Shame, cure, glory: alongside Peter in Lent
John 18:12-27
It was fitting that it happened in the cold and darkness of night. Our Lord was betrayed, handed over into the hands of those who sought His death. Most of the disciples had fled, abandoning him.
Peter and the beloved disciple follow Jesus to the residence of the high priest. The beloved disciple, known to the circle of the high priest, enters in. He negotiates Peter’s entry. That beloved disciple then goes to observe the proceedings of the trial of Jesus.
Peter is left in the dark and the cold - and the dark and cold enfold him, not only physically, but spiritually. For on this night, Peter, a leader of the apostolic band, the one who had earlier that evening boasted of his fidelity to Jesus, even unto death, denies his Lord. Peter enters into the cold darkness of faithlessness, of failure.
John’s Gospel sets before us Peter’s threefold denial of Jesus in stark detail. No attempt is made to explain away Peter’s denial.
No. Peter failed. And this abject failure is recounted for us, the details of the threefold denial set out.
The first denial before the woman who kept the gate to the high priest’s house. The second denial beside the charcoal fire, for it was a cold night. The third denial as Peter stood and continued to warm himself at the fire.
And then the cock crowed. The details are recorded so we know this happened. Peter failed. And it was an abject failure.
Each of the four Gospels, in their accounts of the night on which Our Lord was betrayed, record Peter’s denials and failure. This despite the fact that he was a leader of the apostolic band in the Gospels; and a leader in the apostolic churches for which the four Gospels were written.
Rather than suppress the story of Peter’s denials and failures, in an attempt to burnish the credentials of the leadership of the early church, all four Gospel writers set it plainly before those who first heard and read the Gospels.
What is more, the source for this story of Peter’s denials and failure had to be Peter himself. It must have been Peter who first told the other apostles and the first Christians about his abject failure. In doing so, he ensured that the Christian proclamation of the Lord’s Passion would always include the confession of his denials, his failure.
Why? Why not suppress the story? Why not conveniently forget about it? Why not create a narrative which explained and justified Peter’s actions on that night?
In our parish Lenten book, Lent with the Beloved Disciple, Michael Marshall points to why the story of Peter’s failure was not suppressed, denied, or explained away, as we see so often in contemporary public life - and, if we are honest, in how we often respond to our own failures, with excuses and denial, not confession: “By way of contrast, how vastly different are human frailty and failure when viewed from the perspective of Christ’s redemptive work” [1].
Our failures, when confessed with a penitent heart, are integral to the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Our failures are then taken up into the Gospel, to become occasions of healing, forgiveness, and restoration. They are wounds touched by Christ the healer. They are experiences which reveal us as the prodigal, embraced in love by the Forgiving Father.
To deny our failures, not to acknowledge them, to believe that the prodigal is always someone else, never us: this is to turn away from the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
Which is why Peter’s denials and abject failure stand in the account given by all four Gospels of the Passion of Our Lord. For Peter is me, you, all of us. It is when we stand with Peter and alongside Peter that we encounter the gracious forgiveness and reconciling love of God in Christ.
An ancient, simple Christian prayer, beloved in the Eastern Orthodox tradition but now widely used across the Christian traditions, is a means of us taking our place alongside Peter. It is the Jesus Prayer:
Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner.
It is a prayer to be slowly repeated, throughout our lives, as it draws us into the heart of the Gospel. We acknowledge our failures in these words; our need for mercy and forgiveness in Christ. And it is to Him we, with Peter, turn, our wounds exposed, our failures acknowledged. To the One who is merciful, who has come not to condemn but save, who heals and restores.
In the words of Jeremy Taylor, the great 17th century theologian of our Anglican tradition and a bishop of this diocese, “there is indeed a shame in confession, because nakedness is discovered; but there is also a glory in it, because there is a cure too” [2].
Confessing, with Peter, our failures, exposes our wounds and strips away our pretensions. In doing so, it opens us in heart, mind, and soul to God’s reconciling, forgiving grace in Christ, bringing us from the cold night of failure to the dwelling of the Light, ever restoring us, ever renewing us in the communion of the God who is life, light, love.
Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner.
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[1] Michael Marshall Lent with the Beloved Disciple (2023), p.80.
[2] Jeremy Taylor Unum Necessarium, IX.8
The first painting is 'The Denial of Saint Peter' by Gerrit van Honthorst, 1623. The second is, of course, a detail from Rembrandt's 'The Return of the Prodigal Son'.
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