flickering firelight


A Pilgrimage to the Cross

Walking through Lent with Jesus

Tuesday 19th April

Then seizing him, they led him away and took him into the house of the high priest. Peter followed at a distance. And when some there had kindled a fire in the middle of the courtyard and had sat down together, Peter sat down with them. A servant girl saw him seated there in the firelight. She looked closely at him and said, “This man was with him.”
 But he denied it. “Woman, I don’t know him,” he said.
 A little later someone else saw him and said, “You also are one of them.”
   “Man, I am not!” Peter replied.
 About an hour later another asserted, “Certainly this fellow was with him, for he is a Galilean.”
  Peter replied, “Man, I don’t know what you’re talking about!” Just as he was speaking, the rooster crowed. The Lord turned and looked straight at Peter. Then Peter remembered the word the Lord had spoken to him: “Before the rooster crows today, you will disown me three times.” And he went outside and wept bitterly.

                           Luke 22: 54-62

What is the truth about Peter? That he loved Jesus…or that he was ashamed of him? That he was strong, brave, and loyal? Or that he was a coward, concerned only to save his own skin? In so many of our everyday human interactions, we work hard to hide the truth about ourselves. We play the game, according to the circumstances….a political game at work, a manipulative game at home, maybe even a religious game at church. Huddled around the fire, Peter was only playing the game- probably trying to work out what the girl wanted, and what would be the consequences of his answer.

And then the Lord turned and looked straight at him.

Here is truth.
Here is the light, which shines into the darkness, and shows things as they really are.

And the truth, about Peter, about you, and about me, is that we are all a mess, all capable of being at the same time brave and cowardly, loyal and traitorous, loving Jesus and denying him. Jesus came to sort out the mess that is us, and tell us a new truth about who we are:

But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s special possession, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light.

1 Peter 2: 9

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