Shadow and Light: Judas and Peter
If there’s one thing you notice when reading the Bible is that it doesn’t hold back. It fully reveals God’s wrath and God’s love. God wasn’t afraid to have people put to death on a wide scale basis. He also didn’t hold back on His wrath on His Son; which the Bible describes in great detail. It also fully reveals man’s sin; and there are some really striking examples of sinful behavior in the Bible. One of the more shocking things is that some of this sinful behavior is done by those who are supposed to be God’s people. We are well familiar with Abraham’s adultery, Cain’s murder, and David’s murder and adultery. The Old Testament is full of rebellion and sin.
When unbelievers read how some of the patriarchs behaved, they love to ridicule this and make fun of the stories. The temptation of believers is to hide these stories under the rug or to be embarrassed of them. Don’t discuss them in Sunday School. Make everything sound more palatable. Yet sin is sin; disgusting as it may be.
For the Christian, we really ought not to shy away from these stories. They reveal who we are or what we could do. They also reveal how gracious God is in His mercy. Today we look at two sinners sin. We look at two disciples sin. Their names are Judas and Peter. This should not surprise us. Sin is what sinners do. Yet some sins do stand out; and these ones definitely fit the bill. The two disciples respond to their sins in different ways. One in darkness, the other in light.
I. The shadow of Judas
Matthew 27:5 So Judas threw the money into the temple and left. Then he went away and hanged himself.
We all know that Judas betrayed Jesus for 30 pieces of silver. The Bible clearly details that his demise was partly due to the fact that he was full of greed. Some speculate that he may have also been disheartened by the way Jesus didn’t become more active in politics or do more to overthrow the religious establishment. Tonight I’m not going to talk about all of what caused him to get there. I’m going to talk about what he did AFTER the betrayal.
In some sense it would appear that Judas did many things right after he sinned. Matthew 27:3-4 says, “When Judas, who had betrayed him, saw that Jesus was condemned, he was seized with remorse and returned the thirty silver coins to the chief priests and the elders. “I have sinned,” he said, “for I have betrayed innocent blood.” “What is that to us?” they replied. “That’s your responsibility.” The Bible says that Judas was “seized with remorse.” I was curious about that word. Was it a genuine word for repentance, or was it only an empty going through of the ritual. It isn’t the same word as “repent”, but from all I could tell it indicates an actual heart felt sorrow over what you’ve done. The other usages of the word never indicated a feigned or fake repentance.
Why was he sorry? He hadn’t been “caught” and forced to confess, so it couldn’t have been a mere sorrow over getting caught. Listen also to what he says. “I have sinned,” he said, “for I have betrayed innocent blood.” This is true. He didn’t just say “I might have made a slight error in judgment.” He didn’t excuse himself with a lie by saying, “I think you might have the wrong guy.” He said, “I have sinned.” These are not the words of someone who doesn’t know God. These are the kind of words that believers use. “Sin” is a dirty word in our society. People don’t like to use it. They prefer “mistake” or “error” or “misunderstanding.” But Judas says it and confesses it. “I have sinned.” This word indicates a relationship with God; a responsibility towards God; and a breaking of His almighty law. Sin is not just a mistake that two humans have, where one mistakenly hurts another person. Sin is first and foremost a sin against God who sees what you’re saying and doing.
Think of the words of David in Psalm 51:4, “Against you, you only, have I sinned and done what is evil in your sight, so that you are proved right when you speak and justified when you judge.” These words sound so foreign to even many Christians. We are so programmed by our society to think that nothing could be a sin when it is done by “two consenting adults” who are “not hurting anybody.” Such a thought process completely leaves God out of the picture, as if He didn’t even exist or at least didn’t really matter.
Judas realized what he had done. He seemed to fully realize it. Notice how he refers to Jesus as “innocent blood.” Isn’t that an interesting term in itself? He doesn’t say an innocent “man” but innocent “blood.” Out of all of the different physical things that God gives us, head, heart, mind, it is the “blood” that God emphasized throughout the Old Testament -
Leviticus 17:11-12 The life of a creature is in the blood, and I have given it to you to make atonement for yourselves on the altar; it is the blood that makes atonement for one’s life. Therefore I say to the Israelites, “None of you may eat blood, nor may an alien living among you eat blood.”
So Judas said that he betrayed INNOCENT blood, blood that was going to be shed as a sacrifice. The guilt he felt was because Jesus was innocent. He had done nothing wrong, but Jesus was going to be butchered like a sacrifice. Yet Judas treated Jesus as no more than a paycheck; someone he could earn 30 pieces of silver with.
Could he have said more? Should he have said more? He did call Jesus “innocent.” That’s quite a statement in itself. Jesus Himself said that none of them could find Him guilty of any sin. Even at Jesus’ trial they couldn’t agree on anything He had really done “wrong.” None of us could call ourselves “innocent” in the most pure sense of the term. Yet Judas could have said more. He could have said, “I have betrayed the MESSIAH” or “the Son of God.” He didn’t go that far.
Getting back to the original thought, Judas did some seemingly good things. He confessed his sin. He professed Jesus to be innocent. The problem comes, first of all, in WHOM he went to in order to confess his sins. He went to the chief priests and the elders. They had shown no faith in Jesus. They had proven themselves to be full of anger and hatred; the last place Judas would find forgiveness; though they should have been the ones to go to. In the end, Judas went to the law to try and forgiveness; and he found none of it. They told him, “Get out of here! That’s none of our business. That’s your problem.” They left Judas to wallow in his guilt and his sin. They wanted nothing of his confession. If they had absolved him, they would have had to condemn themselves as well.
There are many religious people in this world; many people that actually do have a strong sense of guilt and sin. When they take their sins seriously and actually despair of what they’ve done, they go to their religious leaders for help. What do their leaders do? If they are under the law, they point them to what they can do to make up for their wrong. Or, perhaps, they don’t take the law so seriously; tell them “Don’t worry about it. It’s not that big of a deal.” So in a sense they say to them, “Get out of here. That’s your problem. Figure it out yourself.”
I know of a man who killed people at Heartbreak Ridge. He had to leave some men behind. His mother, who was a Catholic, called him a murderer. No matter what he did, he was stigmatized by her as a murderer. He also felt guilty over his leaving men behind. The man tried to do things that would make his mother change her mind about him; but she wouldn’t do it. No matter how hard he worked or how hard he tried; she thought he had committed an unforgivable sin of murder. He drank very much and worked very hard to try and relieve himself of that pain. It didn’t work. She wouldn’t forgive him. That’s what the law does to people.
That’s what the law did to Judas. It offered him no condolence. It chewed him up and spit him out. In a fit of despair, he felt he had no where else to turn. Too proud or embarrassed to even try to go back to his brothers, he would have felt like a man without a home. He then decided to do the worst thing he could do. He gave up on God. After all of what Jesus preached on forgiveness, He decided that his sin was too great for God’s forgiveness. He decided that all of Jesus’ words of mercy and forgiveness were lies. He felt that he had gone too far for God to bring him back. He went away and hanged himself. This is the dark side of the story. Someone who sinned greatly, sinned even more after the fact. Though he said many right things, he still did the wrong thing. He went down the shadow of death and despair and never lived to tell about it. He ended up in hell.
II. The light of Peter
Luke 22:62 And he went outside and wept bitterly.
Now let’s shift our attention to Peter. Again, I will assume that you know how Peter ended up on the outskirts of Jerusalem with eyes full of tears. Three times he denied that he knew Jesus in the courtyard; just as Jesus predicted he would; and just as Peter denied that he would do. Both Judas’ and Peter’s sins were predicted. Both fulfilled their predictions, deny them as they might. Judas sinned willfully and greedily, while Peter sinned weakly. There is a difference there. Yet the difference we look at tonight is in their reactions.
Peter went outside and wept bitterly. He didn’t weep a little bit. He didn’t moan on the inside with soft and stifled groans. He wept “bitterly.” That word means “harshly.” He wept in a way that was almost violent; a very physical and emotional outburst. He wanted to explode. Have you ever done this?
Peter went outside to do this. You see, he wasn’t mourning to put on a show like the Phelps put on their displays. He wasn’t looking for sympathy. He was looking for solitude. He didn’t want anyone to see him. He wanted to burst out in the most private place he could find. He wanted to bury himself in the deepest and darkest hole he could find. He was filled with shame and grief. This reminds me of how people will feel on Judgment Day. Jesus said on Judgment Day that unbelievers “will say to the mountains, “Fall on us!” and to the hills, “Cover us!”’ (Luke 23:30) This is the way you feel when you remember something really foolish that you did; or worse when someone brings it up to you. You want to go to the farthest and most remote corner of the earth where no one will know who you are or care who you are. That’s where Peter went; to an outside place; to a dark place; to a lonely place.
Peter mourned. “Blessed are those who mourn,” Jesus once said. It is not sheer mourning that makes us blessed. People cry for all types of reasons. They cry because their team loses. They cry because they stub their toe. They cry because their parents make them turn off their video game or because their children don’t let them drive any more. The mourning that is truly blessed is the mourning of repentance; of sorrow over sin. Peter wept bitterly because of his sin. The Bible doesn’t mention any tears from Judas. But that doesn’t necessarily make Peter’s repentance any better either.
There was a man on the side of the street in India who would whip himself in order to get sympathy and offerings from people. This is what Martin Luther was somewhat taught within Catholicism. This is how he was trained to deal with sin. Whip and beat yourself in order to get attention and sympathy from God. It’s the same kind of mind set that comes about in someone who does something wrong and then thinks to himself, “Ok, fine. I’ll say ‘I’m sorry.’ Are you happy now?” As if the act of saying you’re sorry is what does it and pays for it; makes it all better. Peter didn’t go outside to go through the motions. I don’t believe he was trying to earn anything from God either. He was just going outside to weep over his sins. That’s fine and good.
Was there anything more that Peter could have done? Jesus also said, “Settle matter quickly with your adversary who is taking you to court. Do it while you are still with him on the way.” Peter couldn’t do that. Jesus was hanging on a cross and dying. His brothers were all scattered. Only John is reported to have returned, and that might have been because of a special status or connection he seems to have had with the high priest. So Peter had no one to turn to. He was afraid and scared. All he could do was to run outside all alone. And I wonder, did he totter on the brink of a cliff? Did he too consider ending his life while he was all alone? Would he have at least said to himself, “I wish I were dead! I curse the day I was born!” Only heaven knows.
The ultimate question is, “Did Peter do anything more noble than Judas by running outside instead of running to the chief priests and elders?” Is he to be praised for his better response to his sin? What we might praise in Peter is in what he DIDN’T do. He didn’t do anything rash. He didn’t commit suicide. He didn’t stay out in the darkness. He returned to his brothers after he wept. He continued to live.
Sometimes that is the most noble thing we can do; the most bold thing we can do; is just continue to live and not give up. So many people commit suicide today; so many more than ever before. If only they had waited. Others opt for a slower death by drugs. They die mentally and spiritually by drowning in a drug. If only they had just given it time! They would have realized that their problems were not the end of the world. Judas never lived to see Jesus live. Peter, if nothing else, did not take his life in his hands. Sometimes, doing nothing takes great faith in itself; to somehow believe that God is still with you; even after your rejection. When you cry to yourself in your sin and convince yourself that God could never love you; just wait and see. So it’s a rather interesting thing if you think about it. The greatest light we can shine on Peter, in opposition to Judas, was over the fact that he did nothing! Isn’t this typical? The greatest and most noble thing we can do is nothing but to sit and wait.
While Peter was doing nothing, Jesus was doing everything. He was suffering and dying for Peter’s sins. The Light then came to Peter three days later when Jesus appeared to him. It proved that Jesus really was the Messiah. It proved to Peter that his sins really were forgiven. His terrible sin of rejection was paid for. He may have been ashamed to look at Jesus, but Jesus wasn’t ashamed to look at him. Jesus still loved him. Jesus still commissioned him. Peter’s faith was strengthened more than ever when he was assured that Jesus died for him too. Even though the story of his rejection would be written in the annals of history for the rest of the earth’s age, Peter was enlightened to know that his well known sin would be forgotten for him at his death and also forgiven for him in eternity. He had reason and hope to continue living.
Sinners do sinful things. Sinners do shameful things, things that make them want to run away into the desert and die. Those who live in the dark feel so much shame and grief that they decide to end their lives. They feel they’d be better off dead. Sometimes they follow through with it. They tell God, “You can’t love me enough.” That’s what Judas did in the darkness of his despair. He gave up on God’s mercy, and so ended up in the darkness of hell.
Believers do sinful things too; shameful things; things they shouldn’t do; things they know better not to do. Believers also run out into the desert and wish things they did could be forgotten. Like Abraham and David we too mess up; sometimes very badly. Sometimes we have to suffer because of the sins of those we love. The best we can do in the darkness of despair is to just keep on living and make it through the night; on the outside; alone. Remember that Jesus experienced the most lonely place of all on the cross to die for the sins of the world; for your sins. Remember also that Jesus once lived in a desert. Even when you think you’re alone, you’re not. Jesus appeared to Peter. Jesus, the almighty and eternal God, is with you always. His death was for you, and His resurrection was for you as well. Sometimes the best advice we can have is to do nothing. Wait for the Light to come. He has already come once, He is already here, and He is coming again. Amen.
