IN PETER’S DENIAL of his Savior, it is not the faithlessness that stands in the foreground, but the suffering that human disloyalty occasions the human heart; and very definitely the suffering which it occasioned our Savior.
Peter’s denial is a chapter from the history of the passion of the Mediator. It is a link in the series of dreadful events, which from Gethsemane to Golgotha followed one the other with so great rapidity.
To be disregarded, not to be known, not to be acknowledged, is one of the most painful experiences we encounter. Not in the wrong sense, that you should imagine yourself to be all sorts of high things, that you should cherish I know not what high thoughts of yourself, and should demand all sorts of honorable distinctions, and be angry and bitter, because people refuse to burn the coveted incense before your altar. For this is no disregard on the part of others, but a lack of self-knowledge on your part. And it should be thought a blessing, when people do not flatter you, but soberly tell you the truth, and thus repress in you unhealthy self-esteem and foolish conceit.
But to be disregarded in your real seriousness, in your holiest intentions, in your most difficult battle of life, in the struggle of soul from which there is no escape when you rise at daybreak and when you retire at night, that indeed, is suffering, bitter suffering for the heart, which God has created with the thirst after human sympathy.
For though this sympathy is of a lower order, where it consists merely in the exhibition of good will, it can also be spiritual and of heavenly worth, when in the mighty conflict of spirits it nobly devotes itself to the task of binding heart to heart, and of doubling the strength in the battle of attaining our purpose in life.
Hence one may safely say, that for all God’s prophets and apostles and martyrs the lack of this sympathy, this treading of the winepress alone, this deadly loneliness and oppressive forsakenness, has been their heaviest cross.
And when you think of the life, the self-perception, the inner consciousness of your Savior, which ripened before any one surmised anything of His battle of life, and Who in His public ministry struggled three long years without the companionship of any who understood Him, who sympathized with Him, and spiritually became one with Him, do you not understand that for Jesus there was a cross before His Cross?
As our Catechism puts it, “a suffering all the days of His life upon earth”.
But this lack of sympathy appears in a much more sharply defined form, when you face spiritual antipathy in those who are of your class, and who seem to be your own.
Yet such was the case in Jesus’ circle.
They deemed themselves to be one with Jesus, and they were not. Their whole fellowship with Jesus, during all those years, was one continuous misunderstanding. However clearly Jesus expressed Himself, spiritually they remained strangers to Him. They were men of a different spirit. And again and again they tortured Jesus with their banal questions, as to when He would establish the Kingdom in David’s city, and who then would be first minister.
For Jesus this was anguish of soul enough to kill Him.
And when Jesus put up barriers by saying: “My way leads to the Cross”, the antipathy against His spiritual intention comes out most strongly in the man, who had warmest sympathy for Jesus’ Person, and Jesus must avenge this antipathy and break it by His exclamation: “Get thee behind me, Satan!” And even this does not help.
After the Holy Supper Peter still stands antipathetically over against the spirit of Jesus, and he brings out a sword, and wounds one of the servants in Gethsemane.
YOU can well understand, why every time again Jesus went alone into the mountain to pray; to pour out His soul before His Father, and to strengthen Himself in His heavenly Sender.
For do not forget, Jesus did not seek spiritual sympathy, mounting to warm lively faith, from men for the soothing of His own feeling, nor from the sense of strength too small. No, spiritual sympathy was indispensable to Him, if the world were to be saved.
When you rush into the water after a drowning person, nothing is more dreadful than that he refuses to be saved, that he swims away from you, and dives under, and wilfully seeks his doom.
And this in utmost measure was the experience of Jesus.
Satan tried, the multitudes tried their hardest to drag Him down to the depths, that He might go under with them, but the world would not be saved. No heart unlocked itself, no soul made surrender to Him. Healed, fed, yes, that is what they would be in every hamlet and village. But with Jesus they will not risk their all. They will not pass over from death unto life.
This bitter experience has burdened Jesus all the days of His life.
This sympathy of spirit should have, but did not, come. And when finally all leave Him, He has to ask His disciples: “Will ye also go away?” And Peter indeed answers gloriously, so that Jesus is comforted of heart. But even then Peter did not understand his Savior. Not by far.
He thought he did, but this was not so.
It was a spark of light for one moment ignited of God in his soul, but presently it was extinguished again.
JESUS has been tried by His disciples most of all.
And among these most grievously by him, who could so truthfully say: “Lord, Thou knowest all things, Thou knowest that I love Thee” (John 21:17).
For though among the multitude antipathy was far stronger, and among the people lack of respect more humiliating, Jesus did not take this too seriously. It could not pain Him grievously. It filled Him with plaintive regret, so that He wept over Jerusalem. But with respect to this at least He still could weep. And sorrow about which you still can weep, is already half reconciled.
Dumb sorrow is the most dreadful for the heart.
And this bitter grief, Jesus suffered most poignantly, when He was alone with His disciples.
With His beloved followers, who had forsaken everything for Him, whose intentions were so noble, who would go through fire for Him.
But what did all that love avail Him. In the awful conflict with Satan He sought faith, He sought fellowship of spirit, higher unity, concerted action. And … how often they sided with Satan against Himself.
When the multitudes inflicted wounds in Jesus’ heart, He always had His disciples whose sympathy could refresh Him. But when in this inner circle there was continual misunderstanding, when they always cherished other purposes in life, and were never able to enter into His glorious plans, or into the counsels of God, that human heart of Jesus was closed up to itself, and in the midst of His own He felt Himself cruelly forsaken.
Gethsemane is not something new, but in its shade all the beams of what Jesus had suffered before concentrate.
And now His heart almost breaks, and He implores His three closest disciples, at least not to leave Him alone.
For of course, if Jesus suffered grievously among the multitudes, He suffered still more grievously among the twelve, and worst of all among the three elect from among them.
That in Gethsemane even these three did not understand anything of it, was the bitterest drop for Jesus, in which He already tasted in advance the bitter drop of Peter’s denial.
And yet the wound which by his intentional denial Peter inflicted on Jesus’ heart, was a new bitterness by itself.
To be slighted, not to be understood, to have to fight hardest him who loves you most, is indeed dreadful, but it becomes still more so, when it turns into denial, that is to say, when one inflicts this upon you not unconsciously, not when you are alone with him but openly before the eye and ear of people. Stronger still when this is done in the presence of your enemies.
Then the weapon cuts so deep; the wound inflicted smarts so sorely.
For then people notice it, and it becomes a public matter. Then your enemy observes it, and mocks you on account of it.
See how his own friends deal with him!
Then only it becomes denial. Abandonment, as far as they are concerned, of your holy intention to the scorn of your enemy; a shielding of oneself, implying that one has nothing in common with your spiritual aim; a severance of fellowship of spirit with your spirit; and thus an actual taking sides with your enemy against you.
To be denied, when you fight and struggle for what is highest and best; to be denied by the man on whom of all men you built your fondest hope, confess, is there a more grievous pain thinkable for the human heart of the wrestler?
This can take place in ordinary, but also in extraordinary circumstances, and by this uncommonness it can become yet more dreadful, yet more intolerable.
One can deny you in your absence, so that only later on you may hear of it. But when you are denied to your face, when you have to listen to it, and every word puts fire into your soul, it becomes torture, and makes you feel as though there were no more faithfulness or truth left among men.
When Jesus was denied by Peter, it was still worse.
Jesus not only stood by and heard it, but Jesus stood bound in the midst of His enemies, who were waiting to pour out His blood. With Jesus the end was close at hand.
At this critical moment the Wrestler looked for a mark of sympathy. One of His most faithful friends stood by, and He saw him turn away; think only of himself; hold himself aloof, and openly deny Him. Truly, the topmost point of suffering was almost reached, and for every other human heart it would have been too much to bear.
And Peter made it more dreadful still.
He denied Jesus not only once, but three times.
In the end he did this with cursing and swearing. God might damn him eternally, if he were a disciple of Jesus.
Almost inconceivable. It can not be told in words. But thus it took place.
Your Saviour suffered all this at the hand of Peter His disciple.
And upon the Gospel-page this is what the denial of Peter means.
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