The 3rd Sunday of Lent: Peter Denies Christ

This passage of the Passion Narrative in the Gospel of John is one of the most powerfully real moments of the Passion of Christ for me.  Everything else, it seems, plays almost like a novel or a movie, in which we can get swept up by the plot, but it’s kind of larger than life.  Peter’s Denial, however, changes all of that.

Now, we skipped about 5 chapters from last week to this, but when preaching a lectionary we must make sacrifices and skip around a bit.  I suppose I could try to preach the entire Passion Narrative someday, but that would probably take the better part of a year, and seems rather depressing to me.  It is, however, very much worth taking the time to read for yourselves at some point during Holy Week, beginning with John 13 and reading all the way through the end of chapter 19, with Jesus’ burial; and then you will be ready for Easter Sunday, the Resurrection of the Lord.

But anyway, we are at Jesus’ trial before the High Priest Caiaphas, and Annas.  Verse 15 tells us that Peter actually followed Jesus into the courtyard, along with only one other disciple.  The other disciple was able to enter into the court to witness Jesus’ trial, because he was known to the high priest, but Peter could not, so he remained out in the courtyard by the fire alone, without any of his friends.

I believe that his denial was a surprise, even to him.  I believe that he believed that he would stand up for Jesus, his Lord and Master, to the end, as he professed.  At the end of Chapter 13, Jesus foretells Peter’s denial, although Peter says to him, “I will lay down my life for you.  Jesus answered, will you lay down your life for me?  Truly, truly, I say to you, the rooster will not crow until you have denied me three times.”

Of course, we have the luxury of looking back through history and knowing that both Jesus and Peter were right.  History shows that Peter died as a martyr for his faith at the hands of the Roman Empire.  But Jesus’ prophecy about him came true as well.  

What is also significant to consider in this, as always in the Scriptures, is the context in which we find Peter denying his relationship to Christ.  Just hours before Peter’s denial, at the time of Jesus’ arrest in the Garden of Gethsemane, Judas led the Jewish authorities to surprise and capture Jesus.  Immediately, Peter draws his sword and launches an attack on the soldiers, but Jesus  stops him, saying to him, “Shall I not drink the cup that the Father has given me?”

Peter was a Zealot.  And while that word today simply means that someone is very active and passionate about something, in the time of Christ, the Zealots were a militant political party whose goal was to incite a military uprising to throw out the Romans.  Peter believed that Jesus was the one to finally bring about that rebellion and finally cast off the yoke of Roman rule and oppression.  Judas may also have been a member of the Zealots, and it is argued that he believed the same thing as Peter, which was the true motivation behind his betrayal of Christ, that he was forcing a confrontation between Jesus and the Jewish authorities in order to spark a revolution.

But when we are surrounded by friends, and our leaders seem to be in positions of power, we also feel strong and bold to act.  Take all that away, however, and force us into a place of vulnerability, with no friends in sight to support us, and how we will we stand the testing of our convictions?  That is what really speaks to me from this passage.

So I have to ask?  Are we going to be Peter?  Quick to speak out in defense of Christ, or quick even to spring into action when it appears that we have the upper hand, but also quick to deny the convictions of our faith when the chips are down and peer pressure is high?

Still, it was only Peter and that other disciple who remained with Jesus throughout his trial at all.  Where were the others?  After Jesus’ arrest, there is no more mention of them whatsoever until after His resurrection, when they were hiding out in an upper room of an inn, terrified that they would also be arrested and put to death.  Peter and the other disciples can be seen as the most faithful of all the disciples because they stayed with Jesus the longest.  

And maybe that is why Peter’s denial was the hardest and most remembered of all the disciples.  “I am not,” he said to the servant girl who asked if he was one of the twelve.  “I am not,” he said to the people standing around at the charcoal fire, who asked the same question.  And it is at that very moment, as Peter was denying his relationship to the Lord, that Jesus himself was denying nothing, and in fact was standing behind everything he had done and said during his ministry.  

What is this “I am not?”  I am not the holy man that you think I am, he was saying to them.  I am not so certain and secure in my convictions as to be unshakeable in my faith.  A moment of weakness reveals to us that the great Apostle Peter, to whom Jesus said, “you are Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it (Mt. 16:18);” this Peter is very much like all the rest of us.  

Jesus, however, knew this as well, and having loved Peter, he loved him to the end.  Later, after the resurrection, Jesus confronts Peter at another charcoal fire.  He asks him three times, “Peter, do you love me?” at which Peter becomes a bit offended, and says, “Yes, Lord.  You know that I love you.”  Jesus said to him, “Feed my sheep.”  

Jesus knows that Peter loves him, and Jesus loves Peter no less for his betrayal.  But why does Jesus choose Peter, who is broken and weak, to lead his church into the future?  I believe it is because Peter is broken and weak that Jesus chose him.  Peter’s soul is empty and ready to be filled; he is, as he says himself years later, in a letter to the Church, like a newborn infant, longing for the pure spiritual milk, that by it he may grow up into salvation.

The Psalmist says, “the sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise (51:17).”  
The story of Peter’s denial reminds us that we are a broken people, with a broken church, living in a broken world.  And while it is very Presbyterian of me to point out that obvious truth, I believe that we must always keep our brokenness before us, acknowledging the lordship of the only Physician who can heal us and make us whole.  In the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.