We're thinking this week about some of the people who met Jesus during the last week

of his life. Some of them, like Judas, had known him for a few years. He was the apostle

who betrayed him, you remember. Today I want to think about someone else who had probably

known him even longer, Simon Peter. It's interesting that in Matthew's gospel the

verb betrayed is used in connection with Judas Isaac, I think about 14 different times.

But the verb deny is used in connection with Simon Peter only, I think, twice. Once

when Peter says he'd die before denying Jesus, and once when Jesus tells him he will deny

him three times by Cockrole. I say it's interesting because if you'd been walking the streets

of Jerusalem after Jesus' arrest and trial, you might well have encountered two very distraught

apostles full of self-recrimination. We're told that Judas regretted what he had done,

and we're told that after Simon Peter had denied Jesus, he went out and wept bitterly.

So here's a question. If you'd encountered both these men, would you've been able to

tell that one of them would take his life and despair while the other would be saved?

Put it another way. Is the difference between denying Jesus and betraying Jesus a difference

in magnitude or a difference in kind? Or put it yet another way? How come Peter denied

Jesus and yet was saved? Whereas Judas betrayed Jesus and was damned. I said yesterday

there was a mystery to Judas' sin. We're told that Satan's hand was instrumental in

what happened. But Satan was also involved in Peter's sin. Jesus told him that Satan

had demanded two of Peter to sift him like wheat. Yet in some ways Peter's failure was

much more straightforward, wasn't it? He crumbled before a servant girl. The stakes were

high. He must have been afraid that if he confessed he was a disciple of Jesus, he might

suffer the same fate that Jesus was suffering. He didn't have deep-seated, complex motivation

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