Heads turned as uncontrollable, soul-wrenching anguish poured out of the hunched-over man. Many shied away from this overt display of emotion, some watched silently, and some chose to ignore the situation, pretending it didn’t exist. No one knew what had happened, but they could plainly see the results.
The man pressed balled fists against his eyes, struggling with the hopeless despair that overwhelmed him. It was only a few hours ago that he was supremely confident, standing as firm as a rock. He assured the Messiah that he would never renounce him or forsake him, and he felt more than a little angry when he was told with quiet assurance that he would.
“How could this happen,” Peter asked himself. “How could I give in so easily? Why did I run away so quickly? I am a failure, a traitor to the cause of the Christ! I have no future and no hope. I know that God can never use me again after I deserted His son.” The mere thought of his ruined relationship with God engulfed him in hopeless despair and the uncontrollable sobbing shook his body once again.
Have you ever felt that way? I know I have. I’ve been supremely confident, standing firm as a rock assuring God that I would never waiver, that I would never forsake him. In the end, I’d fail to keep that promise and find myself lying hopelessly in a broken heap. Have you ever been there? As you lie in that broken heap, have you felt engulfed in hopeless despair because you know that you are now worthless? Have you wondered if God could ever forgive you enough to accept you back into His loving arms? Are you keeping your failure a secret from counselors, Christian friends, pastors, and family members? Do you believe no one could understand those deep inner feelings of shame, hopelessness and despair?
I understand because I have felt the same thing. My secret failure bound me with guilt, hopelessness, and despair. My freedom came through a church that accepted me and loved me despite my failure. They taught me that one of Jesus’s own disciples failed Him and, in shame and guilt, returned to the life he was living before Jesus called him as a disciple.
Peter believed he had failed Jesus at a crucial moment. The guilt and shame he experienced shattered his life and he ran from God. We know this because, up to the point of his failure, Peter is loud and boastful. As John MacArthur put it in his book, Twelve Ordinary Men, Peter had “a foot-shaped mouth.” After his failure, we see Peter with the other disciples, but there is no record of him speaking. He stayed in the background. He obeyed Jesus’s last command and went to Galilee, but instead of spreading the Gospel, he went back to his old way of life.
Yet Jesus, in His infinite love and mercy, met him at the point of his guilt and shame and restored him. You see, after Peter denied Jesus at a charcoal fire (John 18:18) and ran away, Jesus came to him and met him at another charcoal fire and restored him (John 21). Peter believed he deserved condemnation for his failure. Jesus believed Peter needed His love, mercy, and grace. Jesus’s actions tell us that when we blow it, when we fail and end up in that hopeless heap, He does not see us as worthless. None of us are perfect; all of us blow it and fail from time to time. When we fail, let’s make a commitment to be honest with Jesus about our failure, and then accept, in the depth of our inner self, the same love, mercy, and restoration He gave to Peter. Jesus is waiting for us with His arms wide open.