Hello and welcome to these Holy Week Reflections on this Holy Wednesday. I’m really glad that you’ve decided to join us. Today, as we continue our walk through the Passion Narrative found in John 18 and 19, we are talking about Peter. Peter plays a starring role really as a villain in this story. And what we find as we hear from Peter is it is really easy to villainize him. 

So today we’re going to take a different look, a deeper look at the apostle Peter through these verses:

Scripture: John 18:15-18, 25-27

15 Simon Peter and another disciple followed Jesus. Since that disciple was known to the high priest, he went with Jesus into the courtyard of the high priest, 16 but Peter was standing outside at the gate. So the other disciple, who was known to the high priest, went out, spoke to the woman who guarded the gate, and brought Peter in. 17 The woman said to Peter, “You are not also one of this man’s disciples, are you?” He said, “I am not.” 18 Now the slaves and the police had made a charcoal fire because it was cold, and they were standing around it and warming themselves. Peter also was standing with them and warming himself…25 Now Simon Peter was standing and warming himself. They asked him, “You are not also one of his disciples, are you?” He denied it and said, “I am not.” 26 One of the slaves of the high priest, a relative of the man whose ear Peter had cut off, asked, “Did I not see you in the garden with him?” 27 Again Peter denied it, and at that moment the cock crowed.

This is a very famous piece of scripture. Peter is very famous for denying Jesus three times. We will, of course, remember that not long before this, Jesus had forecasted that Peter would do exactly this and that a cock would crow. Peter then follows through with it. And I want you to imagine how Peter must have felt. 

It’s really easy to villainize Peter.  Very easy to do that. And, of course, this scripture has been preached, I am sure, many times about not denying Jesus when we are put in situations where it might be easier to do that.  But, for now, let’s put ourselves in Peter’s shoes. Jesus, the man he’s given his life to for the last three years, is inside being questioned, being accused, in a lot of trouble, with the highest religious officials that Peter knows. 

He is standing with soldiers who could arrest him, who could throw him in jail. They really don’t need much of a reason. It’s not like he’s not a Roman citizen. He doesn’t have a whole lot of legal standing. They can do whatever they really want with him, and so he’s got to be feeling a whole bunch of fear. 

He’s got to just be really, really, afraid. Afraid for his life. Afraid for Jesus.  Full of fear. And I said afraid there and really we want to focus on the word fear. To be afraid is to be really concerned; it’s a kind of thing that might result in a fight or flight. Fear is different. Fear is deeper.

Fear is the absence of hope and Peter I think is experiencing that. He’s experiencing the absence of hope and so he denies Jesus three times. For me, what I see in that if I put myself in Peter’s shoes, is an act of self-preservation. It’s something that we all do when we’re fearful. We may not even realize that we’re doing it, but to act for self-preservation is very common when we are experiencing fear. 

I thought in my own life about where I’ve experienced this or where I’ve known someone who was experiencing this and I actually struggled for a minute. Some of the other examples I’m using in previous videos or later videos, I’m already talking about things and so it took me a minute.

But I remembered a situation from when I first started working at Mercer. You’ll recall that I was formerly a higher education administrator. I was in student affairs as my first career before I became a pastor and I had just started working at Mercer at this time. I ended up in this conflict with another person worked in a completely different division of the university. We reported to different vice presidents, but I had to work closely with him in order to facilitate orientation for brand new Mercer students: first-year students. And our conflict was really escalating. He was threatening to go to my vice president with all sorts of things and was really just responding poorly.

I was getting increasingly angry about it and thinking to myself what I might do; often not so good thoughts. I had villainized him. And so in our metaphor today, I am doing what I think many of us have typically done with Peter in the scripture: I was villainizing. And this employee, this colleague of mine, in retrospect, was acting out of fear. 

He was fearful that he wouldn’t be able to do what he needed to do. He was fearful that he wasn’t being heard. He was fearful he was going to get in trouble with his vice president. Honestly, I can’t speak to all the fears that I think he was experiencing, but our miscommunication and in our poor working relationship was causing him to experience fear. 

And when I realized that I went to him. I apologized for my role because, now seeing the world through his eyes, I could see how I had contributed to this without meaning to. We were able to reconcile and enjoyed a good working relationship for the rest of my time at Mercer.  So I think in that, and again, this is not nearly as consequential as Peter denying Jesus, and honestly, I wish I had a little bit better of a example to share with you, but I think the point is still clear that when we are experiencing fear or we experience someone else who is experiencing fear, it’s natural to respond in ways that seek self preservation, that try to get rid of the thing that’s causing the fear. And to make sure that we ourselves in ourselves as individuals are stable, are secure.  

But we know fear is never of God. God is not of fear. If fear is the absence of hope, and I think that’s a great definition of fear, then God is not a fear because God is hope. And I think Peter experienced this firsthand. 

Notice with me that in the first few verses I read, they talk about how the soldiers and the police are out there warming their hands and themselves over a charcoal fire. So then, fast forward a couple chapters into chapter 21, and Peter’s on the beach, and this man comes and joins them, and they start cooking fish over a charcoal fire. And suddenly, Peter realizes the man is Jesus. Smell is the sense most connected to memory.  And my guess is the last charcoal fire Peter had smelled was the fire in the courtyard of the high priest. 

Now he’s smelling a charcoal fire again (and you know that’s got a very distinctive smell), sitting with the man that he denied, now knowing that Jesus was resurrected, just as he said that he would be. And in that moment, there’s forgiveness. There’s reconciliation. There’s hope. It’s a powerful image of those two charcoal fires. 

Think

And so our think today is this: what are times that you’ve experienced fear or seen someone else experiencing fear?  How did you respond?  And can you relate to denying or acting for self-preservation?  Imagine with me a time that you have seen someone else or you yourself have been fearful. And then how did that person or how did you respond? 

It’s easy to villainize ourselves and be really hard on ourselves when we act for self-preservation out of that fear. It’s also really easy to villainize someone else who has done that. So think about a time where fear has really been experienced, whether you or someone else, And how you responded.  

Pray

Our pray today is to pray for those who are experiencing fear or for fear that we are experiencing in our own lives. And then especially to pray for ourselves or the other person who’s experiencing fear, for God to bring hope; the hope of that second charcoal fire. Something that will speak a word to that person or to you who is experiencing fear that God brings hope and that hope is always present. Even when it’s hard to see. 

Do

Then, here’s the do. Write one or more persons that you know who are experiencing fear or who you think are experiencing fear or who you think just could use a word of hope. Write them an encouraging card. After you’ve had a time of prayer to pray for yourself and others who are experiencing fear, then write hopeful cards to others. 

There’s nothing better to receive than a card like this, stuck in the midst of bills and solicitations and all the junk that fills our mailboxes. It’s beautiful. It’s wonderful. I’ve gotten several from many of you over the course of my illness, and I’m deeply grateful for those. They’re wonderful to find in the stack of medical bills that just seem to multiply.

So, do that. Write those cards, and sometimes when we’re experiencing fear ourselves, when we write to others, pointing to the God of hope, it helps us find hope ourselves.  

So that’s our think, pray, and do as we talk today about Peter and his denial and how it’s easy to villainize him, but we all experience fear. 

Let’s pray as we close out this time together. 

Pray with Me

God, you are not of fear. You are of hope. No matter the fear we know, no matter the fear our loved ones may know, you give us hope. You will always move in power. You will always provide. You will always. Resurrect us out of our fears and into hope. Give us vision in our own lives and for the lives of those we know who are experiencing fear. To see how you are moving for hope. And lead us to the people for whom we should write cards. We pray all this in Jesus’s name.  Amen.  

Take care. I’ll see you tomorrow for Maundy Thursday.