John 18:15-27

09/05/10
John 18:15-27
Hudson UMC

There is a technique that the gospel writers sometimes used where they would take one story, split it in half, and stick another story in between the two halves. When they did this, they were tying the two stories together in a powerful way. The two stories have to be seen as shedding light on each other and helping us to understand what is going on. To give an example, Mark tells us a story of a hungry Jesus coming upon a fig tree that had no fruit on it. In response, He curses the tree and says that it will never bear fruit anymore. Jesus and the disciples then go into Jerusalem. On the way out of town, they see the tree again, only now it has completely withered. The disciples are amazed, but we are confused, because we cannot see why a story of a withered tree would be included in the story of Jesus.

However, when we look to see what happens while Jesus and the disciples are in Jerusalem, things begin to make more sense. Right after Jesus curses the fig tree for having no fruit, He goes into Jerusalem, to the Temple, and turns over the tables, harshly criticizing the religious leadership that had abandoned God and were not providing real spiritual leadership, that is, they were not bearing fruit. The cursing of the fig tree turns out to have next to nothing to do with agriculture, but everything to do with the Temple that Jesus was standing against and replacing with His own self. However, that depth of meaning only arises in our minds if we look at both stories at the exact same time.

You probably would like to know that I am not just bringing that up just for the sake of sneaking some helpful hints for Bible study into the beginning of my sermon. We actually care about that particular bit of information this morning because John has done precisely this with his telling of Peter’s denial of Christ and Christ’s interrogation by the high priest. John has split the story of Peter’s denial into two parts and placed the story of Jesus being questioned in the middle. The point that he is making is that these two things are deeply related and that we cannot really understand them unless we think them through at the same time. There is meaning to these two stories that we will miss if we focus on them just one at a time and do not allow their interplay to impress itself upon us.

It is this interplay that we are going to focus on this morning. There are all kinds of interesting details in this passage that we could spend a lot of time on, but aren’t going to. For example, who is this “other disciple” who both follows Jesus and is known to the high priest. How is it that this other disciple is not questioned by anyone about whether he follows Jesus or not while Peter is asked by everyone? To be honest, many of the greatest minds in the church have had no answer to some of those questions, so we will focus on what seems to be the larger issue, the comparison and contrast between Jesus and Peter and what it tells us about God, about humanity, and about the Gospel.

Let us start by looking at Jesus in this passage, because it is in light of what we see in Jesus that we understand the seriousness of what we see in Peter. Jesus is standing before the high priest, without doubt one of the very most powerful leaders in Jerusalem at the time, short of Herod and Pilate. People were not called directly before the high priest unless they were in serious trouble. History shows us that, when most people were brought face to face with the high priest, their reaction was of humility, pleading for mercy and safety, hoping against hope that they would be set free, or at least that their sentence would be mild.

This is not what we see Jesus doing. Here is Jesus in the same situation, and He is not afraid that they might put Him to death; He is quite certain that this is exactly what they are going to do. And yet, He does not cower before the merely human ruler, but stands confident. First, He exposes the hypocrisy and illegality of His arrest. In ancient Israel, like in modern America, a person who is on trial is not to be forced to bring forward information that could condemn them. Witnesses are supposed to be brought forward, and trials were supposed to be public. None of these things were the case here. Jesus reminds them that they were not even staying true to their own law by saying, “I have spoken openly to the world; I have always taught in the synagogues and in the temple, where all the Jews come together. I have said nothing in secret. Why do you ask me? Ask those who heard what I said to them; they know what I said.”

By saying this, Jesus is basically saying, “First of all, you already know what I have been teaching, you just want me to bow before you and renounce it. Secondly, you are asking me to condemn myself in a private, rigged trial with no witnesses. You are questioning me as if I were a criminal, but it is you who seem to be intent on breaking the law.” When we understand that Jesus was blowing the whistle on these leaders, it is much less of a surprise to read what happens next. “When he had said this, one of the police standing nearby struck Jesus on the face, saying, ‘Is that how you answer the high priest?’” The response is not one of humility, apology, or even recognition that wrong has been done, but violence. The one who slapped Jesus was hoping that, even if He were not intimidated by the presence of the high priest, He would be frightened by the prospect of physical harm.

But this is not what happened. Jesus responded to this attack by saying, “If I have spoken wrongly, testify to the wrong. But if I have spoken rightly, why do you strike me?” In spite of the long tradition of human beings that “might makes right,” where the ones who can wield the most force determine what is right and wrong based on their likes and dislikes, Jesus says that this is not so. Truth stands on its own; it does not need the support of human strength. Not only that, but the Truth of God will stand, even if every human being were to resist it. In Psalm 2, the Psalmist speaks of all the nations of the world conspiring together against the Lord and His anointed. The response is that God laughs at them, showing that even the combined strength of every human being cannot overcome Him. Jesus is standing on the strength of His integrity. His integrity is not just that He is remaining true to Himself, but that He is the Truth and nothing the leaders can do, even if it means nailing Him to a cross, can undo that fact.

Let us turn our attention now to the two parts of the story of Peter. It is something of a different story. Jesus is interrogated by Annas, the father-in-law of the current high priest and, quite likely, one who had been the high priest before, and yet He stands strong, unintimidated by the power of this mighty man. Peter is questioned, perhaps even casually, by a servant girl who stands at the gate about whether he followed Jesus. It was not totally clear as to whether Peter’s life was in danger for following Jesus. It seems that it probably wasn’t because the leaders were interested in having Jesus die as the one man who would die for the nation. The stakes are considerably different. Even though Peter’s trial is much less than that of his master, he crumbles, denying that he is a disciple of Christ.

After this first denial, he goes to warm himself by a charcoal fire, along with the slaves of the household and the police. Those who were gathered around asked him again if he was a follower of Jesus, and he denies it again. Other gospels have the people asking him, specifying that he must be one of Jesus’ disciples because his accent gave him away as one from Galilee, the same place as Jesus was from. It is as if someone born and raised in the deep south, or Boston, or even from far northern Minnesota or Wisconsin came to Iowa, trying to deny that they were from out of town. The evidence is stacked against Peter, and yet he refuses to tell the truth.

Here, after that second denial, Peter is put to the question in an extremely pointed way. Remember how Peter is gathered around a fire with the police? These were the same police who had just come to arrest Jesus in the garden in the very last passage. In the heat of the moment, Peter tried to defend Jesus by pulling out a sword and cutting off the ear of one of the police, named Malchus. As it turns out, we do not only have the colleagues of Malchus warming themselves around the same fire that Peter is, but we have one of his relatives there. That person asks Peter, “Did I not see you in the garden with him?” This is not the same thing as someone thinking they saw him with Jesus once upon a time, or someone who associates Peter with Jesus because they have the same accent, but someone who, just a moment ago, watched Peter cut off the ear of their cousin. It is as if he is saying, “Now see here, you; I saw you with Jesus just now, this very night, with Jesus, and you were so devoted to Him and that you were willing to take on a whole cohort of soldiers. In fact, you even attacked someone who is related to me. Are you sure that you are not one of His followers?” Peter, caught red-handed, unable to squirm his way out of the situation, continues in his masquerade and denies it once again.

“At that moment the cock crowed.” I imagine that, when the rooster crowed, the words of Jesus rang loudly in Peter’s ears. Peter was so strong, so determined, so willing to die for Jesus, and yet here it has been demonstrated with incredible clarify that this was not the case, but that he crumbled under even under the least pressure. He, the strongest and most headstrong of the disciples, had failed.

Paul, in his letter to the Romans, wrote something that is helpful to keep in mind when we see Peter’s failure to stand strong for Jesus, especially when we realize that it is symbolic of all humanity’s failure to serve God like we should. Paul had been explaining that the Jews, who had received the law of Moses, were not following it and so they were no better off than the Gentiles who were stuck in idolatry. The question is raised, “Then what advantage do the Jews have?” Paul’s response is “Much in every way! For in the first place the Jews were entrusted with the oracles of God. What if some were unfaithful? Will their faithlessness nullify the faithfulness of God? By no means! Although everyone is a liar, let God be proved true.”

What Paul has said is that God is faithful, even when we aren’t. It is not as though God is able or unable to be faithful to His promises based on how well we fulfill His commands to us, but rather God is faithful and is true, even if every human being was a liar. Indeed, we find that, even when we are at our best, even when we think we are firmly rooted in the truth of the gospel, when we compare that to the very Truth of God, we find that, compared to God, we are liars, we do suffer from untruth. We say one thing and do another, either out of malice, or even just out of forgetfulness. With God, on the other hand, to say and to do is one and the same thing.

This applies to the story of Peter here in a powerful way. He must have been utterly overwhelmed with shame, his faithlessness exposed with such clarity. And yet, Jesus had predicted it earlier that night. Jesus knew just how wishy-washy Peter would be at this moment. Back in chapter thirteen, after Peter so boldly asserted his loyalty, Jesus says, “Will you lay down your life for me? Very truly, I tell you, before the cock crows you will have denied me three times.” Sometimes, we get the sense that Jesus is shaming Peter here, but I don’t think this is the case. I think that it is much more of a caution against idolatry. Peter is trusting on his own strength to defend his master, but Jesus knows better. He knows that if His plans were built on human strength, they would fall like so many empires. Instead, He wanted to correct Peter and show him that the work He had come to do did not depend on his ability to resist temptation.

It is marvelous that this passage falls on a Sunday where we are celebrating Holy Communion because it so captures the essence of the sacraments. Let us begin with baptism. As we are a church that, like the great tradition of the church, practices infant baptism, I would guess that most people in this room were baptized as infants. You were set apart by the grace of God, not only before you could choose to follow God for yourself, but before you were even able to speak or walk on your own. This basic idea is even true in my own case, who was not baptized as an infant. I was baptized on December 31, 2000 when I was sixteen years old. However, when I look back on my life, I realize that I only really came to know Jesus in a personal way in March of 2001, when I was on a Chrysalis weekend, much like the weekend that Austin Watts is on at this very moment. Even in my own case, when I was able to make a “decision” for Jesus, hindsight has taught me that God found me long before I found Him.

Today we will be celebrating Holy Communion. This ritual did not get invented one day by some great pastor or theologian as a great way to spend some time in a worship service. It was instituted by Christ Himself, where He interpreted His death as a sacrifice for the disciples and for all the world. We need to always remember who was at that table. Jesus shared that His blood was being poured out for Judas, among the others, the one who would betray Him. Even the terrible betrayal of Judas did not keep Jesus from celebrating that first Communion with him. However, more significant for our passage today, Peter was there, too. Peter, who, right after sharing in Communion, would make such extravagant promises that he was not able to keep and of whom it was predicted that he would deny Christ three times before that very night was over, was not excluded from the table.

What a joy it is that we can gather together and share a common meal where none are excluded. Even those who would deny and betray Jesus were welcomed to the table, how much more so can we come forward with confidence. None of us have betrayed the Son of God to His death. Regardless of who you are or what you may have done, even if it is denying Jesus over and over again, you are one of those for whom Christ died. You, too, are welcome to the table, even if you have worked to undermine the ministry of Christ in the world. It is at the table of the Lord that all of our petty differences are wiped away. We all partake, we all are welcomed, we all are offered Christ’s strength in the place of our weakness. Let us partake of this holy feast with joy and great expectation. Let us pray.

AMEN