Dear Luke,
Yes, I certainly do know what
happens next and yes, I will be happy to include what it means, at least what I
believe it means. This is powerful
stuff, Luke, and we’re at the heart of the story about Jesus. We have reached his arrest and his death is
drawing near, so near that his own heart was racing in anticipation. The first half of his desperate prayer in the
garden is probably the death of every man facing execution, certainly the
prayer of anyone facing wrongful execution.
The second half is the remarkable part—that he offers his life up as a
willing sacrifice if it is God’s will. I
cannot imagine such strength—to give my life because I believed it to be God’s
will. Even if I were so convinced, I
could probably try and talk my way out of the arrangement! As for the angel, I do not know whether that
legend is true, but I would certainly need more than my own strength to get
through the moment.
The crowd’s anger does not cease
once they have arrested the man. The
leaders of the crowd want Jesus to vanish from their lives. They’d like this thorn in their sides
removed, and they have riled up the crowd in order to assist them in doing
so. Indeed, Peter follows the crowd,
desperate to know the fate of his teacher, his leader, his master and friend. Here the story turns sadder still, when the
words of Jesus are found to be true.
I don’t think Peter had much of a plan when he
set out to follow Jesus. He probably
wasn’t sure where Jesus was being led, and there wasn’t much he could do
against an angry crowd that vastly outnumbered him, but Peter has always been a
passionate actor more than he’s been a relatively level-headed thinker, so off
he went in pursuit. Upon arriving at the
high priest’s house, someone kindled a fire in the midst of a courtyard, and
Peter slipped into the crowd, believing himself to be unnoticed amidst the
large number of people milling about, hoping the darkness would hide his
identity.
Alas, such dreams were dashed when
a servant girl noticed him by the fire and announced to the crowd that Peter
had been with Jesus. Peter must have
wanted to dive into the fire at that point, noticing every eyeball in the place
turn to glare into him, to examine every feature to see if he was indeed worthy
of having their anger poured out upon him.
Peter, panicking, said the first thing that came to his mind.
Woman,
I don’t know him.
Surely, at that very instant,
something deep within his soul leapt up and cried out, but he would not give it
voice. He could not give it voice. To admit to such a connection would surely
mean death, and his fear was stronger than his devotion at this point. He hunkered down, hoping that all the
attention would blow over soon.
But the storm had not yet passed.
Others had now began to examine him
closely, and it wasn’t long before another identified him as one of the
disciples who was with Jesus. Each eye
again turned to Peter, and stares bored into him as he turned anxiously before
the crowd. Once more, fear won.
I
am not one of them!
Humans have a strong desire for
self-preservation, and Peter’s was beating any preconceived notions he had
insisted on before this moment. The next
hour passed slowly for Peter, each anxious beat of his heart felt like a drum
that would announce his presence and true identity to a crowd desperate for
action, for resolution. By the end of
the hour, he had started to believe that he would escape unscathed, but it was
then that another insisted to the others that his identity as a Galilean meant
that he must have been a disciple of Jesus.
I
have no idea what you are talking about!
In that very moment, the night air
heavy upon this burdened man, two things happened. The cock crowed, triggering Peter’s memory,
and as he recalled the words of Jesus from not long ago he realized that he had
fulfilled the prophecy in his denials.
At the time, he had sworn that such a thing would never occur, but here
he stood, weak and helpless, desperate to save his own life before a crowd,
having denied Jesus not once, but three times.
Also, from another vantage point, the arrested leader, Jesus, turned to
look at Peter. This was too much for the
man’s soul, and tears filled his eyes as Peter left the courtyard, weeping
painfully at the thought of what he had just done.
Had Peter known the pain that Jesus
was going through, his own trial around the fire would have seemed easy. Perhaps his relative safety would have given
him courage to face his accusers. But he
did not know that Jesus was being mocked and beaten by those who had taken him
captive. They poured out their pent-up
anger and vengeance upon him, mocking his wisdom by keeping him blindfolded and
asking him to prophecy and identify his abuser.
In all these things he kept silent.
It was a long night, and when
morning came there was still no relief in sight for Jesus. The whole assembly convened in the morning,
with many of the leaders present, and they had Jesus brought before themselves
and asked him to confess that he believed himself to be the Messiah.
Jesus, with confidence lingering in
his voice, told them that they would not believe even if he told them, and they
would offer no answers to any questions Jesus asked. But he told them what would happen even if
they would not believe—he told them the Son of Man would find his seat at the
right hand of God.
The leaders then demanded to know
if Jesus was the Son of God, but Jesus only said that it was them who said such
a thing. Hearing no affirmation from
him, they decided they needed no further testimony, for they had heard enough
from his lips.
Luke, this account saddens me
beyond words. It breaks my heart to see
Peter, the devoted follower, denying any knowledge of Jesus, his friend and
teacher of three years. I cannot bear
the image of the man blindfolded, mocked and beaten, knowing that others found
humor in his pain. It enrages me to
think of the leaders, proud in their knowledge, questioning the man like a
common criminal, determined to end his life and soothe their troubled hearts. All of it is unfair, and yet Jesus went peacefully,
like a lamb before the slaughter, willing to obey God’s will. He didn’t fight and resist and condemn those
who seemed to hate him. He allowed their
anger and rage to rule the actions, and in so doing he allowed himself to be
condemned despite being innocent.
An innocent man will die in this
story, and he’ll do so not because he was unable to free himself, but because
he was unwilling, knowing that it was the only path to make it so that guilty
men and women like myself would not have to die, but would find hope in this
life and beyond death. The wheels were
in motion and Jesus would not disrupt them, despite the physical and mental
burden that was heaped upon his broken body.
All of this, Luke, he does for you
just as surely as he did for me. It was
for Peter the denier and Judas the betrayer and every other person that has
ever lived—it is mercy and love in action.
We, then, are invited to accept his love and Lordship.
Sincerely,
Theophilus
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