Tag Archives: Peter denied it

THE ROOSTER PULLED THE TRIGGER

Christian life, ,

THE ROOSTER PULLED THE TRIGGER

“Arresting Jesus, they marched Him off and took Him into the house of the Chief Priest. Peter followed, but at a safe distance. In the middle of the courtyard some people had started a fire and were sitting around it, trying to keep warm. One of the serving maids…noticed him…and said, ‘This man was with Him.’

“He denied it, ‘Woman, I don’t even know Him.’

“A short time later someone else noticed him and said, ‘You’re one of them.’

But Peter denied it, ‘Man, I am not.’

“About an hour later someone else spoke up, really adamant: ‘He’s got to have been with Him! He’s got “Galilean” written all over him.’

“Peter said, ‘Man I don’t know what you are talking about.’ At that very moment, the last word hardly off his lips, a rooster crowed. Just then, the Master turned and looked at Peter. Peter remembered what the Master had said to him…He went out and cried and cried and cried.” Luke 22:54-62 (The Message).

Would Peter ever forget that night? Every time a rooster crowed, for the rest of his life he would remember.

I guess that many thousands of sermons have been preached on this passage of Scripture over the centuries, mostly focusing on Peter’s denial and Jesus’ forgiveness. After all, it’s a message of grace that everyone needs to hear.

But God’s grace comes to us in many different ways. Sometimes we identify God’s grace as His direct intervention in our lives; miraculous healing, forgiveness, times when we cope when we have no strength of our own.

At that moment in Peter’s life, I am sure he would like to have killed that rooster because it triggered a memory that brought him to utter despair. What if Jesus had not warned him in advance that it would happen? Would the sound of the crowing rooster have had as much impact on him as it did? Probably not.

He would have felt bad about denying Jesus but, because of the warning, every time he heard the rooster, he would also have heard his own retort at Jesus’ warning, ‘Lord, I am ready to go with you to jail and to death.’ It was not Jesus’ words that haunted him as much as his own.

Peter did not know himself. He had no idea of his weak and cowardly heart until the crowing rooster pulled the trigger! He had a long journey ahead and a lot of growing to do before he could say those same words and mean them.

The rooster was only being a rooster but, for Peter, his voice was a forceful reminder of his fallible humanity and his need for God’s grace because he could not do it on his own. It was his failure that caused him to be aware of his constant need of God and caused him to rest in the power of Jesus to give him strength to stand under testing.

Peter could not have penned the words in his letter to believers under pressure had he not experienced what he did on that terrible night. Only tested faith can come out pure, like gold that has gone through fire. Had Peter not fallen that night, he could have claimed victory through his own will-power, but his crash was the best thing that ever happened to him.

The sound of the crowing rooster was a trigger, not of failure and despair but of hope, a reminder of God’s grace that forgives, restores and gives another chance to those who discover, through experience, how weak they really are, and who learn to rest in the strength that God supplies.

THE ROOSTER CROWED

Bible Study, ,

THE ROOSTER CROWED

“Meanwhile, Simon Peter was still standing there, warming himself. So, they asked him, ‘You aren’t one of his disciples too, are you?’ He denied it, saying, ‘I am not.’ One of the high priest’s servants, a relative of the man whose ear Peter cut off, challenged him, ‘Didn’t I see you with Him in the garden?’ Again, Peter denied it, and at that moment a rooster crowed.” John 18:25-27.

Another “meanwhile”! With great skill, the writer moved the action backwards and forwards between Annas facing off with Jesus inside the high priest’s palace and Peter facing off with the servants in the dimly lit courtyard.

It was difficult to identify faces in the pre-dawn darkness, the courtyard lit only by the glowing embers of a coal fire. Peter tried to keep his face down as he warmed his cold hands. He had already been challenged once. In his panic, he had denied any association with Jesus. He didn’t want to be noticed in case someone else who had been there in the garden recognised him.

The servants around the fire knew very well that Peter was not one of them. He was a Galilean, by his accent and they soon began to question among themselves. Suddenly one of them spoke up. With withering scorn, he pointed in the direction of the palace and demanded, ‘Surely you aren’t also one of His men, are you?’ Peter was not caught off guard this time, but he had already lied once. He had to keep it up to save his skin. ‘I am not.’ he muttered.

One man in the group kept staring at him. Peter shrank back into the darkness but it was no use. A relative of Malchus, who had been there when Peter had lashed out wildly with his sword and severed Malchus’ ear, challenged him. ‘Hey! Weren’t you in the garden with him?’ he said. Peter had already cooked his goose.  He had been unmasked but he still persisted with his lie. Did anyone really believe him?

After three counts, the rooster gonged him out! John was silent about Peter’s response to the rooster. The other gospel writers pull the curtain aside. Peter was not only found out by the rooster for his foolish dismissal of his Master’s warning, his threefold denial of his Master and his shameless lying about his association with Jesus, but his utter emotional nakedness was also exposed by the gospel writers and revealed to the world.

Perhaps John still had traces of the old rivalry in his heart and deliberately excluded the heartrending scene of Peter’s regret. Didn’t he have a dig at Peter when Peter quizzed Jesus about John’s future (“Lord, what about him?” – John 21:21). Jesus cut him short with a sharp rebuke: “Mind your own business, Peter.”

“‘Jesus answered, ‘If I want him to remain alive until I return, what is that to you? You must follow me.'” John 21:22.

Jesus won the first round against Annas. With His insistence on the truth, He caught Annas out and all Annas could do was bow out by sending Him to Caiaphas. Let Caiaphas bear the brunt of Jesus’ astute understanding of the truth and what a fair trial was all about, and see whether he could wangle a conviction against such an opponent!

Jesus was not trying to get an acquittal. He was committed to being the Passover Lamb of God that would be sacrificed for the sin of the world. At the same time, each person involved in the miscarriage of justice and the twisting of the truth to serve his own ends, had to face up to his own guilt. Among all those who were directly involved in His conviction and execution there was only one who remained not guilty — the prisoner Himself.

Even those who loved Him the most and who were the closest to Him failed at the crucial moment. Peter’s guilt was not only his own. Though the others did not verbalise their abandonment of their Master when He needed them the most, Peter represented them all with his words and actions.

And we too, though not there in person, stand among those who were guilty of condemning Him to death because it was our sin that He took upon Himself and our debt that He paid so that we can be free. Don’t point a finger at Peter!

Acknowledgement

Scripture taken from THE HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION®, NIV® Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.® Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.