One bad night is not the end
“When the servant girl saw him there, she said again to those standing around, “This fellow is one of them.” Again he denied it. After a little while, those standing near said to Peter, “Surely you are one of them, for you are a Galilean.” He began to call down curses, and he swore to them, “I don’t know this man you’re talking about.” Immediately the rooster crowed the second time. Then Peter remembered the word Jesus had spoken to him: “Before the rooster crows twice you will disown me three times.” And he broke down and wept.”
— Mark 14:69-72 (NIV)
When the arrest happened, the rest of the group scattered into the dark. Peter followed the arrest party back to the high priest's house. The hearing ran upstairs while he waited in the yard below. He sat at the guards' fire, where the light fell on his face. Hours earlier he had promised he would die sooner than fall away. The name he went by was not his birth name; Jesus had renamed him, and it meant rock. The person who set this off was a servant of that household, not one of the officials. He came from the north, and people in the capital could hear it in his accent. His last answer reached for the heaviest language available, so nobody would doubt him. The night was counted in four watches, and the watch beginning around midnight was named for that bird. Two mornings later, at the empty tomb, the message left for the group named him separately. The worst night of his life did not end his story with God.
Some true thing about you gets rounded off every time you say it. Sometimes it is how tight the money really is. Other times it is how little you sleep, or how empty the house feels. Softening it keeps the evening easy and leaves you carrying it alone. Jesus was let down badly and still sent word back for the man responsible. Saying the plain version out loud is not how you lose people. One honest sentence to one person is enough.
Say the one thing you usually soften
- 1Pick one person you will see or call today and tell them the thing you normally round off, in one sentence: how the money really is, how tired you really are, how alone you feel. Say it once and stop, with no joke on the end and no explaining it away.
- 2If nobody like that comes to mind, write that same sentence in a message to one person who knows you, and send it before you go to sleep.
God, you already know the part of me I keep quiet about. I am tired of managing how I sound to other people. Today I want to say one true sentence about myself to one person. Help me not to talk my way out of it halfway through. And when I go back over the nights I got it badly wrong, remind me that you did not write me off.
Today I say the plain truth about myself to one friend, with nothing rounded off.
Where was Peter while this was happening?
In the open yard of the high priest's house, sitting at the guards' fire, while the hearing went on upstairs in the same house. The rest of the group had scattered at the arrest, so he was the one who got that close.
Why does the timing of the bird matter?
The night was counted in four watches, and the watch beginning around midnight was named after that bird's call. The sound worked as a rough clock, which is why it landed on him the way it did.
Is failure where the story leaves him?
No. Two mornings later, at the empty tomb, the message left for the group named Peter separately from the rest. That is why this passage is worth reading on an ordinary day.