The Prodigal Brothers: Judas and Peter

Judas and Peter were with Jesus from the beginning of His ministry. Both witnessed the same miracles and learned the same teaching. Both helped feed the five-thousand, watched Jesus calm the storm, and marveled at His countless healings.

Both betrayed Him, AFTER Jesus Himself told them they would.

Yet one is searing in hell and the other is seated in heaven.

How could that have happened?

Everyone believed that when Messiah came He would free Israel from the shackles of Roman rule. But three years later, when Jesus had yet to talk about even forming an army, many gave up on Him. Judas wasn’t one of them. 

Perhaps Judas thought that by handing Jesus over to His enemies it would force Jesus to go ahead and declare war on Rome. We don’t know, but one thing is certain—it didn’t go the way Judas thought it would. When he realized it he was overcome with sorrow.

Peter, on the other hand, declared his fierce loyalty to Jesus no matter what the status of His Kingdom, even to the point of death. But just a few hours after this bold statement, Peter denied even knowing Him at all.  When Peter realized what he had done, he too was overcome with sorrow.

Judas’ and Peter’s stories share similarities with the parable of The Prodigal Son (Luke 15). 

The older brother was angry with their father for not behaving in the way he thought he should. Jesus didn’t behave the way Judas thought He should.

The older brother betrayed his father as much as the younger did.  Didn’t the older brother know his father’s heart at all?  Surely both brothers knew their father loved them deeply and was a compassionate man.  Surely both had seen their father’s good, even extravagant, treatment of his servants.  Yet one believed in his father’s love and generosity while the other wouldn’t.

While Judas was sorrowful, we don’t know that he was repentant, although Jesus did forgive him. Perhaps Judas didn’t trust Jesus’ heart in the same way the older brother didn’t trust his father’s heart. 

Peter, like the younger son, repented and gave Jesus a chance to forgive him.  Perhaps Peter felt, as the younger son did, that even if Jesus didn’t reinstate him as an Apostle, at least he could still be a follower.

Is repentance what made all the difference between where Judas and Peter are today?  I don’t know.  What I do know is that even our worst betrayal doesn’t have to be the end of our story. There is forgiveness.

God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him. (John 3:17)

Come Be a Fool

In the world of literature, there is the character of the Fool.  Think of Uncle Billy from “It’s a Wonderful Life,” C3PO in “Star Wars,” Timon and Pumbaa in “The Lion King.”  These second-banana sidekicks tend to be the comic relief, the ones who cause the Heroic Central Characters to roll their eyes and shake their heads, tolerating their friend who is not “all there.”

Christians tend to look like Fools, at least to the world.  After all, we are the ones who believe in things the world believes aren’t really there, things like Heaven and Hell, angels and demons, a Spirit that lives in our hearts.  We are the ones who, like Paul, hear Jesus’ voice while the world hears only thunder.

 

We appear foolish to the world because we have faith: faith in the existence of God the Father, Jesus the Son, and the Holy Spirit; faith that God will work all things for our good (Romans 8:28);  that he has plans to help us and not to harm us, to give us a future and a hope (Jeremiah 29:11); that he loves us so much that he sent his only begotten son, so that whoever believes in him will not perish but have eternal life (John 3:16). 

Faith, as Hebrews 11:1 says, is being…certain of what we do not see.

To the world, it looks foolish to believe in things we cannot see, but it looks downright crazy to believe that these things are MORE true, MORE real, than those we can see.  Yet that is exactly what God calls us to believe.  His ways are higher.  His love is real love.  His truth is THE truth.  We need to believe what He says over what we see, hear and feel.

This level of crazy, of faith, is what Jesus exemplified.  After all, when you start teaching about loving your enemies, treasure in Heaven and being born a second time, you’re going to see some eyes roll.  My friends, if the people of the world are not rolling their eyes at us, we are doing something wrong. 

How many eye rolls, and worse, do we think Noah got while he built the ark?   Can we imagine what the people of Jericho were shouting at the Israelites as they walked around the city?  How crazy did Gideon seem with his little band of 300 weaponless men going up against an army of 135,000 soldiers?  Even Jesus Himself was thought to be a lunatic by his own family.

But we have the Bible, and we know the rest of the story.  Noah, the Israelites, Gideon, and Jesus were not crazy.  They simply knew something no one else did.  Or rather, Someone no one else did.  They counted His promises to be truer than their circumstances, and God honored their faith. 

Literarily speaking, by the end of their stories, they had become the Heroic Central Character as well as the Fool. 

Perhaps one day, if we live out our crazy faith, our stories will show that we also are both the Hero and the Fool.