Following Jesus - Peter's Denial

Following Jesus - Peter’s Denial Matthew 26:69-75 Over the last several weeks, we’ve been walking with Jesus, well, Peter really. Peter was the disciple who boldly and courageously followed Jesus when few others would. He seemed eager to join Jesus in climbing out of his humble position as a fisherman to find new purpose - one that had a significant and eternal impact, as he changed the lives of people to trust Jesus as well. Because Peter was willing to trust, lean in, learn from, and imitate Jesus, he got to experience transformation for himself - and help others - by offering them forgiveness, freedom, and healing. Prior to this moment, remember and appreciate how Peter shares all those miraculous moments with Jesus: casting out demons, feeding thousands, declaring His majesty, and riding the waves of glory. But like us, as we follow Jesus - and learn to trust Him more - there are painful moments in the journey too; and today, that is especially true for Peter. It may be his greatest moment of failure, Peter turning his back on Jesus, turning moments of celebration and joy, to moments of great pain. This moment, of Peter’s greatest pain, comes just after one of Peter’s and Jesus’ greatest moments of triumph. Just hours before, Jesus made His triumphal entry into the city of Jerusalem. With grandeur and celebration, Jesus finally declared His position and fulfilled prophecy, as He entered the city of Jerusalem on the back of a donkey; a humble entrance for a king, that made reference to His place in the family of David. Overlooking the city of Jerusalem, as He descended from Bethany down the Mount of Olives, approaching the temple, Jesus would hear the adoration and accolade streaming from the streets full of followers. Believers and onlookers celebrated His place as King and arrival as Messiah. With waving palm branches as flags of celebration for a savior, and cloaks thrown in the streets for a proper royal entrance, the world rejoiced at the arrival of their long-awaited rescuer. The disciples, following closely behind, shared in the joy of the glorious moment they had been waiting for, where their teacher and friend would rescue and save the people - and reveal Himself and all His goodness to the world. The people literally shouted “Hosanna” in the streets, shouting “Save us.” They looked to Jesus as their Savior, their hope for deliverance and celebrated all He was about to do, or at least, what they thought He would 2 do. Of course, in the hours following Jesus' arrival, nothing would go as anyone but Jesus had planned. Soon, the palms underneath their feet would be trampled upon, as Jesus would enter His final hours of suffering and death. And though they wouldn’t know it yet, the crowds of beloved onlookers would soon be crowds bellowing their mockery and judgment. After the high of that glorious celebration, the disciples would share a loving supper and final moments at the feet of Jesus. As we were reminded earlier this week, Peter would declare his affection and dedication to Jesus with a bold proclamation that he would never desert Him, never turn his back on His beloved Messiah until he did. As Jesus is whisked away in a flurry of fighting and betrayal, as His life begins to slip through their hands, they all begin to fall away, even the one who declared his loyalty so blatantly hours before. Jesus is arrested in the garden, is held in isolated captivity and is placed on trial by the religious elite who couldn’t believe He was the Messiah they’d been waiting for. They declared Him worthy of death - because they thought Him a threat to the people He was trying to save. Jesus’ lowest moment; his accusation, arrest, isolation, and pain, were shared in Peter’s lowest moment too, as he did the one thing he vowed never to do - to deny even knowing Jesus. As Jesus waited His fate in an underground cell - Peter shouted his disassociation in the courtyard above. Three times, people noticed Peter. Three times, people identified him as a student and follower of Jesus; and three times, out of fear and panic and horror, Peter’s veneer of strength and undeniable allegiance, crumbled, as he denied even knowing his best friend, his Lord and Savior, Jesus the Christ. Can you imagine? The same one who shouted Jesus’ praise; the same one who was first to boldly make the audacious assertion that Jesus was the long-awaited Messiah; the first to step out of the boat; the first to declare his life-long loyalty, was also the one who would fail Him most miserable. Following Judas’ betrayal, Peter would be the next in line of the disciples who would leave Jesus in His moment of greatest anxiety and aloneness. Eventually, all of them would. All of those who had loved and followed Jesus - investing so much of themselves with Jesus over those three years - who gave everything in belief of who He was - all of them - 3 would leave Him. Peter denied ever knowing Him, denied following Him, denied learning from Him. Peter denied Jesus and in the process, was denying what Jesus had done for him, in his soul. How in the world could Peter turn so quickly on the Man he seemed to love so much? One thing and one thing alone has that kind of power. Peter wasn’t dramatically changed because he was giving up on Jesus. He didn’t change his mind about who Jesus really was. He likely wasn’t even going back on his belief that Jesus could save them. Quite simply, Peter fell to the fear that so easily entangles and stops us dead in our tracks. Fear, intimidation, panic, pressure, coercion, duress, maybe simply embarrassment, can cause any of us to retract a statement, lessen our affirmation, even deny a truth, maybe even our friendship with someone we know and trust and love. Could we do that? Never, we say. So said Peter, yet so Peter did, of all people. Let’s be careful, lest we betray ourselves as well, and God forbid, even Jesus. Peter was likely so scared for Jesus’ life and scared for his own life that, when threatened with a judging crowd, he thought better to lay low and play it safe. He may have panicked and not known how to answer. Or he may have simply hoped to lessen the target on all of their backs by answering in the negative. “I don’t know Him.” “I don’t know what you’re talking about.” “I’m not one of them.” Whether Peter was consciously choosing his response, or replying out of sheer panic, Peter did the very thing Jesus knew he would do under pressure. Maybe that’s because He knew Peter well enough to know how he’d respond, like when the fear of overwhelming water had him sink in the sea. Or maybe, Jesus knows the human condition enough to have suspected, even expected it, of Peter, and all of us, that we are all vulnerable to bend when the pressure is on. I want you to hear this. Jesus knew Peter and the disciples would abandon Him, and yet, Jesus loved them and walked with them anyway. We don’t have to theorize that Jesus might have known this out of some sort of Divine instinct. He said as much at their last meal. He knew they would fail Him, and still He loved them. Folks, Jesus has never expected your perfection, just your willingness to follow Him, to love Him, to live with Him, even when we fail Him. Out of a deep and profound love for us, Jesus would walk to the cross, enduring suffering and shame, carrying the weight of our sin and the sin of the world, knowing that the people He was saving could never love Him the way He loves us. 4 I’m not sure why we have reduced the message of Jesus to the notion that we are to be “perfectly together with a buttoned-up obedience” that Christianity seems to have become, when the message has always been more upside down than that. Jesus is the One who is perfect. He’s the One who can love unlimitedly. He’s the One that never fails. He’s the One that’s always there. He proved that in suffering for our sake EVEN WHEN we fail Him. In fact, it is His perfection that makes that saving relationship possible. He is the One without sin, would bear sin, so we could know freedom from it, and life without it, a life with Him. His perfect sacrifice makes our fickleness fade away. He never expected us to do what we can’t do (perfectly save ourselves) - He just expected us to accept the saving grace He could offer. Jesus didn’t expect Peter’s perfection, in part, because He knew Peter’s heart. He knew Peter loved Him. He had witnessed Peter entrusting Him with everything. Jesus had so believed in Peter that Jesus would declare Peter as the foundation for His mission knowing this moment of pain was coming - and would pass. Maybe you find yourself like Peter that night; overwhelmed by the weight of your life’s failures, having your faith fall to fear and uncertainty, and weeping bitterly in your unfaithfulness. Take heart. Jesus still went to the cross for Peter as He went to the cross for you and me. But also, be warned. None of us are safe from the vulnerability that can turn everything upside down in an instant. We need to steel our resolve to ever be faithful. The enemy is always looking, lurking for a way to keep us from living in the transformed, trusting practice of following Jesus. When we’re at peace with Jesus, fixed on Him, we’re unwavering. But when we become distracted, tempted, doubtful or hesitant we may lose sight of Jesus so easily. We have to be vigilant in our faithfulness and wary of the destruction, trepidation can bring to our life. We can’t live in peace and trust, and a place of indecision at the same time. In dark days like Peter’s and in the darkest night of Jesus’ own life and in the darkest moments of our own failures, the cross stands before us. Death would overshadow as Jesus took His last breath. The sky would grow dark. The earth would shake. And what seemed like the darkest night in His-story, imagining that the worst of human nature had won, would actually be the moment of His greatest victory. Jesus’ triumphal entry into Jerusalem was but a prelude of His triumphal re-entry into life through His resurrection from the dead.