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Luke 22:54-62
Peter Disowns Jesus
54 Then seizing him, they led him away and took him into the house of the high priest. Peter followed at a distance. 55 But when some there had kindled a fire in the middle of the courtyard and had sat down together, Peter sat down with them. 56 A servant girl saw him seated there in the firelight. She looked closely at him and said, “This man was with him.”
57 But he denied it. “Woman, I don’t know him,” he said.
58 A little later someone else saw him and said, “You also are one of them.”
“Man, I am not!” Peter replied.
59 About an hour later another asserted, “Certainly this fellow was with him, for he is a Galilean.”
60 Peter replied, “Man, I don’t know what you’re talking about!” Just as he was speaking, the rooster crowed. 61 The Lord turned and looked straight at Peter. Then Peter remembered the word the Lord had spoken to him: “Before the rooster crows today, you will disown me three times.” 62 And he went outside and wept bitterly.
This is obviously a familiar story, but not a happy one. Peter always seems like such an enthusiastic member of Jesus’ circle of disciples, and it’s sad to see a story in which he compromises himself to such a degree that the story ends with him weeping bitterly.
But before we get too far into the story, it’s probably important to say that it helps to establish what the Bible scholars call the ‘historicity’ of the gospels. This story helps to establish the historical reliability of the Gospel accounts of the life and ministry and death and resurrection of Jesus.
The reason the Bible scholars say that is that by the time the first three gospels were published, Peter had become one of the main leaders of the church. (Luke, for instance, is understood to have been written around 70 AD.) So it’s highly unlikely that anyone in the early church would have invented a story like this – a story that would have been so embarrassing to Peter. The fact that it is included in the gospel accounts helps to reinforce the idea that the early Christian leaders who compiled the gospels were doing their best to faithfully report the details of the death and resurrection of Jesus as a historical reality.
This passage, of course, tells us about the things that happened on the night of Jesus’ arrest, after his Last Supper with the disciples. You might remember that at that supper, Peter had insisted that he would stick with Jesus, even if it meant going to prison or even facing death. But Jesus had foretold that Peter would deny him three times before the rooster crowed the next morning.
I can’t imagine how incredibly painful these words were for Peter to hear. After all, he had been at Jesus’ right hand for most of his earthly ministry. Peter comes off as loyal to Jesus, but also as impulsive and rambunctious. He had climbed out of a boat in a storm and tried to walk on the water with Jesus. He had offered to build shelters for Jesus, Moses and Elijah at the Transfiguration. He had tried to talk Jesus out of letting himself be killed by the leaders of his people. And earlier on that same night, Peter had pulled out a sword to try to defend Jesus when Judas led a mob of temple guards to arrest him.
But in today’s reading, we’re confronted with the story of Jesus’ trial before the Sanhedrin, the high council of the Jewish people. The truth is that this was more like a lynching than like a trial as we understand the term. And before this howling mob, Peter lost his nerve, just as Jesus foretold. And Peter denied that he even knew Jesus.
It’s easy to condemn Peter for this denial, and generations of preachers and teachers and Bible scholars have done just that. Just pick up a New Testament commentary, and you’ll find that it almost certainly talks about what a coward Peter was. But I can’t help suspecting that’s just about all of those preachers and teachers and Bible scholars would have done about the same thing if they found themselves in Peter’s place.
There’s something about being in an angry mob that brings out the dark side of human nature. The members of a mob behave in ways that almost seem ‘sub-human.’ Not many people have the courage to stand in the face of a mob like that. If you’ve ever confronted an angry mob, you know exactly what I mean. The truth is probably that most of us would have found ourselves running away just as Peter did.
This particular angry mob was made up of members of the Jewish leadership. Hatred and resentment of Jesus had been building up in them for years. He had made them look really bad, over and over. He had publicly questioned their integrity and their theology, and he’d called them “hypocrites” and “blind guides.”
People in power never respond well if that power is threatened. And for the Hebrew leaders, the stakes were very high. They knew that the Romans would let them stay in power only as long as they kept things firmly under control. The Romans valued order, and they were willing to work through local leaders as long as they were able to maintain that order. But Jesus was clearly not under their control. He was a threat to order. So the Jewish leaders had to have found him profoundly threatening. And when they had him in their power, their hatred and fear exploded in a spasm of mob violence.
To me, this story of Peter’s denial of Jesus asks a scary question. The question is this: When have I denied Jesus? There have certainly been times in my life when I’ve shrunk from being identified as a ‘Christian.’ As a pastor, I’m pretty much considered “openly Christian,” but I used to be just a ‘regular person.’ And there were times in the past when I would bend over backward to make sure people knew I wasn’t one of those ‘Jesus types.’ Looking back, I realize that I was doing just what Peter did: denying Jesus. And I was doing it in much less threatening circumstances than Peter faced.
So this story makes me wrestle with the question of when in my life I’ve been guilty of ‘denying Jesus,’ and also makes me ask myself how I can live out my faith with greater courage. Maybe it makes you ask yourself the same kind of questions, too.
Let’s pray. Lord, we thank you for the great witness and service to the church of your servant Peter. We are humbled by the thought that his fear caused him to deny Jesus, but we know that in one way or another, all of us have denied Jesus in much less threatening circumstances. Strengthen our faith, and our resolve never to deny him again. Amen.
Every Blessing,
Henry
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