Simon Peter followed Jesus and so did another disciple. Since that disciple was known to the high priest, he entered with Jesus into the courtyard of the high priest, but Peter stood outside at the door. So the other disciple, who was known to the high priest, went out and spoke to the servant girl who kept watch at the door, and brought Peter in. The servant girl at the door said to Peter, "You also are not one of this man's disciples, are you?" He said, "I am not." Now the servants and officers had made a charcoal fire, because it was cold, and they were standing and warming themselves. Peter also was with them, standing and warming himself. The high priest then questioned Jesus about his disciples and his teaching. Jesus answered him, "I have spoken openly to the world. I have always taught in synagogues and in the temple, where all Jews come together. I have said nothing in secret. Why do you ask me? Ask those who have heard me what I said to them; they know what I said." When he had said these things, one of the officers standing by struck Jesus with his hand, saying, "Is that how you answer the high priest?" Jesus answered him, "If what I said is wrong, bear witness about the wrong; but if what I said is right, why do you strike me?" Annas then sent him bound to Caiaphas the high priest. Now Simon Peter was standing and warming himself. So they said to him, "You also are not one of his disciples, are you?" He denied it and said, "I am not." One of the servants of the high priest, a relative of the man whose ear Peter had cut off, asked, "Did I not see you in the garden with him?" Peter again denied it, and at once a rooster crowed. - John 18: 15 - 27 (ESV)
When i was younger, there were 2 adjectives that i heard most commonly to describe the disciples of Christ - Doubting Thomas and Denying Peter. Poor Peter. Even a cursory reading of the passion narrative across the gospels show us that each book leaves out certain details and concentrates on some others. As such, there is a hope that at least one of the Gospel writers could’ve been kind enough to omit the shameful story of his denial of Christ. And yet there it is, one of those few episodes important enough to make it, in substantially identical form, into all four Gospel accounts. What’s worse, it is in that part of the Gospels that would be most frequently read, year in and year out, down through the ages of the Church. For many of us, having grown up hearing the story and having wondered in our youthful innocence how anyone could be so cowardly and inconstant, it is the first thing we associate with Peter, despite his many other noble moments.
Yet there is a curious tweak in John’s narrative. John breaks up the story: first Peter denies Jesus the first time. Then John suddenly cuts the narrative from the fire outside where “Peter was standing and warming himself” to the inner chambers where Jesus is before Annas, fearlessly rejecting the charges against him, then suddenly the narrative cuts again and we are back, with strange repetitiveness, at “Peter was standing and warming himself,” before John recounts briefly the latter two denials and the rooster crowing. Why the interruption? I confess that the reason had never occurred to me before, but like most literary gems in the Gospels, it is blindingly obvious once you do notice it. Like a master author, John seeks to heighten the drama through contrast and irony. Outside is Peter, too afraid to answer a simple question from a servant girl; inside is Jesus, who is unafraid to boldly answer the high priest. Outside is Peter, unwilling to speak openly about his own relatively lowly identity, but tries to keep it secret; inside is Jesus, who proclaims in verse 20 “I have spoken openly to the world….I have said nothing in secret.” The sheer pitifulness of Peter’s cowardly denial is driven home with every line. But it gets worse.
The key issue in the exchange between Jesus and Annas seems to be Jesus’ teaching, but John inserts in verse 19, almost unnoticed, a couple of keywords that bear light on the context of the events taking place: The high priest then questioned Jesus about his disciples and his teaching. Of course, it is precisely about Jesus’s disciples that those outside by the fire are also interested in. Peter’s refusal to answer seems to be its own answer—apparently he is not Jesus’s disciple after all, or he is not acting as one at the moment of denial at least. But what does Jesus have to say to Annas about his disciples? In verse 21, “Why do you ask me? Ask those who have heard me what I said to them; they know what I said.”
Jesus was essentially saying, “You don’t need to ask me about what I’m up to—ask my disciples; they’ll be happy to speak up for me!” Meanwhile Peter is outside loudly shushing the servant girl. While Jesus is essentially saying, “They know all about me and what I’ve taught.” Peter is outside swearing, “I know nothing about any of it!” Of course, seen this way the exchange is as much to Christ’s glory as to Peter’s shame. Jesus knows full well, after all (cf. John. 13: 36 - 38) that Peter is denying him. And yet he does not deny Peter. Even while his disciples are scattering and hiding, Jesus confidently declares that they will bear witness to him, as indeed they would after his resurrection.
By the way, one of the most interesting statements in this account and in the life of Peter at this point comes from Luke 22: 61. The cock or the rooster crowed a second time, and Luke 22:61 says, “And the Lord turned and looked at Peter.” The Lord turned and looked at Peter. Straight into Peter’s eyes went the gaze of the Lord Jesus. Perhaps his trial had just ended and He was coming back across the courtyard, headed to prison, where he’d be kept for a few hours until the dawn, fake trial, scourging, crucifixion in the morning.
His face, covered with spit, black and blue, puffy from being punched in the face and slapped. His garments, covered with sweaty blood that had oozed out of His sweat glands in the agonies in the garden. And as He bound is taken through the courtyard, He looks right into the eyes of Peter. I’m pretty sure that’s a look that Peter never, ever, ever forgot. While you and I have never had the eyes of Jesus look at us in that way; believe it, the eyes of Jesus are on us all the time. And the same gaze sees us in our sin that saw Peter in his. What a painful moment. It’s like the collapse of Peter is crystalized, captured and frozen at that moment when their eyes meet.
Peter reached the top, called by Christ, commissioned by Christ, set apart by Christ, loved by Christ, taught by Christ, given the keys to the kingdom, granted/delegated miraculous power to heal the sick and cast out demons, leader of the twelve, privileged preacher, and here he lands in the pit of profanity, denying the very Lord he confessed. And yet before we go judging Peter, let us recall that all of us have denied Christ in our own lives. But before i get into that, i want to narrate 2 true incidents.
Most of us are familiar with the song I have decided to follow Jesus. For the benefit of everybody, latest research shows that the song was sung in the middle of the 19th century by Nokseng, a Garo tribal, while Meghalaya was still part of Assam. Having accepted Christ along with his family, he faced opposition from his chieftain and village. He was tied to a tree and beaten as they asked him to recant his newly found faith. As he refused, he started singing I have decided to follow Jesus. His family was dragged in front of him and two children were killed. In response to the threats to his wife, he sang Though none go with me, still i follow. His wife was then killed and he was executed, while continuing to sing, The world behind, the cross before me. The song was then written down by one Simon Marak in Jorhat who probably heard of the incident, who then made the acquaintance of Sadhu Sundar Singh, who made it popular. A song in the face of death, instead of denying his Christ.
Fast forward to October 2015 in Roseburg, Oregon, USA, a troubled youth held people hostage in a community college campus. As he held them hostage in the classroom, he pointed the gun to their head and asked them if they were Christian. All who answered yes, he shot them dead. He killed 9 people in all before he walked away from the building; shortly after which he was gunned down by the police. Young people died that day for choosing to not deny their Lord.
Matthew 10:33 reads, “So everyone who acknowledges me before men, I also will acknowledge before my Father who is in heaven, but whoever denies me before men, I also will deny before my Father who is in heaven.” Was the Lord advocating that we should rather die than deny Christ? Matthew 10: 39 gives us clarity on the subject, “Whoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.” So that is the context of losing your life instead of denying Jesus. When all is out in the open about our faith and our hope, we’re called to stand for Christ. So the Christian, must love Christ so much that denying him is more fearful than death. Of course, saying that is one thing, but actually having the wherewithal to do it in the moment of death is another. What would you do in the face of death - gun pointed to your head and asked to deny Christ and recant your faith? Like Peter, let’s not be too quick to rebut the question with a false confidence in ourselves.
But even when not faced with such exigent circumstances, i dare say that we all continue to deny Christ each day in our lives. See, I’m not sure I’ve ever denied Jesus publicly when pressed like that, but the older I get, the more I realize how completely and totally I’ve denied him. Because, you know there’s more than one way to deny Jesus, right? You don’t have to say “I don’t know this man” with your words to do it. With every careless unloving action to my wife I say, “I don’t know this man.” Every day I get up and live my day without reference to him I say “I don’t know this man.” Every time I cultivate anger, pride, socio-economic disdain, or lust in my heart I say “I don’t know this man.” Every time I chase money instead of generosity I say “I don’t know this man.” Every time I keep silent about him out of fear of rejection by our culture, or neighbors, for being one of those “Christians” I say “I don’t know this man.” In a million different ways, my life, and if we’re honest with ourselves, all of our lives have screamed “I don’t know this man!”
We, like Peter, deny Jesus in the workplace or places of study when we keep our faith and convictions quietly to ourselves, trying to fit in unobtrusively with a culture of crudeness, greed and ambition. We, like Peter, deny Jesus on an airplane or bus or whenever making small talk with a stranger, when we try to steer clear of mentioning our faith. Let me clarify that i’m not asking us all to become street preachers or go around forcing the gospel down people’s throats. But I’m pointing out that more often than not we choose to keep our faith under the wraps and thus keep losing brilliant opportunities to speak about our Lord; for if we love Him that much, we will speak about Him naturally; just like we do about our passions, our hobbies, our interest, our sport.
To be sure, Christians are also called to exercise prudence, and in the very next chapter of John, we see the examples of Nicodemus and Joseph of Arimathea, secret disciples of Jesus among the Jewish leadership, who used their high position to gain permission for a honorable burial of Jesus’s body. Jesus himself tells his disciples to be “wise as serpents and harmless as doves” (Mt. 10:16), and this might mean being strategically silent about one’s Christian commitment in certain contexts.
Yet in the face of Peter’s denial and ours, we’re faced with a truth staring down at us. Jesus knew what Peter was going to do and loved him anyways. Jesus had a perfect knowledge of who Peter was, all of his fears, all of his failures, and how he would betray him at his greatest hour of need, and yet he still called him. Jesus knew Peter at his most sinful, his most rebellious, his most pitiful, and seeing all of that darkness loved him.
This truth is the beating heart of the Gospel. Paul, in Romans 5: 6 - 11 says this:
For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. For one will scarcely die for a righteous person—though perhaps for a good person one would dare even to die— but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Since, therefore, we have now been justified by his blood, much more shall we be saved by him from the wrath of God. For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, now that we are reconciled, shall we be saved by his life. More than that, we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation.
In the Bible, the heart of life, of goodness, of salvation itself is to know and be known by God—to be in a true, whole, relationship with him. That’s what Jesus says in John 17:3 “And this is eternal life, that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent.” This is why the most terrifying words of Jesus was his warning to those who were fooling themselves into thinking they were believers and telling them that at the end, if they didn’t repent, they would come to him and he would say “Depart from me I never knew you.”
With this in mind, we can finally start to understand the crushing reality of Peter words when he curses by God’s name and says, “I don’t know the man”–he was showing us what our sin leads to. See, sin is a rejection of knowing God and all that goes with that. So, God’s righteous judgment, his wrath and the punishment we deserve is to give us what we ask for: a life without God, separated from all goodness, all love, all joy, all truth and beauty. That’s what sin asks for and that’s what sin gets.
On the Cross, however Jesus suffers the judgment of God in our place. We deserve death and he receives it. We deserve spiritual separation from God, but he, as the only perfect one who ever lived, experiences it in our place so that we don’t have to. It is only when you see this you understand that, while Peter is cursing his name, bringing the curse down on himself, Jesus is preparing to go bear the curse for him on the Cross so that Peter and us would be able to know the God that he’s denying.
And this is the heart of the Good News: we have a God who sees you at your worst, sees ME at my worst, and yet still loved us, and was willing to come, in the person of Jesus to suffer on our behalf, that we might know him. You have to understand, God doesn’t look down with shock. He knows it all. He saw it all with his eternal gaze every sin - past, present, and future that you and I will ever commit and he took up the cross. In fact, He knew exactly who I was and He still chose to die on the cross for me. And this is why we call this Good Friday. On this day we see the love of God revealed in Jesus’ suffering. We find a God who truly knows us and loved us yet to the full measure.
The promise is that if you put your trust in Jesus and what he’s done for you on the Cross, you can know and be in relationship with this God. If you’re asking, “How can i know for sure that i can trust Him?” you can do so because the Bible goes on to tell us that the same Peter who denied Christ in His hour of need was restored. Yes, restored. Remember, our Lord said in Luke 22: 31 - 32, “Simon, Simon, behold, Satan demanded to have you, that he might sift you like wheat, but I have prayed for you that your faith may not fail,” and it did not fail. He stood up on the Day of Pentecost and preached a great sermon and three thousand were converted and he preached again and again and tens of thousands were being converted in Jerusalem.
And then he sat down and wrote 1 Peter 1, and he wrote about how trials that are fiery trials (1 Peter 1:6-9) prove your faith. When you go through the worst collapse of cowardice in your spiritual life and your faith doesn’t fail, it’s the proof that your faith is the kind of faith that will remain until Christ appears. That’s what Peter said. It’s a great lesson for us to learn. Not to be overconfident but to understand the weakness of our flesh and steel ourselves against the kind of cowardice that broke the heart of Peter and grieved the heart of his Lord.
So the only question left is, “Do I trust Him?” For some of you, you might have never placed your faith, or accepted Jesus. If that’s you and you’d like to, find a Christian leader you can trust and let them lead you to the Lord. If you have in the past placed your trust in the Lord, but you’re still wallowing in sin, maybe you’ve been far, maybe you’ve been cold, maybe you’ve been wandering – the invitation is to trust and believe that even that is covered and you can trust Him; for He laid down His life that you might have yours - eternally with Him. The invitation is to believe today that we have a God who saw us at our worst and He still came - all so that He could die on the cross for you and for me.
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