Lent Midweek I
Matthew 26:69-75
February 25, 2026
Last week it was betrayal. This week it is denial. And not just any denial, but the denial of one of Jesus’ closest friends, Peter.
Yes, we forget that Jesus had friends. And He had close friends. Peter, James, and John, they weren’t just His “inner circle,” they were His closest friends. And Jesus perceived that Peter would be figurehead of the Apostolic era, the lead Apostle based in Jerusalem.
We also learn from Scripture that Peter was very outspoken…sometimes too outspoken. Sometimes he would speak and put his foot in his mouth in the same sentence. But to deny Jesus; to deny his friend, his rabbi, his Lord? Peter himself said that he would never leave Jesus or deny Jesus. Once again, foot in mouth.
But Jesus stands before Caiaphas, the high priest that year. A fire is lit outside Caiaphas’ home and Peter watches from a distance. With Caiaphas was some of the other priests and religious leaders, all ready to pounce and condemn Jesus for whatever He might say. This was the Sanhedrin, and they had authority to judge false prophets and to even give the death sentence provided it was within the Law of Moses.
But Peter remains outside keeping warm by a fire. Somehow the layout of the area allowed he and Jesus to be relatively close to each other, but with enough distance that no one should reasonably think that he and Jesus were friends.
And Peter’s denial begins, not when questioned, but even in his intentional remaining at a distance. A servant girl, perhaps one of Caiaphas’ servants or the servant of one of the chief priests or elders, sees Peter and thinks she recognizes him. “You also were with Jesus the Galilean.” Peter shakes his head and, perhaps even under his breath, says, “I don’t know the man.” Unnerved that someone recognizes him, he gets up and heads toward the entrance of the courtyard, and another servant girl recognizes him, “This man was with Jesus of Nazareth!” Peter is not in a good place now and he answers more brazenly, “I swear, I do not know the man!” But even more people, just random people, start saying to one another, “Yes, you are one of them, your Galilean accent proves it!” But Peter, angry and frustrated and losing patience, yells out, “I do not know this man!!” His proximity to Jesus who is still in Caiaphas’ home means that Jesus quite likely hears Peter shriek these denying words. In Luke, we learn that they are so close to each other that Jesus even turns and looks at Peter after his final denial.
Friday’s sunrise was just peering over the horizon. Jesus had been in with Caiaphas and the Sanhedrin for quite some time, so long, in fact, that the rooster let out his first morning crow. It was done. Peter’s thrice denial was fulfilled. Peter remembers Jesus’ words from the night before, “Before the rooster crows, you will deny me three times.”
Peter, one of Jesus’ closest friends who witnessed the Transfiguration, who saw the miracles and healings, who saw demons cast out by a word, and the blind received sight and the lame received mobility, this Peter who, when He first saw Jesus fell to his face out of fear because of the large catch of fish, who walked on water, if only for a second, and then was saved by Jesus. This Peter, who was never let down or abandoned or forgotten or pushed aside by Jesus, even in the stupid things he said, denied that Jesus was even his friend, and not just once but three times. It was as if Peter threw Jesus in the tomb and sealed the entrance shut, pushed Jesus out of the way, pretended the last 3 and ½ years didn’t even happen.
But then he remembers what Jesus said. And yet, even in his deep despair for lying about his time with Jesus and his friendship with Jesus, for cursing and losing his temper when questioned about Jesus, for running off and staying away from Jesus when his friend needed him the most, something inside him brought him back.
See, Judas the betrayer, he didn’t run back after what he did. Whatever was in Peter was certainly not in Judas. Judas betrayed Jesus and then his remorse led him to a field where he hanged himself. Evil and Satan had consumed him to a mere shell, an empty thing, and he was certainly not repentant for his betrayal because there was no Spirit of God in him to fuel repentance.
But Peter wept. He knew what he did; he knew he denied his Lord, and the words of Jesus, “You will deny me three times,” convicted him and he didn’t fall into a Spiritless despair but repented; he acknowledged that what he did was sinful. And we know this because the very first person to head to the tomb on the first day of the week, other than the women, was Peter. John and Peter ran from their hiding out of fear of the Jews and Peter charged in full throttle, and then, as we read in John, Jesus forgives and restores Peter.
There are certainly moral lessons to learn from Peter. Just as Jesus forgave Peter, we should forgive those who sin against us. Absolutely that’s true. It was wrong for Peter to deny Jesus, and we should never deny Jesus. You’ll get no argument from me here.
But is that really the message our Lord has for us in Peter’s denial of His Lord? That we should not be like Peter? I really don’t think so. We should not be like Peter? Okay, fine – we should not betray Jesus like Judas did and we should not deny Jesus like Peter did, and we should not flee out of fear and self-preservation like the rest of the disciples did. Sermon over, right? NO!
It’s not the point. Why? Because like Judas, like Peter, we deny and betray our Lord all the time. The pharisee in each of us says, “No, I don’t deny Jesus; I don’t betray my Lord. I’m a good little Christian who always says my prayers and comes to church and gives to the plate…I’m no Peter or Judas.” But the real us, the tax collector us, says, “Yeah, it’s me.”
That’s the point. In fact, it’s the whole point of this Lenten season. We spend most of our lives building a façade of self-righteousness, pretending to be better than what we are, pretending to be worthy, holy, godly, and dare I say, better than others. But in Peter’s denial, we see that even the greatest of men, the closest of Jesus’ friends, His inner circle, the pillar of the church in Jerusalem, needs His Lord, His Savior, His friend to go to that cross to die, and we do too.
Now, some people are like Judas, they betray or deny Jesus, but rather than looking to the cross for help, they look away and find their own tree upon which to die. They live their lives for worldly pleasures, they reject Jesus through and through, they violently chase out the Spirit of Christ given them in their baptisms and want nothing to do with the hope of salvation, the promise of a resurrection to eternal life. In fact, they mock and laugh at the idea that they could be saved or that they even need to be saved.
We can pray for such brazenly obstinate people who deny the Lord as a sport, who betray Him as a way of life, and we can certainly use whatever opportunities God affords us to share Christ with them, but we ought not imitate them.
We are God’s children now, and this means that we die daily to our sins and rise daily to new life, remembering our baptisms, trusting in His promises. We have to die daily because we sin much daily. Every sin is a betrayal – a denial, for every sin we commit is always putting something or someone before God – a breaking of the first commandment. We are commanded to fear, love, and trust God above all things, but we instead have no fear, no love, no trust in God but we trust and love the things of creation, possessions, position, power, and wealth.
This is betrayal; this is denial. In our sin, we deny that our Lord can provide for us all our needs of body and soul, and we betray Him before others, presenting Him, not as our helper and protector, but as weak and untrustworthy.
But because of His Spirit who lives in us, we repent. We acknowledge our sins and our need for His mercy, and we hold fast to the grace God gives us in Jesus. When that rooster crows and our sin is revealed, we don’t cower or run away or hide in the woods like Adam, but we instead confess it; we say, “I am the sinner, have mercy,” and like Peter and the other disciples, our Lord restores us by forgiving us.
Earthly friends, if denied too many times, will abandon us, will click the “Unfriend” button on Facebook, and never want to speak to us again. Not so with Jesus. He forgives and forgives all the more. His whole purpose was forgiveness, and forgiveness is the weapon against which Satan cannot stand. Where Peter, the denier, the liar, should have stood before Caiaphas to be judged, Jesus instead stands and takes the judgment in his place. He is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the whole world. Amen.
