"Anybody Seen Peter?"

Good old  Pete!

Always good for a laugh, a story about the big one that got away.

Now, he's the one who got away, or so it seemed back then.

Rugged Peter, so quick to flip you off or flap his  gums, until he met Jesus and followed him hook, line and sinker, so to speak.  One fisherman caught!   But Peter was still Pete and sometimes he'd still do the unthinkable, none worse probably, than when he chickened out in that courtyard and said times three, "I never knew that guy!"  But a few smelled something fishy about his disclaimer.    And nobody knew  better than Peter when he heard that rooster  crow, he'd been caught again, this time by a lie.  So he ducked and covered,  then headed for the blackest part of night, somewhere where maybe , not even God could find him.

But that's what gets me when I read his story in the Bible, it's mine, too.  Oh,  I'm no fisherman but I'm a chicken sometimes and a liar. Who hasn't said or done something and wept out a prayer, "Can  I have a do-over for Christ's sake?"

And into our blackest night, or our deepest pit where roosters still crow  we hear above the din,  the risen Christ patiently calling,"Anybody seen Peter?"

It's Christ's Easter voice. Hope showing up, like the prodigal's father, running to meet us, liars and chicken-hearted .  It's Christ, for our sake, calling us by name, not calling us names we know we deserve.

Easter is God's Great Do-Over.

It's a day of second helpings for some and second chances for others.

You'd think, God being God and all would be more choosy.

But that's the Gospel Truth and the reach of Grace and Mercy.

Christ has died.

Christ is risen.

"Anybody seen Peter?"