Good Friday 2024 - Denial!!

DENIAL!!

 

Peter was known to be impulsive and brave. He was the first one to speak up; he was driven by fierce loyalty to Jesus. Peter may have been the type of person who thinks while he speaks. Others think before they speak. Not Peter. 

            When Jesus asked his disciples who the crowds’ said Jesus was, they answered “Elijah, or one of the prophets.” When Jesus asked who they thought he was, Peter replied in that impulsive yet not completely informed way of his, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God!” 

            Jesus then goes on to explain the mission of the Christ that the Father had sent him to accomplish. Peter steps up and says, “No way, I won’t let you die!” Jesus has to rein him in and rebuke his zeal. 

            After the Passover supper on that Thursday evening, Jesus and the remaining Eleven disciples go out to their campsite on the Mount of Olives and settled down for night. But Jesus tells Peter, “You’re going to deny me three times tonight.” Peter responds again in his typical Petrine courage, “If I must die with you, I will not deny you,” (Mark 14:31). 

            

            This morning, when it was still dark and people should be asleep, a group of men came to the campground. They were a mix of Jewish elders, Temple police, some quasi-military type bullies, and other tag-alongs; they came with torches and weapons to arrest the radical upstart, Jesus of Nazareth. 

            Peter once again displays his bravado and rudimentary swordsmanship, pulls out his short-sword, and lops off the right ear of Malchus, the high priest’s servant. It’s entirely possible that Peter was trying to cut off the man’s head and missed. Did Jesus roll his eyes? 

            Somewhere between the arrest of Jesus and the trials held in the middle of the night, Peter begins to lose that bravado. If you read all four accounts in Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, you get a hodge podge of details that are difficult to reconcile. Matthew talks about two servant girls; one who let Peter into the courtyard of the house of the high priest where Jesus is on trial. She says to Peter, “You also were with Jesus the Galilean.” John records that it was like an accusation. Peter’s response is terse, “I do not know what you mean.” Or in Luke’s account, “Woman, I do not know him.” The other girl repeats the question or statement. Peter is getting agitated. One writer says that he started calling down curses on himself and denying any relationship with Jesus. 

            One of the bystanders standing around a fire at which Peter and the others are warming themselves notes that Peter has a Galilean accent. “You are one of them,” he notices. Peter responds, “Man, I do not know what you are talking about.” Courage is beginning to erode. That defiant declaration to die with Jesus is becoming a bit of a farce. 

 

            As I pondered Peter’s three denials, I speculated about the reasons for his denial of Jesus. What led to his breakdown?

            My first thought: Is this the Messiah that Peter had expected? One who would surrender to the authorities without a fight? Who would weakly walk into defeat? It was plain to see that Peter and the other disciples never really understood Jesus when he talked about the Father’s plan for him to die in Jerusalem. 

            My second thought: Was there a growing fear of being associated with a radical who defied tradition and the status quo? Jesus took the Torah and reinterpreted it. Jesus was not submitting to the Pharisees and the priests. This could go really bad. Add to this that it is one thing to bravely propose to defend Jesus from hypothetical threats and quite another to face the very real danger of a trial and condemnation.

            My third thought: Was Peter’s denial simply a knee-jerk reaction that once blurted out is too hard to come back from? I mean, Peter was impulsive. He was under pressure. He was bewildered by the arrest and the beatings Jesus began to endure.

            What really gets me – after the third denial, the three denials that Jesus foretold – Jesus, battered face, bruised eyes and all, looks straight at Peter (Luke 22:61). Their eyes lock. Did Jesus look disappointed? Was it a look of hurt? A look of “I told you so”? Or “Run, you fool!”? 

            Peter went out and wept bitterly. That we do know.

 

            A pastor named Jerry Smith observed several steps that led to Peter’s denying Jesus. He said that denying to know someone is to refuse to acknowledge a connection with them. Peter refused to acknowledge that he was a disciple of Christ. He goes on to say that if we follow the same steps Peter did, we too may end up denying Christ.

Step 1: Confidence in self. Peter was confident that he would fight for Jesus to the death. I’m not convinced that Peter was confident in his own abilities to fight. He was a fisherman, not a soldier. But we may be too confident in the level of our faith or gifts or finances. We may like Peter depend on what we see in front of us and fail to realize that Jesus has other ideas of how to overcome a situation.

Step 2: Lack of prayer. Peter and the disciples could sense tension on the evening before Jesus’ arrest. Jesus asked them to pray with him, to prepare for the crisis about to befall them. But Peter and the others slept. 

Step 3: Failure to understand God’s plan. Jesus spoke of God’s purposes again and again. Suffering and sacrifice. Jesus talked about the Son of Man being given over to the rulers in his talks with the disciples many times. Peter spent three years learning at the feet of Jesus, but in the early morning before Passover, Peter failed to grasp what the Lord was telling him. When we fail to understand God’s word, we fail to understand how God works. We end up failing to discern and thus deny the presence of God in what’s happening to us. 

Step 4: Hanging with the wrong crowd. Peter was standing with the people outside the house instead of with the disciples praying and encouraging one another. So often when crisis strikes, we, like Peter, feel that prayer is a waste of time. Or if we isolate ourselves from God’s people, we may find ourselves in a vulnerable position. Faced with a choice of being for Christ or saving our skin, without the strength of community we may end up denying God. 

            Smith may have some helpful insights here. Peter was certainly more susceptible to the influencers in the context of his situation. He had been too confident in his allegiance. He didn’t pray with Jesus to the Father in the face of crisis. He didn’t understand God’s purpose for Jesus. He allowed the crowd to stifle his faith and courage. 

            However, as practical as these steps are, my heart wondered, “How do I deny Jesus today?” In what way do I deny him in my faith journey? 

            This week I was reading in The Valley of Vision, a collection of Puritan prayers by authors like Spurgeon and Bunyan and Watts, and I came across a challenging prayer. I pray one every morning. It caught me unexpectedly.             

            The prayer goes like this (paraphrased):

My Father,

When you are angry towards me when I do wrong,

I try to create peace between you and me by promising to not sin in the future.

But teach me this,

That I cannot satisfy the demands of your law, 

Because this effort rests on my own righteousness,

And only Christ’s righteousness, already accomplished, 

Already finished, is the only thing fit for that purpose; 

And when you point out my sins,

It is not that I should try to reform myself, but only

That I should be more humbled, afflicted, and separated from sin. And then I can be reconciled and be made righteous in Christ by faith; that a realization of Christ’s work and ability is the only way I can be made right.

I can never be made right by resting on my own faith, but only by trusting in you, my only salvation, by faith.

            If I could summarize this prayer for you, I would say this: I deny Jesus Christ when I realize my sinfulness and then think that I must deal with that sin by my own efforts. Yes, I must identify my sin and confess it. But I can’t make myself good or better or whatever by saying, “Okay, I’m going to give up ________ for Jesus.” And yes, I absolutely must cooperate with the Holy Spirit who wants to separate me from my sin and sinfulness. But first I must go to the cross of Christ and acknowledge that the body of Christ sacrificed for me, the blood of the Son of God, is all I need, is more than I need, to be saved from my sins and sinfulness. Nothing else. My efforts will NOT make me righteous. Nothing but the blood of Christ. 

            So, I realized that for years and years, I was trying to deal with a personal weakness and sin by working it out on my own. All the time, Jesus was saying, “Give it to me. I will take it and nail it to the cross. Then it’s done. You are free.” 

            If we cannot accept so great a grace in that amazing act of sacrifice of the Son of God – God’ dearest and only Son – then I deny him the privilege of being my Savior. 

 

            Let us not deny Jesus this privilege in our lives. Trust him with your sin and let him nail it to the cross. 

 

                                                AMEN