I have always found it immeasurably comforting that Jesus gave Simon the name “Cephas,” or Peter, before Cephas had done much of anything. Before Peter had even determined to follow Jesus, let alone serve him or love him as the Christ, before Peter had muttered his denials of knowing Jesus or had one of his moments of blurted insight, before Jesus had reason to call Peter “Satan,” Jesus called him the “Rock.”(1)

What does this say? First, it says a great deal about who Jesus is. He is willing to vouch for us. Before you even know what you stand for, he is willing to stand up for you. And second, it reminds us that we are more than the sum of our blunders and failings, as well as our victories and our bright spots. As the apostle Paul wrote to the Romans: “But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us” (Romans 5:8). Before we had a chance to prove ourselves, before we had a chance to fall on our faces or say something fairly smart, Christ knew that he would die to show us the reach of his love. And he did.

Still, Peter is the disciple that makes many of us feel okay about ourselves. He is a loud statement to the hopeless, to the skeptic, to the guilt-ridden that God can take our doubt, our regret, the hopelessness of our past or our present, and create something solid by giving us the Son. In Peter we find that pains of regret and faithlessness may leave a permanent mark, but that even scars can be reminders of the living hope we profess. Or as Peter calls it, “the Word that will not wither.”(2)

Even so, when we look at our own moments of faithlessness or foolishness, those marks of humiliation, the bitter sting of missed and lost opportunities, it is hard to see much beyond regret and remorse, even if we were once told that Jesus had forgiven us. Can there be more to see in the weight of our past, the glimpses of guilty motives, disappointments, and poor behavior? The testimony of Peter himself is that yes, very definitely, there is.

Peter’s passion for Christ was no doubt shaped by the pain and humiliation of denying him. “If we are faithless, God remains faithful, for God cannot deny Himself” (2 Timothy 2:13). Scars indeed have a way of reminding us that we are alive, participating in this fragile thing called life. Some of my own remind me that I am not an island, that I need people, that I desperately need a savior, that I need God in all that I face. Still others remind me that I am healed or being healed. But even Peter’s most indelible marks were nothing beside the mark of the risen Christ upon his life.

When Jesus appeared to the gathered, frightened disciples after the horror of the cross, he said to them, “See my hands and my feet, that it is me. Touch me and see” (Luke 24:39). The disciples had gathered together to discuss the rumors some had heard that Christ was alive and out of the grave, risen from the cruel death they had witnessed just days earlier. They were disoriented and afraid, and Jesus told them to look at his hands and feet, which had been pierced. And to Thomas, “Put your finger here, and see my hands; and put out your hand, and place it in my side.”(3) To his closest friends, Jesus said, “Look at my scars, see that it is me. Recognize me by my scars; they will point you to God.”

Far beyond any scar we might bear, the wounds of Christ point us to one who touches our disfigured world with his own humanity. He was crushed for our iniquities. By his stripes we are healed. No doubt, it was this piercing reality of Jesus bearing the scars of human failure, carrying our pain, and taking our shame, that Peter bore in mind as he dynamically instructed any who would listen: “Throw all your anxieties upon him, because he cares about you!”(4) For Peter, of all people, knew this well.

Jill Carattini is managing editor of A Slice of Infinity at Ravi Zacharias International Ministries in Atlanta, Georgia.

(1) John 1:42.

(2) See 1 Peter 24-25.

(3) John 20:27.

(4) 1 Peter 5:7.