Denying Him But Still Living In Him
Now they arrested Him and led Him away, and brought Him to the house of the high priest; but Peter was following at a distance. After they kindled a fire in the middle of the courtyard and sat down together, Peter was sitting among them.
And a slave woman, seeing him as he sat in the firelight, and staring at him, said, “This man was with Him as well.”
But he denied it, saying, “I do not know Him, woman!”
And a little later, another person saw him and said, “You are one of them too!”
But Peter said, “Man, I am not!”
And after about an hour had passed, some other man began to insist, saying, “Certainly this man also was with Him, for he, too, is a Galilean.”
But Peter said, “Man, I do not know what you are talking about!” And immediately, while he was still speaking, a rooster crowed.
And then the Lord turned and looked at Peter. And Peter remembered the word of the Lord, how He had told him, “Before a rooster crows today, you will deny Me three times.” And he went out and wept bitterly.”
Luke 22:54-62 NASB 2020
You ever wonder how some of the stuff in the Bible got written down? This is one of my favorites. We know John was there, from other Gospels, but otherwise none of the other disciples are mentioned in this event.
We won’t see Peter again in these events until Easter morning (Spoiler alert!)and he will be with John. Peter went and wept bitterly, but had to do something until that third day.
I think he went home and told on himself.
I think he went and, in shame, told the others what he did and what had happened to Jesus, as far as he could tell.
Can you imagine what that was like? Along with the shock of Judas betraying, they had the shock of big strong zealot Peter caving in and running home like some kind of chicken.
This new church was working through some great examples for us. They were right there with Jesus, side-by-side, and they still had to figure out how to forgive one another, support one another, PUT UP WITH one another, and trust Jesus.
They had to do all of that WITHOUT understanding or knowing that Jesus would be raised from the dead in a few days. They did all of that without the indwelling fire of the Holy Spirit speaking to them inside their heads.
So here we are, not days before the resurrection, but many days after it, still learning the joy of confession, forgiveness, and commitment to one another. And the Lord is still looking at us, helping us to not forget Him.