Both/And

AM Psalm 45 • PM Psalm 47, 48
Isa. 9:1-7 • 2 Pet. 1:12-21 • Luke 22:54-69

We see the apostle Peter in the courtyard of the high priest. We know him to be the “Rock” on which the church will be founded. His great deeds will inspire us as they are chronicled in The Acts of the Apostles. But tonight, he is afraid. Three times he lies to protect himself, saying, “I do not know him!” The cock crows. “The Lord turned and looked straight at Peter.” We try to imagine how that look felt. Peter left and wept bitterly. He has failed at the time of trial. 

Yet his weakness and failure is not Peter’s undoing. He will accept forgiveness. He will accept empowerment. Three times the Risen Lord will ask him, “Peter do you love me?” and three times he will answer, “Yes, Lord, you know that I love you,” and three times Jesus will say to him “Feed my sheep.”

Peter is “both/and," failure and triumph.

In so many ways we live in an “either/or” world, a world that is inevitably full of either/or conflict. To be absorbed into scripture is to nurture a “both/and” perspective. If we are to live in a spirit of reconciliation, we’ll have to be able to embrace some forms of “both/and”, otherwise we will create in an increasingly lonely universe where we can only live with those who agree with us. That’s a picture of hell.

Great Christian doctrines are “both/and.” Jesus is both fully human and fully divine. God is both One and Three. Great heresies are created by relieving the “both/and” tension with an “either/or” decision. 

The direction of salvation is an ever-widening embrace of “both/and” until all is brought within the eternal arms of God.

Written by Lowell Grisham

Lowell Grisham is helping St. Thomas, Springdale while they search for a new priest.