Tag Archives: trigger

They Recognised Him

Christian Life, ,

THEY RECOGNISED HIM

“They came to the edge of the village where they were headed. He acted as if He were going on but they pressed Him: ‘Stay and have supper with us. It’s nearly evening; the day is done.’ So He went in with them. Here is what happened. He sat down at the table with them. Taking the bread, He blessed and broke and gave it to them. At that moment, open-eyed, wide-eyed, they recognised Him. And then He disappeared.'” Luke 24:28-31 (The Message).

‘He blessed and broke and gave it to them.’ Sound familiar? This was another trigger for these disciples. Jesus had probably done this hundreds of times during the course of His association with them. Many more than the inner Twelve followed Him around and no doubt He had shared many a meal with them. This was the first clue to the identity of the stranger who had accompanied them on their journey home.

Peter had his own triggers which brought back both painful and precious memories: The crowing of a rooster would always remind him of his terrible failure, and a coal fire, of his Master’s gracious forgiveness. For these disciples it was the simple gesture of blessing and breaking the bread.

Perhaps they were not in the Upper Room at His last Passover meal when He formally established a new covenant with them. They were not part of the inner circle but it was a familiar action, nevertheless. And who could miss the wounds in His hands which had, up to this point, been hidden?

It was those nail-prints which clinched it for them. No one could go through that ordeal and come out alive, with Roman soldiers on guard to make sure that every execution was carried out to the death. Their fuzzy, grief-soaked minds were suddenly cleared and they saw Him and recognised Him. Strange that it was His hands, not His face or His voice that finally convinced them.

Jesus must have enjoyed that moment! He has been on the road with them for a while, walking alongside them, listening to them, and talking to them but they were blind and deaf to all the familiar things about Him? Why? Was it because their disappointed expectation blinded them to His identity and His intention?

That’s how it often is with us too. Our expectations of God are either too low or too tied to our circumstances to allow us to recognise Him with us. We are in a tough spot and God seems silent or absent. We pray and nothing happens. Times get tougher and doubts and fears increase. Everything looks dark and hopeless. We have high hopes and they die when Jesus does not show up.

These are not intended to be faith-killing but faith-building moments. Faith does not grow when everything goes our way. Faith grows when there is nothing happening and we have to stake ourselves on God’s faithfulness. Satan comes in these times to call God’s character into question, like he did with Eve, because he desperately wants to discredit God so that we will mistrust Him.

But there is inexpressible joy awaiting us when Jesus shows us that He has been there all the time, putting everything in place to answer our cry. What an awesome moment when He reveals Himself and we know that our trust was worth it all! Even if everything seems dark and hopeless to you right now, won’t you trust Him? At the right moment He will show you that He has been there all the time and His plans for you are good.

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 them, 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.