Luke 22:54–65 - Hope for the Fallen

Hope reigns even when misery seeps through the cracks!

---

Gospels: Week 11 — Jesus' Suffering and death

SINCE WE LAST LEFT OFF... Jesus has been betrayed by Judas and arrested after praying so intensely in the Garden of Gethsemane.

Luke 22:54–65 (NASB95)

⁵⁴ Having arrested Him, they led Him away and brought Him to the house of the high priest; but Peter was following at a distance.

⁵⁵ After they had kindled a fire in the middle of the courtyard and had sat down together, Peter was sitting among them. ⁵⁶ And a servant-girl, seeing him as he sat in the firelight and looking intently at him, said, “This man was with Him too.”

⁵⁷ But he denied it, saying, “Woman, I do not know Him.”

⁵⁸ A little later, another saw him and said, “You are one of them too!”

But Peter said, “Man, I am not!”

⁵⁹ After about an hour had passed, another man began to insist, saying, “Certainly this man also was with Him, for he is a Galilean too.”

⁶⁰ But Peter said, “Man, I do not know what you are talking about.” Immediately, while he was still speaking, a rooster crowed. ⁶¹ The Lord turned and looked at Peter. And Peter remembered the word of the Lord, how He had told him, “Before a rooster crows today, you will deny Me three times.”

⁶² And he went out and wept bitterly.

⁶³ Now the men who were holding Jesus in custody were mocking Him and beating Him, ⁶⁴ and they blindfolded Him and were asking Him, saying, “Prophesy, who is the one who hit You?” ⁶⁵ And they were saying many other things against Him, blaspheming.

Canons of Dordt

Point V, Article 4: The Danger of True Believers’ Falling into Serious Sins

Although the power of God strengthening and preserving true believers in grace is more than a match for the flesh, yet those converted are not always so activated and motivated by God that in certain specific actions they cannot by their own fault depart from the leading of grace, be led astray by the desires of the flesh, and give in to them.

For this reason they must constantly watch and pray that they may not be led into temptations.

When they fail to do this, not only can they be carried away by the flesh, the world, and Satan into sins, even serious and outrageous ones, but also by God’s just permission they sometimes are so carried away—witness the sad cases, described in Scripture, of David, Peter, and other saints falling into sins.

Summary

Peter's life as a disciple is marked by the highest of highs - he's the one who first recognized the deity and Lordship of Jesus and who by faith walked out on the raging water to meet Jesus - but also by the lowest of lows, as his denial makes evident in today's episode. But what's so shocking is just how quickly Peter - and us! - oscillates between these highs and lows.

Yesterday we saw the same thing in the Garden of Gethsemane: On one hand, Peter hit a high in that he was one of the three disciples Jesus choose to bring with Him farther into the Garden to keep watch and pray. But before he could even begin this sacred duty, he fell from this honorable height to a miserable low by falling asleep.

This account of Peter's three fold denial of the Lord that he'd so boldly confessed is widely recognized as one of mankind's most infamous failures. The Canons use it as one of only two Biblical examples given to illustrate how it is that true believers can be carried away by the flesh, the world, and Satan into sins - even serious and outrageous ones.

But don't miss Peter's high water mark that immediately precedes his lowly failure: even after everyone else had fled from Jesus, Peter was following. Yes, he was following at a distance, but he was following nonetheless. This may not seem to be nearly as high of an accomplishment as walking on water or being chosen to be part of Jesus' inner circle, but one of the most basic definitions of being a Christian is being one who simply follows Jesus.

  Dig Deeper  

Why is it that all four gospel writers chose to include this shameful incident in their accounts? Peter, of course, will go on to be the central figure who leads the new church after Pentecost, so if Matthew, Mark, Luke and John were trying to promote a scam, as is often alleged, certainly they wouldn't want to publicize one of their key leader's lowest moments!

They included this story not just to demonstrate Peter's fallibility or to pass along a cautionary tale, but to showcase Jesus' grace. Dale Ralph Davis explains this the best:

Peter's was a pathetic fall, but a fall that landed amid the shreds of hope. For here Luke tells us something no other gospel does: the Lord turned and looked at Peter... What did Peter see in that look? Sadness? Disappointment? Grief? Compassion? Whatever it was, it was the beginning of Peter’s recovery. Once Jesus had rescued Peter with the grip of His hand (Matt. 14:28–31), now He did it with the glance of His eye. No, not that Peter realized it at the time. Now he could only go out and bitterly weep. Grief and heartbreak and despair must have its way and time. But as he mourned and despaired, can we doubt that during that fateful week-end Peter must have replayed the moment of Jesus’ look? And if he remembered Jesus' ‘rooster prophecy’ (v. 61b), can’t we assume that he may also have dredged up ‘But I have prayed for you,’ and ‘when you have turned back, strengthen your brothers’ (v. 32)? I don’t doubt that misery reigned but hope may have seeped through the cracks. And the hope continues. For how many contemporary disciples find in Peter’s story (in Peter’s Jesus!) a paradigm of hope. Here is a Lord who looks on us in our failure, folly, and falseness and refuses to cast us into a landfill for miscarried disciples.

AAA Prayer (About)

• ACKNOWLEDGE WHO GOD IS: Our Father, who through His Son, Jesus Christ, gives us hope even when we fall to the lowest of lows;

• ALIGN YOUR LIFE WITH GOD'S WILL: Pray that, come what may, you will always follow Jesus;

  ASK GOD FOR WHAT YOU NEED:

---