THE CURIOUS CASE OF SIMON PETER, THE SAMARITAN WOMAN AND JUDAS ISCARIOT
So much has taken place in the past few months that we have all grown accustomed to what seems to be the new normal. Every turn of the head and our eyes keep falling upon more and more of chaos. The impending doom that lies around the corner doesn’t surprise us anymore as the world descends into a state of hopelessness and a sense of urgency. It isn’t surprising anymore that the inevitability of death and the actuality of depression becomes real to us only at the death of a celebrity. It isn’t surprising anymore that strong feelings of racism and a general disorder of society have amplified in the last few months in various forms in the west and also, here in India.
As Christians it becomes difficult to decipher how exactly we must react or face these situations. Maybe we have a clear understanding of the underlying commonality among all these disruptions happening around the globe, maybe we don’t. I would like us to take a closer look at scripture and see how it can help us improve our understanding or rather a deeper look into three historic individuals – Peter, the Samaritan woman, and Judas Iscariot. Now many passages could aid us in different ways but I believe these three individuals tell us something extremely crucial. There is a considerable amount that we can know about Peter from the gospel and early church narratives as well from his letters.
We can’t claim the same level of knowledge with Judas or the Samaritan women yet there is a thin thread that connects all of these individuals on a personal level.
The two individuals that could relate extremely well would be Peter and the Samaritan woman if they ever had a chat.
Two completely different individuals one a Jew, the other a Samaritan but they both had the same underlying element piercing their hearts.
Every time we read about Peter in the gospels we see a confident and shrewd man. Peter was the personification of impulsiveness. Though a fisherman, there was something about his confidence and his self-reliance that was endearing and self-destructive at the same time. The endearing nature of his persona is seen in Matthew 16 when he boldly proclaims that Jesus was the Messiah and the son of the living God and like most good things stretched to its limit, his credence turns into pride when he exclaims in John 13:37 “ I will lay down my life for you”. The focus is going to be on Peter’s infamous denial of the Lord on three separate occasions just like Jesus predicted. Now we know the reasons why Peter inevitably falls and succumbs to the snares of the enemy.
One could say it was a conglomerate of Peter’s pride, self-reliance, and a lack of prayer that Jesus specifically warned him about. What we miss out on is focusing on the way Peter reacted after his shortcoming.
Now I’m not referring to the godly sorrow that Peter felt, unlike Judas. Although that is true, it seems to overshadow a specific emotion that acts as the key distinction between Peter and the betrayer. This is why I love Luke as he never leaves out the important details, showing why he’s a brilliant historian. In Luke’s account chapter 22: 62 he writes “So Peter went out and wept bitterly”. The question is why did Peter weep? The “so” makes it clear it was his denial of his beloved Lord that filled him with sorrow but, there is a specific emotion and perception that leads him to weep.
This intricate sensation is why Peter’s sorrow was godly and acts as the common denominator between the Samaritan woman and peter.
Before we look into this intricate sensation, let us analyze the Samaritan woman. In John 4 there is a lot we can know about her but the key detail would be that she had multiple relationships. Once again, we know what led her to this perverse state. The reason why Jesus offers himself as the living water that will never make her thirst is because just like every other human being she too was searching for satisfaction and fulfillment in her relationships and of the world.
This desperate need to quench her soul ignited her fleshly desires and pushed her into a dark place.
As with Peter, we must understand what the resulting state of her soul was after her failed attempts to fill her void with different men. If we look at the latter half john 4:6 he writes “it was about the sixth hour”, which is about noon. From the succeeding verse we know she came to the well at about 12 in the afternoon. A brief understanding of medieval culture will tell us that women drew water early in the morning for the rest of the day. So why did this Samaritan woman come at such an odd time? The Samaritan woman was well aware that everyone was aware of her sexual immorality. She was aware that everyone looked at her as a disgusting perverse woman that deserved nothing.
She was aware their eyes let out arrows of judgment and rejection. She was willing to walk miles in the Middle Eastern sun and come by the well as long as she could avoid those painful arrows that pierced her soul.
What was she feeling? The Samaritan woman felt the same sensation that Peter felt when he denied his Lord and savior.
There was a burst of darkness that covered the hearts of Peter and the Samaritan woman when they failed to meet their expected standards. They felt a deep endless vacuum. They felt awfully light and sometimes heavy. They felt a massive weight that seemed to pin them to the ground. They felt SHAME.
You see, Peter’s tears are not founded solely on his denial of Christ but it rests on his accurate understanding of who he is. He sees the real depraved insides of his self-assured heart. Peter is disgusted with who he is and recognizes his worthlessness. The Samaritan women decided she would rather walk in the hot blistering sun than be reminded of how pitiable and how woeful of a woman she is. She hated who she had become and despised her entire persona. This is what shame does. It is a self-destructing time bomb within all of us. Shame is the painful feeling arising from the consciousness of your depraved self. Both Peter and the Samaritan woman had a strong resentment towards their identities and their individuality.
They were not ashamed of what they did they were ashamed of who they were and that sense of shame was eating them alive.
It left them hopeless and the only question that ran in their minds were “What’s wrong with me?” and “Why am I so pathetic?” They knew they couldn’t fix this, how can anyone change what they intrinsically are?
Now we all know about history’s most famous traitor. Judas goes on to betray his lord and master for the love of money and the world. We also know Judas later hangs himself but what made Judas’s sorrow ungodly? Now we know Judas did feel sorrow, but sorrow towards what? Let’s read Matthew 27:3-4
3 Then when Judas, his betrayer, saw that Jesus was condemned, he changed his mind and brought back the thirty pieces of silver to the chief priests and the elders, 4 saying, “I have sinned by betraying innocent blood.”
This was the problem with Judas. Judas was sorrowful, yes but the entirety of his anguish was towards what he had done.
Judas is devastated that his actions were responsible for killing an innocent man and some would say this devastation is good but it wasn’t a sense of shame. The fault in Judas was that he failed to see himself, there was not an iota of remorse towards who he was or his identity.
He felt responsible for his actions. He felt depressed that he caused something abominable to happen. He felt accountable for this act of injustice. He felt guilt.
And there is a massive difference between shame and guilt.
This is all that guilt does. It exposes our accountability towards the terrible deeds that we do but blinds us from seeing our real depraved self. Judas wasn’t ashamed of who he was, just what he had done.
Shame directs your sense of humiliation towards yourself but guilt directs it towards the accountability of your actions.
Judas wasn’t disgusted with himself like Peter and the Samaritan woman, just saddened over his actions. There might have been a pinch of shame but his guilt overpowered it. We need to understand shame is far more powerful than guilt. Guilt can be repaired. If I offend a friend of mine I would feel responsible for my friend’s sorrow but if he or she accepted my apology I would feel normal again. I only felt sorrow over my actions, not who I was in the process. On the contrary if I recognized that I was an offensive, rude, and terrible person it doesn’t matter how many times my friend apologizes, this accurate understanding of myself will destroy me. Then the question is how did something so powerful (shame) not destroy Peter and the Samaritan woman? How did guilt end up demolishing Judas?
The answer is in Matthew 5:3 when Jesus says “Blessed are those who are poor in spirit”. This is the gospel.
When you recognize your identity, when the shadows of ignorance depart and the light of the world shines his light upon the poor depraved condition of who you are and when you are overwhelmed with shame – that is when Jesus becomes real to you and the cross makes sense.
You see Jesus approaches the Samaritan women for he knows her condition. He knows she despises herself. He sees the wounds of judgment and rejection upon her as a result of her actions. He sees that she wishes to be different and that she wishes she wasn’t such a pathetic sinner. He sees and responds to the shame-filled heart. He sees the sadness in Simon’s heart. He sees how Peter is disgusted with himself. He sees Peter’s desire to remove his filthy robe. To him Christ gives the robe of righteousness.
All around the world social injustice of various forms has erupted both in the west and here in India. When we see all this sadness, let us remind ourselves that the root cause of all of this is man failing to recognize his depravity. Man feels guilt but not shame. Man fails to see who he is and the inability to change that identity. He tried desperately to find a solution in governments, ideologies, and other broken men. Unless we are filled with shame unless we weep over who we are we will not find the solution to our shame.
Don’t be afraid to break the world’s coventional ideas and be ashamed of who you are, for in Christ you are the son and daughter of the most high. The world hates to be vulnerable,exposed and weak. The world hates to feel shame but it’s only through a shame-filled poor spirt can we find Jesus.
The inescapable truth is that Jesus bore our shame on the cross and offers us freedom. In our daily battle with sin we need to ask ourselves do I merely feel guilty that my sin offends God or do I feel a sense of shame? Do I hate my sin and despise who I am? Only such a perception will lead us to the cross every single time. The day the world humbles itself is when the light that is Christ will become apparent. What is humility? Charles Spurgeon put it best “Humility is when you have the right understanding of yourself”.
