Glancing Thoughts

Judas and Peter

The Gospel Reading describes the meeting between Peter and Jesus after the resurrection. In the previous recorded exchange between Peter and Jesus, when Jesus was captured and bound before his crucifixion, Peter betrayed Jesus three times. 

In his betrayal of Jesus, Peter is no different from Judas. But Peter is the rock on which Jesus founded his church, and Judas is the villain of the Christian story. How does Peter differ from Judas?

You might suppose that the difference lies in the fact that Peter repented his betrayal of Jesus and Judas didn’t. But the Gospel of Matthew says that Judas confessed his sin and repented. (Mt 27:3-4)  So then what exactly is the difference between Judas and Peter? 

The answer is shown beautifully in this Gospel Reading.

If you had been writing the story of this meeting between Peter and Jesus after the resurrection, what would you have had Jesus say to Peter? Maybe something like this? Jesus: “Peter, you know, don’t you, that I love you anyway, even though you betrayed me. Nothing you do, however sinful, can stop my love for you, which is boundless.” Peter: “Yes, Lord, and I am so grateful that you can somehow still love me, when I am as much a traitor as Judas was.”

But that is not at all the way the Gospel Reading goes. What Jesus actually asks Peter—and asks him three times—is this: “Peter, do you love me?”  

If you had been in Peter’s shoes, what would you have said? Maybe something like this? Peter:“Lord, I don’t know what to say. You know that I want to love you, or else maybe I should say that I want to want to love you. I don’t know, I don’t know. What I did is so terrible! How could I have the shamelessness to say I love you after what I did?”

But what Peter actually says is “Yes, Lord, I do love you” —and he says it three times, once for each betrayal of his.

Finding himself sinful, Judas killed himself. Finding himself similarly sinful, Peter cleaved to Christ. Peter let nothing, not even his own sins, introduce any distance between him and the Lord he loved. And that is the difference between Peter and Judas. 

That is why Peter is the rock on which the church is founded.

Eleonore Stump

**From Saint Louis University