Judas and Peter

Peter: Let me tell you about the burden I carry. You heard Justus say I was steadfast and loyal. He didn't know. The night Jesus needed me most, I denied Him. Not once, but three times. I swore I never knew him.
Marcellus Gallio: But I crucified Him.
Peter: I know. Demetrius told me.  
Marcellus Gallio: And you can forgive me?
Peter: He forgave you from the cross. Can I do less? Now, does anything stand in your way? Can you be one of us?
Marcellus Gallio: From this day on, I am enlisted in His service. I offer Him my sword, my fortune, and my life.
--The Robe

A theme of Holy Week is betrayal. Within 24 hours of His death, Jesus is betrayed by two of his apostles. Judas betrays Jesus with a kiss that permits His arrest and subsequent trial and crucifixion. Subsequently, Judas is so enveloped in guilt and grief that he kills himself.

Peter betrays Jesus by denying that he knows Christ after His arrest. After the third time that he does so, Peter recalls that Jesus had even predicted the sequence. As the leader of the apostles, Peter likely felt as much shame, perhaps more so, than Judas. After all, he was Jesus's right hand man. That he did not stand up for Jesus at the moment when He appeared to desperately need support could easily have led Peter to elect a bitter end similar to Judas.

Instead, Peter cried out to God and begged for forgiveness. His Tears of Repentance marked Peter's true beginning as, so appropriately observed earlier by Jesus himself, the rock upon which His church would be built.

Each of us betrays God in our actions. How do we respond when we do? Disengage and destroy ourselves as did Judas? Or reengage and become rocks upon which God's will is realized as did Peter?