A Judas dozen of guys.

Jesus was talking to the remnant of his disciples, the eleven that were left after Judas opted out of the group.

“You are going to fall away,” Jesus told them.

“Not us,” they said.

“Not me,” Peter said. “Even if these wimps leave, I’m never leaving.”

“Ah, dear friend Peter,” Jesus says, “You in particular are going to have three opportunities to identify with me in the next few hours and every time you are going to disown me, to deny you ever knew me.”

“Not a chance,” said Peter.

Jesus never scolds the disciples in this dialogue in Matthew 26. He never says, “You stupid, incompetent, disobedient worms. You have paid absolutely no attention to anything I’ve taught you. I’ve tried and tried to explain it but you are such idiots that now, when I need you, you are going to run away. I might as well disown you now. I might as well find some rocks and make them talk. At least they would have more spine than you do.”

Jesus never said that.

We do. We say it all the time about ourselves. We want to follow Jesus and we try really hard and then we mess up and we hear, “You stupid, incompetent, disobedient worm.”

That isn’t Jesus. If a dozen hours before he was going to be killed he didn’t say it, he’s not going to say it now.

What he said to the disciples was, “You will fall away. On the other side of this, I’ll meet you in Galilee.”

Jesus told people that they would fail and that they’d get back together.

It’s Monday. We’re full of good intentions from whatever we heard yesterday and whatever we decided for the new week. We’ll stumble. Jesus’ love for us won’t.