Peter Weeps

Matthew 26:74-75

Then he began to invoke a curse on himself and to swear, “I do not know the man.” And immediately the rooster crowed. And Peter remembered the saying of Jesus, “Before the rooster crows, you will deny me three times.” And he went out and wept bitterly.

Tom Wright, Matthew for Everyone (Vol. 2)

Peter’s tears at the end of this story are the main thing that distinguish him from Judas in the next chapter. There is all the difference in the world between genuine repentance and mere remorse, as Paul wryly notes in one of his letters to Corinth (2 Corinthians 7.10). The one leads to life, the other to death. Peter’s tears, shaming, humiliating and devastating though they were, were a sign of life. Judas’s anger and bitterness led straight to death.

The muddled motives and mixed emotions were no match for the three little questions, from a couple of serving-girls and a courtier with an ear for a northern accent. They were like small pins stuck into a large balloon, and Peter’s world exploded in a roar of oaths and a flood of bitter tears (170-1).