Don't Follow "At A Distance"

Luke 22:  54 Then they seized him and led him away, bringing him into the high priest's house, and Peter was following at a distance. 55 And when they had kindled a fire in the middle of the courtyard and sat down together, Peter sat down among them. 56 Then a servant girl, seeing him as he sat in the light and looking closely at him, said, “This man also was with him.” 57 But he denied it, saying, “Woman, I do not know him.” 58 And a little later someone else saw him and said, “You also are one of them.” But Peter said, “Man, I am not.” 59 And after an interval of about an hour still another insisted, saying, “Certainly this man also was with him, for he too is a Galilean.” 60 But Peter said, “Man, I do not know what you are talking about.” And immediately, while he was still speaking, the rooster crowed. 61 And the Lord turned and looked at Peter. And Peter remembered the saying of the Lord, how he had said to him, “Before the rooster crows today, you will deny me three times.” 62 And he went out and wept bitterly.

Peter spent three years with Jesus.  He witnessed miracles.  He walked on water!  He witnessed the transfiguration!  He was in Jesus' inner circle, one of the three Jesus chose to pour into even more than the others.  How, then, did Peter find himself denying that he even knew Jesus?  I think it started in verse 54.  Peter "followed at a distance'.  He got too far away from Jesus. 

Look at what happened next.  In verse 55, the Scripture says Peter "sat down among them"...them being the people in the high priest's house, maybe servants and officers.  Not only had he gotten too far away from Jesus, he got too close to those who were against Jesus.  He sat down with them, tried to blend in with them, tried to act like one of them.

But it didn't work.  Before long, someone called him out.  Then another did the same...and again.  And what did Peter do?  Peter, who had gotten too far away from his Lord and had gotten too close to the wrong people, denied he even knew Jesus.  In such a short period of time, a matter of hours, Peter had gone from fighting for Jesus to denying him completely.  It started with distancing himself, and it ended with bitter weeping (verse 62).

Isn't that how it always works?  We never start out planning to disown Him.  It's just a step away, then another step.  Soon we are backing off, not following as closely as we were.  We start to try to blend into the crowd.  We try to look like everyone else, act like everyone else, avoid being noticed.  The next thing we know, we are "sitting" with them; spending time with the world, conversing with it.  And then comes the opportunity.  We can either stand up in the face of evil and say "no", or we can deny the Lord and say nothing.  Even worse, we deny Him and condone the evil.  For Peter, it was fear of recognition, fear of association.  Isn't it the same for us?  Fear of offending, fear of appearing "judgmental", fear of being left out. 

Learn from Peter's hard lesson.  That path always ends with bitter weeping.