Good Friday Reflection

Cost: ‘You aren’t one of this man’s disciples too are you?’

Reading John 18: 18 and 25b-27.
Now the slaves and the police had made a charcoal fire because it was cold, and they were standing around it and warming themselves. Peter also was standing with them and
warming himself. They asked him, “You are not also one of his disciples, are you?” He
denied it and said, “I am not.” One of the slaves of the high priest, a relative of the man
whose ear Peter had cut off, asked, “Did I not see you in the garden with him?” Again Peter
denied it, and at that moment the cock crowed.

Reflection
Events quickly overtake the intimacy of the last supper, with its hope-filled message.
Stepping out into the night Judas consorts with those who would seek to arrest Jesus whilst later, in the garden of Gethsemane after a brief foray, each of the disciples abandon their Master. We pick up the narrative at the high priest’s courtyard where Jesus faces
interrogation. Simon Peter and another disciple have gained access to the courtyard. Led
alone Peter is unable to remain incognito but is challenged repeatedly whether he was a
disciple of Jesus. A charge he vehemently denies. At which point the cock crows reminding Peter of Jesus words that “before the cock crows, you will have denied me three times”.
Peter is no longer following, instead he is denying, betraying and deserting, walking away
from his discipleship. The fourth evangelist says nothing of this yet the other evangelists
do. Luke records how: “The Lord turned and looked at Peter” and that Peter wept bitterly.
We may wonder what that look must have conveyed to Peter. Disappointment? Rebuke?
Yet, if we have understood the narrative of the passion gospel so far it would suggest that it
was the eye of love, not the eye of rebuke, or ridicule, that held Peter’s gaze at that precise
moment. For elsewhere Jesus makes the claim that he came into the world “not to do my
own will but the will of the one who sent me. And this is the will of the one who sent me
that I should lose nothing of all that he has given me, but raise it up on the last day” (John
6:38-39). Not a single one was to be lost!

To think about
Try as we may to live faithful lives we are confronted with how often we fall short of our
own expectations of ourselves. Most of our failings don’t weigh us down with deepest guilt
or remorse though there may be situations when this will be the case. Despite our failings
one truth that we should cling to is that in Christ the love of God is shown to be
unshakable, dependable, and unconditional.

Prayer
Before God, with the people of God,
we confess to our brokenness:
To the ways we wound our lives,
the lives of others and the life of the world.
May God forgive me, Christ renew me,
and the spirit enable me to grow in love.
Amen.

(Iona Community – adapted)

Written by Revd Canon Dr Robert Bull.

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