My Strength Is Made Perfect in Weakness

Today we celebrate the Feast of Saints Peter and Paul, a day which commemorates the crucifixion of Saint Peter and the beheading of Saint Paul. These two men are held up as the foremost of the Apostles for their roles in the early Church. 

Saint Peter was a fisherman who was called by the Lord and together with his brother Andrew left his father’s boat and followed Christ. It is hard to imagine all of the things that he must have witnessed, from the preaching of Christ to the healings that he performed to the raising of the dead and witnessing the glory of God in the Transfiguration of the Lord on Mount Tabor. We know from Saint John’s gospel that what is recorded of the life of Jesus Christ is but a small portion of the wondrous deeds that He worked. Despite this, when our Lord was betrayed into the hands of sinners, or rather as we say, gave Himself up for the life of the world, Peter desired to stay close to Christ, but in his fear, he denied even knowing Christ. 

Saint Paul described himself as “circumcised the eighth day, of the stock of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of the Hebrews; concerning the law, a Pharisee;  concerning zeal, persecuting the church; concerning the righteousness which is in the law, blameless.” Saint Paul had all of the law and the prophets, he had a gifted teacher. He knew the Torah and kept it. He lived in expectation of the Messiah, he knew the figure of the Son of Man, and yet when Christ came working great miracles with authority and power, he thought of Him as a false prophet, and His followers as a movement that had to be destroyed. 

Both these men were given much and in crucial moments failed miserably in how they used the gifts given to them. This is the first lesson I think we need to see this morning. A gift from God comes with a certain privilege, but also a responsibility to use it properly. We see this clearly when the law is given to the people of Israel. It is described as life and good, death and evil; and it is a choice between blessings and curses. To embrace what God has given us and to follow His commandments is blessing and life, and to reject it is to embrace death and a curse. We who have been baptized into Christ will be saved, we will receive eternal life, we will find communion with the living God if we choose to live in accordance with the great gift that has been given to us, but if we reject these things and live according to our flesh, we will find ourselves liable for having wasted such a precious gift. 

But the next thing to learn from these two great pillars of the Church is that our story is not over because we reach the lowest point in our lives. This is one of the terrible mistakes that Judas made. He decided that God’s judgment weighed too heavily against him to repent. To look at Saints Peter and Paul is to recognize that repentance is always possible. When God gives marvelous gifts to us, He does not ever give up on us, He does not ever consider us too far gone, or beyond the reaches of His forgiveness. In one of the gospel readings this morning, our Lord asked Saint Peter, “who do you say that I am?" and Saint Peter replied, "You are the Christ, the Son of the living God." Our Lord then told Saint Peter, “on this rock I will build My church, and the gates of Hades shall not prevail against it. “ God Himself protects His church and those in it. He will not forsake them or leave them to evil hostile powers. He continues to call us back time and again. But we must pick ourselves up when we fall. 

In the other gospel reading this morning, we heard the story of a paralytic who was brought to the Lord. The Lord forgives the man his sins, and then in order to prove that He has power to forgive, He said to the man, "Arise, take up your bed, and go to your house." The forgiveness that the Lord gives us is not simply setting aside punishment, there is real healing that takes place, it makes us whole again. But when we are healed, we must do something, we must walk where the Lord directs us, and we must carry the burden of our former sins as we walk. 

Saint Paul in particular carried the persecution which he waged against the Church in his heart. He didn’t doubt that he had been forgiven, but he also knew that he was not worthy of the forgiveness that he had received. It served as a sign of God’s love. Saint Paul at the end of one of the epistle readings this morning said, “Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse.” This he gives as a command to the Roman church, but it is not something that Saint Paul learned or understood intellectually, it is what happened to him. When Christ first appeared to Saint Paul on the road to Damascus, he greeted him with the words, Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting Me?” And he said, “Who are You, Lord?” Then the Lord said, “I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting.” Saint Paul wasn’t persecuting a religious or social movement, he was persecuting the Lord Himself. And the Lord rather than cursing him, blessed him, changing his heart and making him the apostle to the gentiles. 

The Lord does not expect perfection from us. He desires that we should love Him and follow Him. When we sin, however greatly, He is ready to receive us back in repentance. When we repent, we may still bear the marks and wounds of our sins, but we bear these things with humility and with gratitude for the healing that we have received. If we do these things and do them well, we become an example to others of what the Lord told Saint Paul. “My strength is made perfect in weakness."  

Saints Peter and Paul, along with all the other apostles, indeed all the other saints show us the love of God that transforms and heals fallen men. They demonstrate for us that this ceaseless love should instill gratitude in us, that we should use the gifts that have been given to us lest they become a curse. They teach us that repentance is always possible even at our lowest point, and they remind us that even the wounds and burdens that we bear show the world how great our God is. May we emulate these two men and confess Christ before all, rely on His strength and protection, repent continually and fully, bear our burdens with thanksgiving, and walk the path set before us into the Kingdom of Heaven.