THE GREAT DENIAL
To the ecclesiastical trial of our Lord there is a side-piece, over
which we must linger before proceeding to the civil trial. At the very
hour when in the hall of the high priest's house Christ was uttering
His great confession, one of His disciples was, in the court of the
same building, pouring out denial after denial.
I.
When Jesus was bound in Gethsemane and led away back to Jerusalem, all
His disciples forsook Him and fled. They disappeared, I suppose, among
the bushes and trees of the garden and escaped into the surrounding
country or wherever they thought they would be safe.
But two of the Twelve--St. Peter and St. John, who tells the
story--soon rallied from the first panic and followed, at a
distance,[1] the band in whose midst their Master was. Keeping in the
shadow of the trees by the roadside, keeping in the shadow of the
houses in the streets, they stole after the moving mass. At last, when
it got near its destination--the palace of the high priest---they
hurried forward; and St. John went in with the crowd; but somehow,
probably through irresolution, St. Peter was left outside in the
street; and the door was shut.
To understand what follows, it is necessary to describe more in detail
the construction of such a house as the high priest's palace; for it
was very unlike most of our houses. A Western house looks into the
street, but an Oriental into its own interior, having no opening to the
front except a great arched gateway, shut with a heavy door or gate.
When this door is opened, it discloses a broad passage, penetrating the
front building and leading into a square, paved courtyard, open to the
sky, round which the house is built, and into which its rooms, both
upstairs and downstairs, look. A similar arrangement is to be seen in
some large warehouses in our own cities, or you may have seen it in
large hotels on the Continent. It only requires to be added that on
the side of the passage, inside the outer gate, there is a room or
lodge for the porter or portress, who opens and shuts the gate; and in
the gate there is a little wicket by which individuals can be let in or
out.
When the band conducting Jesus appeared in front of the palace, no
doubt the portress opened the large gate to admit them and then shut it
again. They passed under the archway into the court, which they
crossed, and then entered one of the apartments overlooking the
courtyard. But the police and other underlings employed in the arrest,
their work being now done, stayed outside, and, as it was midnight and
the weather was cold, they lighted a fire there under the open sky and,
gathering round it, began to warm themselves.
As has been said, John went in through the gate with the crowd, but
Peter was somehow shut out. John, who seems to have occupied a higher
social position than the rest of the Twelve, was known to the high
priest, and, therefore, probably was acquainted with the palace and
knew the servants; and, when he noticed that Peter had been left out,
he went to the portress and got her to let him in by the wicket-gate.
It was a friendly act; and yet, as the event proved, it was
unintentionally an ill turn: John led Peter into temptation. The best
of friends may do this sometimes to one another; for the situation into
which one man may enter without peril may be dangerous to another. One
man may mingle freely in company which another cannot enter without
terrible risks. There are amusements in which one Christian can take
part, though they would ruin another if he touched them. A mind
matured and disciplined may read books which would kindle the fire of
hell in a mind less experienced. There are always two things that go
to the making of a temptation: there is the particular set of
circumstances to be encountered on the one hand, and there is the
peculiar character or history of the person entering into the situation
on the other. We need to remember this if we are to defend either
ourselves or others against temptation.
II.
John no doubt, as soon as he got Peter inside the door, hurried away
across the court into the hall where Jesus was, to witness the
proceedings.
Not so Peter. He was not familiar with the place as John was; and he
had the shyness of a plain man at the sight of the inside of a great
house. Besides, he was under fear of being recognized as a follower of
Christ and apprehended. Now also the unlucky blow he had made at
Malchus at the gate of Gethsemane had to be paid for, because it
greatly increased his chance of detection.
He remained, therefore, just inside the great door, watching from the
shadows of the archway what was going on inside, and, without knowing
it, himself being watched by the portress from her coigne of vantage.
He was ill at ease; for he did not know what to do. He did not dare to
go, like John, into the judgment-hall. Perhaps he half wished he could
get out into the street again. He was in a trap.
At last he strolled forward to the group round the fire and, sitting
down among them, commenced to warm himself. It was a miscellaneous
group there in the glare of the fire, and no notice was taken of him.
He took his place as if he were one of them.
It was, however, a dangerous situation in another sense than he
supposed. It was of bodily peril he was in terror; he did not
anticipate danger to his soul; yet this was very near. It is always
dangerous when a follower of Christ is sitting among Christ's enemies
without letting it be known what he is. "Blessed is the man that
walketh not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor standeth in the way of
sinners, nor sitteth in the seat of the scornful." It is more than
probable that when Peter sat down the air was ringing with jest and
laughter about Jesus; but he did not interrupt: he kept silence and
tried to look as like one of the scorners as he could. But not to
confess Christ is the next step to denying Him.
Temptation, as is its wont, came suddenly and from the most unexpected
quarter. As has been said, when he was skulking beneath the archway,
his movements were noted by the portress. They were suspicious, and
she, with a woman's cleverness, divined his secret. Accordingly, when
she was relieved at her post by another maid, she not only pointed him
out to this companion and communicated to her what she thought about
him, but, in passing to her room, she went up to the fire among the
soldiers and, looking him straight in the face, said, with a malicious
twinkle in her eye, This is one of the Nazarene's followers.
Peter was taken completely by surprise. It was as if a mask had been
torn from his face. In a moment the instinct of terror seized him;
perhaps, too, the instinct of shame at being thought a disciple of Him
they were mocking. Indeed, there was a further shame: how could he
confess himself the disciple of the Master whom he had heard blasphemed
without protest? He had denied his Master in act before he denied Him
in word; and the preceding act made the word also necessary. "I do not
know what you mean," he said, with a surly frown; and away she tripped
laughing, having done her work quite successfully.
None pursued the subject. But Peter was uneasy, and took the earliest
opportunity of escaping from the fireside. He went away into the
archway, intending apparently, if he could, to get out of the place
altogether. But here the trap was closed; for the other maid, whose
attention had been directed to him, and who may have been laughing from
a distance at her neighbour's sally, was standing at the door of her
lodge, with two or three men; and, pointing him out to them as he came
forward, she said, "That is one of the Nazarene's followers."
Poor Peter! felled to the ground a second time by the touch of a
woman's hand. But how often has the saucy tongue and jeering laugh of
a woman made a man ashamed of the highest and holiest! Peter flung at
her an angry oath and, turning on his heel, went back again to the fire.
He was now completely panic-stricken, and lost all self-control. He
was boiling with conflicting emotions and could not keep quiet.
Assuming an air of defiance and indifference, he plunged into the
conversation, speaking loudly to throw off suspicion, but really
defeating his own object; for he drew attention on himself, and they
scanned him the more narrowly the more excited he became. A relative
of Malchus, whose ear he had cut off, recognised him. His loud country
voice and rough Galilean accent aroused the suspicions of others. To
bait such a pretender was a welcome diversion in the idle night, and
soon they were all in full cry after the quarry.
Peter was thoroughly lost; like a bull in the arena attacked and
stabbed on every side, he became blind with rage, terror and shame;
and, pouring out denials, he added to them oaths and curses hurled at
his adversaries.
The latter element was, no doubt, the resurrection of an old
fisherman's habit, long since dead and buried. Peter was just the man
likely to be a profane swearer in his youth--the headlong man of
temper, who likes to say a thing with as much emphasis and exaggeration
as possible. This is a sin whose power is generally broken instantly
at conversion. While there are sins which linger on for years and
require to be crucified by inches, profane swearing often dies an
instantaneous death. But even in this case it is difficult to get quit
of the evil past. In Peter this sin may have seemed to die at his
conversion; for years it had been dead and buried; yet, when the
favourable moment came, lo and behold, there it was again in vigorous
life. Old habits of sin are hard to kill. We seem to have killed and
buried them; but do you not sometimes hear a knocking beneath the
ground? do you not feel the dead thing turning in its coffin, and see
the earth moving above its grave? This is the penalty of the days
given to the flesh. Till his dying day the man who has been a drunkard
or a fornicator, a liar or a swearer, will have to keep watch and ward
over the graveyard in which he has buried the past.
Yet there was a kind of method in the madness of Peter's profanity.
When he wanted to prove that he was none of Christ's, he could not do
better than take to cursing. They did not credit his assertions that
he had no connection with his Master, but they could not help believing
his sins. Nobody belonging to Jesus, they knew, would speak as Peter
was doing. It is one of the strongest testimonies to Jesus still, that
even those who do not believe in Him expect cleanness of speech and of
conduct from His followers, and are astonished if those who bear His
name do things which when done by others are matters of course.
IV.
While Peter was in the midst of this outbreak of denial and profanity,
suddenly he saw the eyes of his tormentors turned away from him to
another object.[2] It was Jesus, whom His enemies had condemned in the
neighbouring judgment-hall, and whom they were now leading, amidst
blows and reproaches, across the courtyard to the guard-room, where He
was to be kept for two or three hours till a subsequent stage of His
trial came on. As Jesus stepped down out of the hall into the
courtyard, His ear had caught the accents of His disciple, and, stung
with unutterable anguish, He turned quickly round in the direction
whence the sounds proceeded. At the same moment Peter turned, and they
looked one another full in the face. Jesus did not speak; for a single
syllable, even of surprise, would have betrayed His disciple. Nor
could He linger; for the soldiers were hurrying Him on. But for a
single instant their eyes met, and soul looked into soul. Who shall
say what was in that look of Christ?[3] There may be a world in a
look. It may be more eloquent than a whole volume of words. It may
reveal far more than the lips can ever utter. One soul may give itself
away to another in a look. A look may beatify or plunge in the depths
of despair.
The look of Jesus was a talisman dissolving the spell in which Peter
was held. Sin is always a kind of temporary madness; and it was
manifestly so in this case. Peter was so bewildered with terror, anger
and excitement that he did not know what he was doing. But the look of
Jesus brought him to himself, and immediately he acted like a man. He
made at once for the exit with impetuous speed.[4] And now nothing
stood in his way: he got past the maid and her companions without
trouble. For, indeed, the trap of temptation is only an illusion. To
a resolute man it presents no obstacles.
But further, the look of Christ was a mirror in which Peter saw
himself. He saw what Christ thought of him. The past came rushing
back. He was the man who, in a great and never-to-be-forgotten moment,
had confessed Christ and earned His hearty recognition. He was the man
who, a few hours ago, had vowed, above all the rest, that he never
would deny his Master. And now he had deserted Him and wounded Him to
the heart in His utmost need. He had placed himself among His enemies
as one of themselves and, with oaths and curses, trodden His sacred
name beneath his feet. He had put off the disciple and reverted to the
rudeness of his godless youth. He was a perjured traitor. All this
was in that look of Christ.
But there was far more in it. It was a rescuing look. If any friend
had met Peter rushing out from the scene of his sin, he might well have
been terrified for what might happen. Where was he rushing to? Was it
to the precipice over which Judas plunged not many hours afterwards?
Peter was not very far from that. Had it been an angry look he saw on
Christ's face when their eyes met, this might have been his fate. But
there was not a spark of anger in it. There was pain, no doubt, and
there was immeasurable disappointment. But deeper than these--rising
up from below them and submerging them--there was the Saviour's
instinct, that instinct which made Him reach out His hand and grasp
Peter when he was sinking in the sea. With this same instinct He
grasped Him now.
In that look of an instant Peter saw forgiveness and unutterable love.
If he saw himself in it, he saw still more his Saviour--such a
revelation of the heart of Christ as he had never yet known. He saw
now what kind of Master he had denied; and it broke his heart. It is
this that always breaks the heart. It is not our sin that makes us
weep; it is when we see what kind of Saviour we have sinned against.
He wept bitterly; not to wash out his sin, but because even already he
knew it had been washed out. The former weeping is a pelting shower;
this is the close, prolonged downpour, which penetrates deep and
fertilises the plants of the soul at their very roots.
Indeed, this was the real beginning of all the good St. Peter was to do
in the world. But we will not speak of this now. Let our last thought
be of Him who, in the crisis and extremity of His own suffering, when
He heard His name not only denied but mingled with oaths and curses,
yielded not one moment to the resentment which such an act of treachery
might have occasioned, but, forgetting His own sorrows and overmastered
with the instincts of the Saviour, threw into a look such a world of
kindness and of love that, in an instant, it lifted the falling
disciple from the gulf and set him on the rock where he ever afterwards
stood, himself a rock in the constancy of his faith and the vigor of
his testimony.
[1] _makrothen _.
[2] It is to St. Luke we owe the account here given of Peter's
awakening; but he also refers to the crowing of the cock, the only
cause mentioned by the other Evangelists. There is no difficulty in
understanding that such a psychological crisis may have been due to two
lines of suggestion.
[3] Mrs. Browning's sonnets on this subject must be quoted in full:
"Two sayings of the Holy Scriptures beat
Like pulses in the Church's brow and breast;
And by them we find rest in our unrest,
And, heart-deep in salt tears, do yet entreat
God's fellowship, as if on heavenly seat.
The first is JESUS WEPT; whereon is prest
Full many a sobbing face, that drops its best
And sweetest waters on the record sweet.
And one is where the Christ, denied and scorned,
LOOKED UPON PETER. Oh to render plain,
By help of having loved a little and mourned,
That look of sovran love and sovran pain,
Which He, who could not sin yet suffered, turned
On him who could reject but not sustain.
"The Saviour looked on Peter. Ay, no word,
No gesture of reproach; the heavens serene,
Though heavy with armed justice, did not lean
Their thunders that way; the forsaken Lord
_Looked_ only on the traitor. None record
What that look was; none guess; for those who have seen
Wronged lovers loving through a death-pang keen,
Or pale-cheeked martyrs smiling to a sword,
Have missed Jehovah at the judgment call.
And Peter from the height of blasphemy--
'I never knew this man'--did quail and fall,
As knowing straight THAT GOD; and turnèd free,
And went out speechless from the face of all,
And filled the silence, weeping bitterly.
I think: that look of Christ might seem to say:
'Thou, Peter! art thou a common stone
Which I at last must break My heart upon,
For all God's charge to His high angels may
Guard My feet better? Did I yesterday
Wash _thy_ feet, My beloved, that they should run
Quick to destroy me 'neath the morning sun?
And do thy kisses, like the rest, betray?
The cock crows coldly. Go, and manifest
A late contrition, but no bootless fear!
For, when thy final need is dreariest,
Thou shall not be denied, as I am here;
My voice to God and angels shall attest,
_Because I KNOW this man, let him be clear_.'"
[4] This may be the meaning of _epibalon_; but it is much disputed.
Other interpretations are: (1) = _epeballe klaiein_, he began to weep;
(2) with head covered--in mourning.