To me, one of the most moving passages in Scripture is the one in which Christ Jesus' disciple Peter hears the cock crow at the end of a dark night. The previous evening he had told Jesus that he was willing to go to prison or the grave for his sake. Jesus, however, foresaw that Peter would deny him three times before dawn. And he did. At the high priest's house where Jesus was taken after being arrested, Peter told three inquirers that he didn't know the Master. The Gospel of Luke records that the cock crowed, "And the Lord turned, and looked upon Peter. . . . And Peter went out, and wept bitterly." Luke 22:61, 62
I've often thought how deeply Peter must have felt his shortcomings under that gaze. I've also sometimes felt my own shortcomings when one day's glowing recognition of the healing Christ fades in the ordinariness of another day. But Peter's denial of Jesus and his subsequent sorrow enrich our understanding of Christian fidelity. They point to the fact that even the best-intentioned human sense of life must ultimately yield to a spiritual understanding of man's being if we are truly to follow Christ. When the false, mortal concept of ourselves yields—perhaps through tears of repentance—we recognize ourselves more fully as the heirs of God we truly are, who unfalteringly reflect His nature. In this way we become progressively more faithful Christians.
We may think this exchange of a fleshly concept of being for the discernment and demonstration of our spiritual selfhood takes place on a grand scale. At times it may. Peter did offer to follow Jesus through dramatic challenges. Yet it was in apparently inconsequential interchanges with others that he denied the Master. So our fidelity to the Christ is also tested in the details of living. How do we respond to a family member who persists in the habit that most annoys us? Does an unhelpful salesperson draw an admonition from us? Do we start the day ruminating on drab or threatening events?
