DENYING FEAR

We have seen it before in the Bible’s stories, but fear can make us do strange things, things we would never do in a normal state of mind.

Only a few hours earlier, Peter had been adamant in his response to Jesus’ prediction that before the rooster crowed—before the morning came—that Peter would deny knowing Him three times. “Even if I have to die with you, I will never disown you,” Peter insisted (Matthew 26:35). But what he asserted in the relative safety of the upper room was a long way from struggling to stay awake in the garden, seeing Jesus arrested, then lurking in the shadows of the courtyard of the high priest in the early hours of the morning as Jesus was put on trial.

While many of the other disciples had disappeared into the night, Peter had been trying to stick with Jesus, albeit from a safe distance, but the queries from a couple of servant girls provoked his fierce denials. The circumstances and surroundings were different, but the primary difference was fear. The bold fisherman from Galilee who had followed Jesus for a couple of years and then to the nation’s capital was suddenly trying to suppress his northern accent and distance himself as far as possible from the accused. As the curses of the third denial stunned the crowd around him, the crowing of the rooster sparked Peter’s memory of Jesus’ warning. “And he went outside and wept bitterly” (Matthew 26:75). But this was not the end of Peter’s story. After Jesus’ resurrection, special mention was made that Peter was to receive the news that Jesus was alive (see Mark 16:7), and, in John’s Gospel, Jesus gave Peter three opportunities to affirm his love for Him (see John 21:15–19). Fear had undone Peter, but Jesus loved him still, and that love gave him new courage and a larger mission.