Denying Him

And again he denied it, with an oath: ¨I do not know the man!¨  Matthew 26:72 (Reference Bible)

Peter was in the courtyard and people kept noticing that he had been one of those who followed Jesus.  When he was confronted, his response was denial.  Peter loved Jesus and thought He was the Messiah, but as people threatened to pin him down on his association, he gave way to fear.

For us today this story has become so familiar and almost always we put poor Peter out in the cold by himself.  ¨He should have acted differently or defended his love for the Lord,¨ we say.  Very seldom do we place ourselves into his shoes.  In his defense, it was partly true.  He had been with Jesus, but how could he say that he really knew Him?  Christ, the very Son of God in heaven, for all the time you may spend with Him, there is still so much we do not know.  There is still so much left to learn.

But Peter´s problem and ours is not a question of knowing or not knowing.  If we were pressed on how much we know the Lord, we would all admit that we should, or would like to know Him more.

The problem comes when we do not associate ourselves with Him.  Jesus took the steps to come down from heaven and to be with us.  His whole act of mercy and love was done so that we could all be together with Him and the Father.  All His teachings and all His sufferings were not done because we deserved them, but because God loves us and wants us at His side.

Peter spent one long night where time after time, he found himself in situations where he finally saw where he denied this association with our Lord.  The account of his betrayal has become a very visual lesson to us all.  Yet what he suffered and his repentance is somehow made less significant if we are unable to find healing for our own souls.  We need to read and lament our own short-comings.  Then we could use our own repentance to patch this distance and disassociation we find in our own hearts.

So let us resist the urge of seeing only the external outward workings.  If we see only Peter´s actions and weigh them with our own powers of mental deduction, then we find ourselves in a burnt field of legalism and works.

Let us rather open our hearts to the stirrings of the Holy Spirit.  God is spirit, and spiritual ways flow not as the physical and mental environment where we live.  The Lord, His heaven, and all the heavenly beings inhabit another realm and move in ways which we cannot yet see.  This ¨Other World¨ is, for the time hidden from our eyes.  But we know that their movement is not distant and removed from us.  The powers and movements of the Spirit flow in and through us constantly.  There are no boundaries for God.  Space and matter do not affect or inhibit Him.

What remains is for us to come into awareness of this awesome Being, His incredible love, and His workings in and around us.  Peter, after all of his expressions of denial, finally came to this moment.  It finally reached his heart at that third rooster´s crow.  In verse 75, it says that he went out and wept bitterly.

Dear Jesus, thank You for all that You have done for us!  One day, when the veil has been removed, You have returned to set up Your reign here with us, let us sit at Your feet and learn of all the wonders You have performed for us.  Until that day, what we cannot see, let us lift up to You in faith.  Give us again, a sense of wonder after You and all that You do.  Guard us against our tendency to make all things impersonal and external.  Open our hearts that the fathomless sea of Your presence may flow in, over and all around.  Then, let us stay close to that Presence always and never fall to denying You!

Amen