The King Denied
Lenten Season: Wednesday, 19 March 2014.
Rev. Bruce Skelton, Holy Cross Lutheran Church, Highlands Ranch, Colorado
It didn’t take much for Peter’s courage to fail. At least when the Israelites’ courage failed them at the Red Sea, it was because Pharaoh and his mighty army were chasing them. At least when the ten faithless spies discouraged Moses from trying to go in and take the Promised Land, it was because they claimed that they had seen “giants” who made them feel like “grasshoppers” And at least when King Saul chickened out, it was because he caught a good glimpse of a 9-foot tall enemy warrior named Goliath.
But in the end, all it took for Peter were two little servant girls and some bystanders.
Whatever happened to bold Peter, who made the Great Confession? “You are the Christ, the Son of the Living God,” said he (Matthew 16:16), confessing Jesus to be God’s anointed King. What happened to the brave Peter of bold promises who had said in the upper room? “Even if I must die with you, I will not deny you!” (Matthew 26:35). And whatever happened to the loyal and protective Peter, who when they came to arrest Jesus, had the courage to draw his sword and stretch out his arm and slice away at Jesus’ opponents? What happened to brave, valiant Peter, who went further than most of the disciples, all the way to the courtyard of the high priest?
Yet it was there he said, “I do not know the man” (Matthew 26:72). In the end, it didn’t take much for loyal Peter to become disloyal Peter and for Jesus to go from God’s Christ or King to being just a man, and even a man he didn’t know. Peter was a terrible actor, his Galilean accent gave him away to those in the courtyard, but his words gave him away as a denier of the One who said, “Whoever denies Me before men, I will also deny before My Father who is heaven.” (10:33). In the end, Peter loved his life too much to lay it down for a friend. And when the pressure was on the Great Confessor became the Great Denier.
But when you stop and think about it, it doesn’t really take much for you and me either, does it? At least Peter’s life was on the line. All it takes for us to deny we know Jesus some days is the risk of a little loss of popularity among the co-workers, classmates or friends. All it takes for us some days to deny Jesus is the risk of a little strife in the family, or even the risk of being alienated by worldly acquaintances whom we know despise Jesus and anyone who would follow Him.
It reminds me of the story about the young man who was a Christian college student who went out to work in the oil patch one summer. And when he got back together with his Christian friends in the fall, they asked him about his experience in being surrounded by so many rough and vulgar men and what they said when they found out he was a Christian. The young man just smiled and said, “They never caught on.”
They never caught him talking about Jesus. How many of us would sadly have to make the same claim. In the end, it really doesn’t take much for those bold promises we made at our confirmation, to “suffer all, even death” rather than fall away from “this confession and Church” to be conveniently ignored. It doesn’t take much at all for us to deny Jesus before men.
And this particular sin renders us more than just being lawbreakers and rebels, like everyone else, it makes us traitors. Last week we focused on the treachery of Judas, the betrayer of Jesus, our Crucified King, but as bad as he was, when you think about it, he never denied He knew Jesus. So between he and Peter, who was the bigger traitor?
This is important, because when we stand before God in the end, who will be held to greater account? Those who did not know of Jesus or those who knew much? We all know the answer to that question and it should give us pause. There I go again being like that rooster in our text. Preaching the law as he cock-a-doodle-dooed, and brought Jesus words of warning home to Peter, “Truly, I tell you, this very night, before the rooster crows, you will deny me three times.” (26:34)
Beloved, what can we do, but repent? Repent of our sin and believe the good news. The good news that while our loyalty our King has its limits, that same King’s mercy to us has no limits. It wouldn’t take much for Peter or us to be remembered as deniers. But in the end, the King’s mercy wouldn’t let us be remembered that way. For while Peter’s courage took him further than most men would go, Christ went further because He loved sinners like us more than He loved His own life. And He went further, all the way to the cross to do alone what only He alone could do. He went to suffer and to die for our sins, and not only our sins, but for the sins of everyone who has ever lived or ever will live.
As St. Timothy wrote in his second epistle:
“If we are faithless, He remains faithful—for He cannot deny Himself.” (2 Timothy 2:13). In the end, the King of kings could not deny His office as the Servant of servants, so He set aside His divine power, and fearlessly went to the cross to bear our disloyalty so that we will not be denied before the Father, who now delights in us. In the end, Jesus courageously went to his death exposing Himself to all of God’s wrath against all of mankind’s sin and against all that makes us fear and, he defeated it. In the end, He could never deny His office as Savior, and he rose from the dead to impart to us that peace that surpasses all understanding, the peace that comes to us through his shed blood on His cross, and His discarded shroud in Easter’s empty tomb.
The heavenly Father allowed Peter to stand among friends and make the Great Confession. But our great comfort is that Jesus left that courtyard that night without his friends, so that he could soon stand before Pontius Pilate and make the good confession that Peter did not. While Peter’s accent gave him away and it made him hold on tightly to his life. Our comfort is that Jesus Christ, who is God in the flesh, and who had that same Galilean accent, had a different heart, one that made Him willing to lay down His life for guilty sinners like us.
It reminds me of the story about a man named Ray Blankenship. One summer morning as Ray was preparing his breakfast, he gazed out the window, and saw a small girl being swept along in the rain-flooded drainage ditch beside his Andover, Ohio, home. Blankenship knew that farther downstream, the ditch disappeared with a roar underneath a road and then emptied into the main culvert. Ray dashed out the door and raced along the ditch, trying to get ahead of the foundering child. Then he hurled himself into the deep, churning water.
When he surfaced he was able to grab the child's arm but the force of the current was so great that they both tumbled end over end. Within a few feet of the yawning culvert, Ray's free hand felt something--possibly a rock-- protruding from one bank. He clung desperately, but the tremendous force of the water tried to tear him and the child away. "If I can just hang on until help comes," he thought.
He did better than that. By the time fire department rescuers arrived, Blankenship had pulled the girl to safety. Both were treated for hypothermia and shock, but recovered. On April 12, 1989, Ray Blankenship was awarded the Coast Guard's Silver Lifesaving Medal and it was well deserved, because Ray Blankenship couldn't swim.
The good news for is that we have an even better Savior than that. A Crucified King who was willing to die to rescue us, so that we could live forever. Jesus didn’t chicken out, but stretched out His arms on the cross and defeated the “giants” of sin, death, and the devil, so that we could enter heaven. And he was raised from the dead so that we would know that he was victorious and that in the end he will raised us up as well, so that we might rejoice with those we love in his glorious kingdom. May God grant us the strength to ever believe it and never deny Him. In Jesus Name. Amen.