Only Jesus - Part 3

 

Continued from previous post…

 

            So while Peter is walking up the watershed mountain, as he is walking with Jesus and James and John up the mountain, inside his mind and heart and stomach, inside his gut – things are churning – for the fisherman has gone from the highest high to the deepest low.

            Have you ever gone from a “wow!” to an “ouch!”? Have you ever had a time of great morning devotions and you are praising God and feeling as if things just couldn’t get any better – when you can’t find your car keys and you are convinced your spouse has moved them?

            Or perhaps you’re in your car driving to work, listening to some of your favorite music…playing the drums on your steering wheel…singing along with the tunes…praising God…having your own praise and worship gathering with the heavenly host in your car…and then…as you are merging into traffic on I-81…someone decides not to let you into the flow of traffic…in fact…someone decides to be downright rude to you on the road…have you ever gone from a “wow!” to an “ouch! in the way you’ve responded to the ungracious person”?

            “Well,” Peter thinks as he climbs the mountain with Jesus, “this has got to get better. After all, wherever we’re going on this mountain, other than James and John, I’m the only one Jesus asked to go with Him. So even though I’ve gone from a wow to an ouch, things must be okay or Jesus wouldn’t have asked me to come along. I’m not too sure about these heights…I much prefer sea level, but I can live with this.”

            We know that Peter talked a lot, he seemed to always have something to say and he was usually not afraid to say it. And…as we have seen…Peter could go from a wow to an ouch in under ten seconds. When you think about Peter and things he said that you would not want to say, what do you put at the top of your list? If you were to take a poll of folks who know about Peter and ask them that question, what is their most likely answer to be?

            Yes, I think you’re probably right, I think most of us would think about Peter’s denial of Jesus in Jerusalem when Jesus was before the kangaroo court of the high priest.

            Just hours before Peter’s denial of Jesus what did Peter say to Jesus in the presence of the other apostles? He said, “Lord I will lay down my life for you. Even if everyone else leaves You and denies You I will never ever do so.” Wow Peter…that’s quite the thing to say…wow Peter, that’s quite the declaration…wow Peter…wow Peter.

And yet, when the time came for the rubber to meet the road…how many times did Peter deny Jesus? Yes, three times…and to make himself sound convincing he used oaths, he was adamant in his denial. Ouch Peter…how could you do that? Ouch Peter…it’s bad enough as it is…but after that declaration that you’d never desert Jesus this is really an Ouch…not just a simple basic ouch but one of the mother of all ouches!

            Now suppose I were to ask another question, once again about Peter. When you think about Peter and the things he said which you would not want to say – where do we find the most dangerous and insidious words – the words that we should be constantly aware of less they come out of our hearts and mouths…less we say them? Where are the dangers that come in under the radar screen, the attitudes that are difficult to detect, that may even feel good…and which are…therefore…all the more dangerous?

 

To be continued…