Denial
Categories: god, forty-blogs-of-lent
Tags: God, Christianity, Jesus
Date: 07 March 2013 07:25:59
Jesus is Denied by St. Peter
Forty blogs of Lent
Day 19
Scriptural way of the cross
Station 4
Now Peter was sitting outside in the courtyard. One of the maids came over to him and said, "You too were with Jesus the Galilean." But he denied it in front of everyone, saying, "I do not know what you are talking about!" As he went out to the gate, another girl saw him and said to those who were there, "This man was with Jesus the Nazorean." Again he denied it with an oath, "I do not know the man!" A little later the bystanders came over and said to Peter, "Surely you too are one of them; even your speech gives you away." At that he began to curse and to swear, "I do not know the man." And immediately a cock crowed. Then Peter remembered the word that Jesus had spoken: "Before the cock crows you will deny me three times." He went out and began to weep bitterly. Matthew 26: 69-75
That's how Gerard van Honthorst saw it.
But however you look at it, Peter's denial of Jesus was an act of self-preservation at best and if you don't want to be generous downright cowardly. But I don't think I'd have even got to the courtyard.
Yet this was the man who Jesus named the Rock, which is the meaning of Peter. The man on whom Jesus would build his church. This is the man who let Jesus down so badly.
Yet even this man was offered forgiveness by Jesus. If Jesus can forgive Peter there's hope for all of us.