Reliving The Passion #20

Mark 14:66–72

And as Peter was below in the courtyard, one of the maids of the high priest came; and seeing Peter warming himself, she looked at him and said, “You also were with the Nazarene, Jesus.”

But he denied it, saying, “I neither know nor understand what you mean.” And he went out into the gateway.

And the maid saw him and began again to say to the bystanders, “This man is one of them.”

But again he denied it.

And after a little while again the bystanders said to Peter, “Certainly you are one of them; for you are a Galilean.”

But he began to invoke a curse on himself and to swear, “I do not know this man of whom you speak.”

And immediately the cock crowed a second time.

And Peter remembered how Jesus had said, “Before the cock crows twice, you will deny me three times.”

And he broke down and wept.

There’s a war inside the strong disciple. (The stronger the disciple, the worse the war!) There’s a struggle in Peter between good and evil, between these two commitments: to his Lord and to his own survival.

The man is here, after all. Whether boldly or secretly, he has entered the den of the enemy. He’s allowed himself to be enclosed in the high priest’s courtyard. Love is stronger than fear right now. Maybe the nap in Gethsemane—especially after his bully boast never to leave the Lord—shamed him into some sort of action. He’s here, staring into the fire.

What can he do for Jesus? Can’t raise an army. Can’t even draw his own sword any more. Pray, maybe. Support the Lord by his presence. Be here. Being here’s a witness, isn’t it? Yes, if it becomes known. Well, even if it isn’t known, it takes courage just to be here, hunched by an alien fire, the flames on his face.

He’s trying to decipher the voices behind him, the murmuring in the upper room: how is it going for Jesus—?

But suddenly a woman is talking to him. “You were with the Nazarene!” And suddenly he’s frightfully aware of himself, his immediate situation.

“No,” he says, not looking up. A spontaneous deflection of attention. He wishes people wouldn’t notice him. A spontaneous defection, were the truth known.

“No,” he says to her searching gaze, “I don’t even know what you’re talking about.”

She does not stop staring at him.

So he gets up and walks to the gateway. He is exceedingly aware of himself right now. Of his self. He has lied to save that self. On the other hand, despite the staring, he has not actually left the place. Even when the woman tells others of her suspicions, he stays. Her voice carries to the gateway; the eyes of the others are turning in his direction; he tries to deflect the public awareness by a small shrug, a chuckle at the woman’s error, and a second denial: “I don’t know that man, heh-heh.”

The war must be horrible now: part of him is desperate to save himself; a second denial can’t be involuntary; he has sundered his fortunes from those of his Lord.

Nevertheless, that he should make a second denial at all proves he still intends to stay. Even now, in the midst of explicit danger, his cover blown, his presence, then, a witness after all, Simon Peter sweats it out and loves the Lord and does not leave.

Right now—after the second denial, before the third—the forces warring in Peter’s soul seem terribly equal: a tremendous, selfless love for Jesus keeps him there, while a consuming self-interest keeps him lying. He denies himself to stay by his Lord. He denies his Lord to save himself. Both. Good and bad.

Peter is paralyzed between the good that he would and the evil that he is.

I see this. I recognize this. I cannot divorce myself from this—for Peter’s moral immobilization is mine as well! I am in the courtyard with him, watching. I, too, am good and evil in terribly equal parts—and helpless.

Two things alone can break the impasse for Peter and me.

1. The dreadful, merciful word of the Lord, which calls a sin a sin and mine: my fault, my own most grievous killing of Christ in my life to keep that life my own.

When Peter’s denial reaches such extremes that he draws down death in “a curse on himself” (the logical end of all our sinning!) Jesus intervenes: “And immediately the cock crowed a second time, and Peter remembered” what Jesus had said. Peter may have left Jesus; but Jesus—by wonderful means of remembering him, rooster’s crows like sacraments—has not left Peter.

2. Our sorrow when we see the sin, our personal repentance.

Rather than striking back at the Lord, spitting on him, blindfolding and despising him, we rush out to a private darkness, Peter and I. In the alleys, in the shadows of Friday’s dawning, we break down and burst into tears.

O Lord Jesus:

It is no small thing that the very first word of your resurrection carried a message for Peter: “Tell his disciples and Peter that he is going before you to Galilee.” In the naming of the man you forgave him; you received him again, an apostle, pure and strong and loving and beloved.

Well, I too have wept for my sinful denials of you.

Christ, I beg the same forgiveness!

Amen.