The kind of cord that shouldn't be cut (Mark 14)

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Recently, the ladies I meet with weekly have been working their way through the scriptures of The Gospel According to Mark. It is the shortest of the gospels, but offers details that enable the reader to feel like he/she was there. Reading it makes the disciples’ struggles to follow and understand Jesus very real, and, as usual, Peter’s struggles reach out and grab onto me because I can relate only too well.

At the end of Chapter 14, the point in the gospel where Peter denies Jesus three times after His arrest after insisting vehemently that he would die before denying Jesus, stops me in my tracks each time I read it.

In Peter’s mind, he was dedicated, but Jesus knew his deceitful heart. He knew his telling weakness. He knew his paralyzing fear. Peter hadn’t truly listened or believed when Jesus told the disciples that He would be struck down and that all of them would be scattered before He was killed and raised back to life (Mark 14:27-28). Peter hadn’t stayed awake to pray in the garden even when he was invited multiple times to keep watching and praying so that he could avoid temptation. Peter wasn’t listening when Jesus told him that “the spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak” (v. 38).  Peter, when the time came for Jesus’ betrayal, fled with all of the other disciples, leaving Jesus behind (but only after he struck the slave of the high priest, cutting off his ear).  Still, Peter followed at a distance, wanting to see what would happen to the One whom he loved, the One who had told him ahead of time that he would deny Him. Three times, Peter had the opportunity to affirm his affiliation with Jesus, yet three times, Peter denied Him, the last time throwing in some cursing for good measure. (Surely one who would speak such foul language wouldn’t be with Jesus, right?) As Peter was cursing and swearing, the cock crowed a second time, and then, Peter remembered what Jesus had told him. Then he understood and wept.

My heart hurts for Peter, but really my heart hurts for me. How long will I continue struggling, like Peter, with the things Jesus has told me? Really, I am without excuse. Whereas Peter didn’t have the whole story and was without the Holy Spirit to convict him at this point of the gospel, I don’t have the same excuse. I have all of the scriptures to guide me. I have the encouragement of fellow believers in a country that still allows believers to meet openly to encourage each other and to lift up praises. I, too, want to weep when I think of my sin.

Wiersbe’s commentary in Be Diligent for this section of Mark 14 struck me when I first read it and did so again today as I was reviewing in preparation for tonight. He asks the question: “Do we, like Peter, talk when we should listen, argue when we should obey, sleep when we should pray, and fight when we should submit?” (171).

I am afraid that for me the answer is yes. I do. Quite often. Anyone very close to me knows that these are my exact struggles. Yet there is hope. Jesus forgave Peter privately and restored him publicly. Jesus will do the same for me, and anyone else who repents of his/her sin. My heart knows this, but I also know that the same heart that sees the sin now will miss it quite often in the future. I want to be more, do better, serve diligently, be alert, and grow, but I know that there are many battles ahead for that growth to occur. Sometimes, I get scared, like Peter, and run away. Other times, I deny even to myself what God is calling me to do. Most of the time, I grumble. Oh, how I grumble, even when I don’t set out to do so.


But occasionally, I see the right thing to do, and having attached myself to the umbilical cord of grace and truth and mercy, actually do what I know to do the first time I am prodded by the Spirit. Oh, to grow past my flesh and its desires and the pain of failure that I know is mounded up behind me. This is my prayer.

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