The rooster still crows

What reminds you of your sin? Do you have guilt still? Do you ever wonder how God could possibly forgive you for what you've done, and sometimes continue to do?

The good news is you are Peter material.

I want you, this Good Friday, to think of the man who was possibly closer to Jesus than anyone, with the exception perhaps of John.

The Bible says: "Then seizing him, they led him away and took him into the house of the high priest. Peter followed at a distance. 55 And when some there had kindled a fire in the middle of the courtyard and had sat down together, Peter sat down with them. 56 A servant girl saw him seated there in the firelight. She looked closely at him and said, “This man was with him.” 57 But he denied it. “Woman, I don’t know him,” he said.  A little later someone else saw him and said, “You also are one of them.” Man, I am not!” Peter replied. 59 About an hour later another asserted, “Certainly this fellow was with him, for he is a Galilean.” 60 Peter replied, “Man, I don’t know what you’re talking about!” Just as he was speaking, the rooster crowed. 61 The Lord turned and looked straight at Peter. Then Peter remembered the word the Lord had spoken to him: “Before the rooster crows today, you will disown me three times.” 62 And he went outside and wept bitterly."

Do you imagine, as I do, that the rest of his life (even filled with the Holy Spirit, even crucified upside down) every morning when the rooster crowed that he remembered that night?

Plenty of us are the same way. But that's why Jesus died. Someone wrote me the other day that Jesus died because of politics.

Good grief. Politics, right or left, didn't hold those hands on the cross. No. Love did. Jesus stayed up there and died for all the Peters who fall short, who can't make it on their own, whose righteousness is counted daily, perhaps hourly, but who slip and miss and weep bitterly.

He died because he loved.

All we can do is acknowledge and move on, guilt or not.

He would have us do no less; he understands we can do no more.