Mark 14

⁶⁶ And as Peter was below in the courtyard, one of the servant girls of the high priest came, ⁶⁷ and seeing Peter warming himself, she looked at him and said, “You also were with the Nazarene, Jesus.” ⁶⁸ But he denied it, saying, “I neither know nor understand what you mean.” And he went out into the gateway and the rooster crowed. ⁶⁹ And the servant girl saw him and began again to say to the bystanders, “This man is one of them.” ⁷⁰ But again he denied it. And after a little while the bystanders again said to Peter, “Certainly you are one of them, for you are a Galilean.” ⁷¹ But he began to invoke a curse on himself and to swear, “I do not know this man of whom you speak.” ⁷² And immediately the rooster crowed a second time. And Peter remembered how Jesus had said to him, “Before the rooster crows twice, you will deny me three times.” And he broke down and wept.

Eddie James of the Christian drama group, “The Skit Guys,” has delivered a powerful monologue in which he plays the part of Peter the day after the crucifixion of Jesus.  It is poignant in the way that it envisions what Peter likely would have thought and said as the full weight of his tragic denials came in on him.

That monologue powerfully expresses not only the kind of grief and shame I hope we all would have felt in Peter’s shoes after denying Jesus but it also expresses the kind of grief and shame we all feel today when we deny Jesus.  After all, there are many ways to deny Jesus, whether it be Peter’s particular way or not, though they all have this in common:  we deny Jesus whenever we allow our fear of the cost of following Him in any given moment to push us into verbal denials or denials of silence, into anti-Christian behavior or behaviors of evasion.  In short, we can deny by word or by silence, by deed or by inactivity.  The forms of our denials change, but the principles remain very much the same.  We see these principles at work in Peter’s tragic denials.

Our denials of Jesus tend to happen when we are alone and away from the encouragement and support of other believers.

Our text begins with a note of isolation.

^66a And as Peter was below in the courtyard

Peter had fled with the rest, but he actually shows a measure of courage by sneaking into the courtyard near where Jesus was being tried before the high priest.  One cannot help but be struck by the startling and pitiful contrast between Peter’s behavior in the Garden of Gethsemane and Peter’s denials in the courtyard of the high priest.  In the Garden of Gethsemane, earlier in our chapter, Peter was all impulse and courage.

⁴⁷ But one of those who stood by drew his sword and struck the servant of the high priest and cut off his ear.

Astonishing!  In the garden, Peter lunges and cuts a grown man’s ear off while surrounded by armed guards.  In the courtyard, Peter will deny Jesus three times before the accusations of a little girl and others.  Amazement on this point goes way back into the history of Christian biblical interpretation.  For instance, John Chrysostom, writing in the fourth century, marveled at it:

Oh strange and wonderful acts!  When indeed he saw his master seized, Peter was so fervent as both to draw his sword and to cut off the man’s ear!  But when it was natural for him to be more indignant and to be inflamed and to burn, hearing such revilings, then he became a denier.  For who would not have been inflamed to indignation by the things that were then done?  Yet the great disciple, overcome by fears, so far from showing indignation, even denies and cannot even stand the threat of a tiny and lowly servant girl.[2]

How can this be?  How is it that we can be a lion one moment and a mouse the next?  One consideration must be that Peter was a lion when he was with the greater body of disciples but a mouse when he was separated and alone.  Not only that, Peter did not even have the comfort of knowing that a band of unified believers was behind him, supporting him, for all of the disciples had scattered and run.

He was, in other words, utterly alone.

We are strong when we are nurtured in a body committed to Christ, even if our strength is misguided as Peter’s was in the garden.  We feed off of one another’s strengths.  We are encouraged by the mere presence of one another.  The Christian life was never intended to be a solitary affair!

Time and again in Christian history we see martyrs going bravely to their deaths and not denying Christ.  And in many instances these martyrs will give some acknowledgement of the church, of the disciples standing nearby, and of the fact that they are drawing strength from their presence.  One such example would be the martyrdom of the early German Anabaptist leader Michael Sattler in May 20, 1527.

Klaus von Graveneck, an eyewitness, wrote of Sattler’s conduct, “All this I saw myself. May God grant us also to testify of Him so bravely and patiently.”28 The events recorded above took place over a two-day period. The sentence was read on May 18. Two days later, on May 20, Sattler was executed.

The torture, a prelude to the execution, began at the marketplace, where a piece was cut from Sattler’s tongue. Pieces of flesh were torn from his body twice with red-hot tongs. He was then forged to a cart. On the way to the scene of the execution the tongs were applied five times again. In the marketplace and at the site of the execution, still able to speak, the unshakable Sattler prayed for his persecutors. After being bound to a ladder with ropes and pushed into the fire, he admonished the people, the judges, and the mayor to repent and be converted. Then he prayed, “Almighty, eternal God, Thou art the way and the truth: because I have not been shown to be in error, I will with thy help to this day testify to the truth and seal it with my blood.”

As soon as the ropes on his wrists were burned, Sattler raised the two forefingers of his hands, giving the promised signal to the brethren that a martyr’s death was bearable. Then the assembled crowd heard coming from his seared lips, “Father, I commend my spirit into Thy hands.” 30

Three others were then executed. After every attempt to secure a recantation from Sattler’s faithful wife had failed, she was drowned eight days later in the Neckar.[3]

What an astonishing testimony!  Notice the strength that Sattler drew from the presence of other followers of Jesus.  The raised forefingers were a sign to the gathered church!  It was bearable because they were present.

How desperately we need the strength and presence of one another!  How badly we need the comfort of one another!  Peter was alone, detached, and isolated.  This made his denials that much more easy.

Each time we deny Jesus we are pushed further into the darkness.  Each of our denials tends to be worse than the one before.

In Peter’s denials we also see how our denials tend to grow progressively worse.

⁶⁶ And as Peter was below in the courtyard, one of the servant girls of the high priest came, ⁶⁷ and seeing Peter warming himself, she looked at him and said, “You also were with the Nazarene, Jesus.” ⁶⁸ But he denied it, saying, “I neither know nor understand what you mean.” And he went out into the gateway and the rooster crowed. ⁶⁹ And the servant girl saw him and began again to say to the bystanders, “This man is one of them.” ⁷⁰ But again he denied it. And after a little while the bystanders again said to Peter, “Certainly you are one of them, for you are a Galilean.” ⁷¹ But he began to invoke a curse on himself and to swear, “I do not know this man of whom you speak.” ⁷² And immediately the rooster crowed a second time. And Peter remembered how Jesus had said to him, “Before the rooster crows twice, you will deny me three times.” And he broke down and wept.

With each confrontation, the stakes grew higher for Peter and his denials grew greater and greater.  The stakes grow higher because the accusations become more and more public.  The denials grow greater because Peter’s fear grows greater.  Notice the progression of Peter’s denials:

• “I neither know nor understand what you mean.” (Interestingly, Robert Gundry suggests that in Peter’s first denial of Jesus he “perhaps…means to cast aspersion on the maid’s Judaean accent as incomprehensible—a denial of Jesus that seeks a linguistic way of escape.”^[4] Accents do indeed appear to play a part in this scene, as we can see in Matthew account from Matthew 26:73—After a little while the bystanders came up and said to Peter, “Certainly you too are one of them, for your accent betrays you.)

• Peter denies Jesus before “the bystanders.”

• Peter denies Jesus with an oath: “I do not know this man of whom you speak.”

Marvel and grieve at how each denial grows worse than the one before!  R.T. France observes:

In answer to the first Peter need only contradict one person’s allegation, with the second he is forced into a public denial, and with the third he goes far beyond mere contradiction to an oath which must make any Christian reader flinch.[5]

Yes, it does make us flinch.  We flinch not only because of the heartbreaking account before us but also because we too know the reality of ever-escalating denials.  Think back to a time in which you denied Jesus, whatever particular form that denial took.  Do you remember the shame of that first denial?  The grief?  How you swore you would never do it again?  Now consider, if indeed it is a behavior or attitude you persisted in, how numb you were to it all after, say, the twentieth time.  Even now you might have this creeping chilling feeling coming over you that you too have been caught in the cycle of ever-worsening denials.

The psalmist seemed to understand this well when he wrote in the famous opening words of Psalm 1:

¹ Blessed is the man who walks not in the counsel of the wicked, nor stands in the way of sinners, nor sits in the seat of scoffers; ² but his delight is in the law of the Lord, and on his law he meditates day and night. ³ He is like a tree planted by streams of water that yields its fruit in its season, and its leaf does not wither. In all that he does, he prospers. ⁴ The wicked are not so, but are like chaff that the wind drives away.

See the progression:  if you walk in sin you will be tempted to stand in sin and if you stand in sin you will be tempted to sit in sin.  Our denials get worse and worse!  This is why scripture reserves such hard words for the act of denying Jesus.  Consider, interestingly enough, Peter’s own words about denial in 2 Peter 2:

¹ But false prophets also arose among the people, just as there will be false teachers among you, who will secretly bring in destructive heresies, even denying the Master who bought them, bringing upon themselves swift destruction.

Peter would be forgiven, for such is the love of the Lord!  Even so, he never forgot the grave danger of denying Jesus and the downward spiral into which it threatens to pull us.  Likewise, Jude writes:

⁴ For certain people have crept in unnoticed who long ago were designated for this condemnation, ungodly people, who pervert the grace of our God into sensuality and deny our only Master and Lord, Jesus Christ.

Beware the maelstrom of denial!  Each denial grows worse than the one before and wreaks greater and greater damage.

There is a denial we should make, but it is of ourselves and never of Jesus.

What is fascinating about denial is that there is, in fact, a denial we should make.  We should never deny Jesus.  We should deny ourselves!  Matthew 16:24, Mark 8:34, and Luke 9:23 all record the following words from Jesus concerning discipleship:  “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.”

Yes!  We should deny our own fallen selves:  our egos, our lusts, our anger, our bitterness, our self-interests.  We should deny these things so that we might, in fact, follow Jesus!  One of the major factors contributing to Peter’s denials of Jesus was his lack of self-denial and his embrace of self-preservation.  The key is always that which was articulated by John the Baptist in John 3:30:  “He must increase, but I must decrease.”

One of the most intriguing teachings on denial is found in the writings of Paul.  In 2 Timothy 2, we read:

¹¹ The saying is trustworthy, for: If we have died with him, we will also live with him; ¹² if we endure, we will also reign with him; if we deny him, he also will deny us; ¹³ if we are faithless, he remains faithful—for he cannot deny himself.

What is intriguing is that this text holds out, simultaneously, a fearful word about the price of denying Jesus but a comforting word for those who have.  The fearful word is that “if we deny him, he also will deny us.”  This is true!  If we reject Jesus Christ, we will not be saved.  If we embrace a denial of him, that is, refuse to receive him, we will be denied, we will not be received.  Rejection of Jesus Christ is the denial being spoken of here.

But for the believer in whom Christ dwells, “if we are faithless, he remains faithful—for he cannot deny himself.”  This most certainly does not mean that the believer is free to deny Jesus!  Perish the thought!  What it means, however, is that in the shame and brokenness of our fallings and failings, the person in whom Christ dwells understands the faithful love and forgiveness of Christ!  This does not mean a license to keep denying Jesus.  It means, rather, that in the tragic situation in which we do so we are not without hope and we are not left with only our bitter tears.  The Christian heart, broken under the weight of its denials of its Lord, may yet call on the name of Christ and know that he or she will find mercy there.  Why?  “For he cannot deny himself!”

The good news of the gospel is that when we are indwelt by the Spirit of the living God and covered in the blood of Jesus, God sees within us His Son!  All of this is simply to say what John said in 1 John 1:

⁸ If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. ⁹ If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

Yes, He is faithful!  There is the ultimate hope of the heartbroken denier.  And, if we are truly His, our denying will lead to a broken heart.  We will, like Peter, break down and weep!  But, for the Christian, we will not take the path of Judas, the path of utter despair.  Rather, we will dare to cry out for mercy, for forgiveness, for love…and we will find it there in Jesus!

What a marvel this gospel is!

Have you denied Him?  Then call out to Him with a broken heart!  Plead the blood if you have been washed in the blood.  Plead the blood through your tears and receive the wonderful, life-change mercy of Jesus Christ!

 

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fLCBFT_9n8w

[2] Manlio Simonette, ed., Matthew 14-28. Ancient Christian Commentary on Scripture. Gen. Ed., Thomas C. Oden. New Testament Ib (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2002), p.269.

[3] William R. Estep. The Anabaptist Story: An Introduction to Sixteenth-Century Anabaptism (Kindle Locations 772-781). Kindle Edition.

[4] Robert H. Gundry, Mark. Volume 2 (Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1993), p.888.

[5] R.T. France, The Gospel of Mark. The New International Greek Testament Commentary. (Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 2002), p.619.