During supper Jesus took bread, and having said the blessing he broke it and gave it to the disciples with the words: ‘Take this and eat; this is my body.’ Then he took a cup, and having offered thanks to God he gave it to them with the words: ‘Drink from it, all of you. For this is my blood, the blood of the covenant, shed for many for the forgiveness of sins. I tell you, never again shall I drink from this fruit of the vine until that day when I drink it new with you in the kingdom of my Father.’
After singing the Passover hymn, they went out to the mount of Olives. Then Jesus said to them, ‘Tonight you will all lose faith because of me; for it is written: “I will strike the shepherd and the sheep of his flock will be scattered.” But after I am raised, I shall go ahead of you into Galilee.’ Peter replied, ‘Everyone else may lose faith because of you, but I never will.’ Jesus said to him, ‘Truly I tell you: tonight before the cock crows you will disown me three times.’ Peter said, ‘Even if I have to die with you, I will never disown you.’ And all the disciples said the same.
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Maundy Thursday, tomorrow, would normally see most parish clergy, and many other folk, travelling to the Cathedral for the annual Maundy service, where holy oils and blessed, priests and other ministers renew their vows, and we give thanks for the institution of the Eucharist, the Holy Communion which is the heart of our worship and fellowship. That, like so much else, cannot happen this year, but we remain a eucharistic community, bonded together in Christ, and living lives of thanksgiving for all he has done, for his saving love. At the table on that night he breaks bread and shares wine with special words, words that tie the disciples in to the sacrifice only he can make, ties us in too. The bread we share at communion bonds us together like any shared meal; but it also joins us to the historic event of that Last Supper, at which Jesus himself presides at table and says, “Do this in remembrance of me.”
Outside, on the Mount of Olives, Jesus quite bluntly tells his disciples that they will all fall away and abandon him. Maybe what he wanted to do was to just assure them that it didn’t matter, and that what he was doing only he could do - “You will all abandon me, but don’t beat yourselves up about that,” in effect. Peter, though, is adamant: “I’ll never lose faith!” he insists. Well, perhaps he didn’t lose faith, but there’s a lesson here about not promising more than you can give - even brave, foolhardy Peter would deny his Lord three times, just as Jesus predicted.
Now in fact Peter, far from abandoning Jesus, had bravely gone to the place where Jesus was under trial. And there he did the very sensible thing of keeping his head down. Whatever he might have imagined he could do, there would have been no point in getting himself arrested too. So with every good intention, when challenged he insists, “I never knew the man!” But then the cock crows, and he realises what he has done.
Perhaps the most important thing about Peter’s story of having denied Jesus is that we know it. Peter would go on to be the leader of the new Church, and you might have therefore expected this story of his failure to have been hushed up. Matthew here is using material from Mark’s Gospel, the first to be written, and one of the ancient fathers of the Church tells us that Mark was Peter’s secretary, that he wrote down what Peter told him to write.
“See how we got it wrong,” Peter in effect says, both here and at many other places in the Gospel stories. “See how even I got it wrong.” Why does he say this? Partly to make clear that salvation is found only in Jesus, and partly to show how our accepting and forgiving Lord will still call us and use us, broken and imperfect though we are. So lets hear what happened when Peter came to the High Priest’s house.
Matthew, chapter 26, verses 69 to 75
Meanwhile Peter was sitting outside in the courtyard when a servant-girl accosted him; ‘You were with Jesus the Galilean,’ she said. Peter denied it in front of them all. ‘I do not know what you are talking about,’ he said. He then went out to the gateway, where another girl, seeing him, said to the people there, ‘He was with Jesus of Nazareth.’ Once again he denied it, saying with an oath, ‘I do not know the man.’ Shortly afterwards the bystanders came up and said to Peter, ‘You must be one of them; your accent gives you away!’ At this he started to curse and declared with an oath: ‘I do not know the man.’ At that moment a cock crowed; and Peter remembered how Jesus had said, ‘Before the cock crows you will disown me three times.’ And he went outside, and wept bitterly.
When our nerve fails us, or when we fail to speak out as we should, remember we have a Lord who is patient with our weaknesses, and who still, even when we let him down, chooses us and calls us as his friends. Pray for all who feel burdened by a sense of their own failure or unworthiness, and for a Church which reflects and channels the love of Christ by being open, welcoming, and a place of healing.
“We adore you, O Christ, and we bless you,
because by your holy Cross you have redeemed the world”
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