his forgiving eyes. I wept bitterly, in repentance, my life graced again with hope.

Being a follower of Jesus is a very relational matter. Our faith is a genuine revelation of God in and through his relationship with us...not merely a communication of objective doctrine. It is a knowledge of God through love...as we experience God in an intimately personal way. This love is not the fuzzy sentimentalism that defines love in our world. It is a love as strong as death, that will cleanse and purify as much as comfort and console. Perhaps Holy Week is a time to look into the eyes of our Lord and to deeply experience his purifying yet forgiving gaze.