Luke chapter 5, verse 8

"Depart from me, for I am a sinful man, O Lord."
~ St. Peter
As I was reading through the Gospel according to St Luke, a verse caught my eye that I had never noticed before. But this time, for some reason, this odd verse caused my cursory eye to halt and examine more carefully what I had read. Did I just read that St. Peter wanted the Lord to depart from him? Peter just wasted a whole day of fishing because he caught nothing, then a man shows up, tells him to put his net back in the water and keep fishing, and then Peter is blessed with an over abundance of fish. And as a word of gratitude he tells the Lord to get away? No, I must not have read that. Who would want the Lord to depart from them, particularly after a blessing such as that?

Usually, when one recognizes one's sinfulness (for example the sin of unfaithfulness) their first reaction is to fall to their knees and say "forgive me Lord, after thy great goodness." Not "Stay away from me!" That is what the lepers said. They shouted out "Unclean! Unclean" so that no one would catch their disease. But even then, they did not run away from Jesus when they saw him coming. They ran to him. They knew they were unclean and that they were supposed to stay far away from those who were pure. But they also knew that Jesus could heal them from their disease. Was there ever a case where the leper said to Jesus, "depart from me, for I am a leprous man, O Lord. I'm a hopeless case, let me rot."?

We are the lepers. And if we are faithful to Christ and his church we do cry out "forgive me Lord, after thy great goodness." But when do we ever tell him to leave us? In our age of hopeless negativism, it seems like something that would be shouted from the rooftops all the time. But we do not say things like this. We do not believe that we are such a hopeless case and that God should just leave us to rot. We have hope that Christ will forgive us. After all he forgave that one woman who did all those terrible things. He said "Her sins, which are many, are forgiven." (That was also in Luke).

Our country has had such an easy life that we take for granted that our sins are forgiven and that when we confess it is for the sake of reminding ourselves that our sins have been forgiven, not for the sake of saying that we are sinners and that God is the once, present and future King of the universe. (Reminding us that we are breaking his laws when we sin and we face the ultimate pit of despair when we fail to renew ourselves with him). However, St. peter seems to have quite a different view of things. "Depart from me, O Lord" is his reaction. Why? Why should Christ depart? Because Peter is a sinful man. I know that is a weak answer, but could it be that he knew it was wrong to enter into the presence of the Lord without a sacrifice, without the shedding of blood, without the cleansing of the spirit? In Peter's time if the priest entered approached the alter without making the proper sacrifices he deserved damnation. So how much more terrible would it be if you entered into the physical presence of the Lord with dirty hands?

If then, we recognize that we could fall so quickly into damnation if we are not careful, particularly in approaching His table, then we too should say "Depart from me, For I am a sinful man, O Lord." And then once we do recognize our fallen state we should say that, "I am not worthy that thou shouldest come under my roof, but speak the word only and my soul shall be healed."