This knife, this bloody knife! Why did I keep it, why did I not throw it into the Brook Kidron while I had a chance? It could become evidence. They will have the assault weapon and they will tie me to it. Great God, I am going to be arrested! I am going to be taken prisoner. Who knows what they will do to me if they find out that I have been with Him? This knife .. where can I hide it, where can I at least wipe off Malchus’ blood? I’m sure the woman saw it. She knew. She knew!
Whew! It’s cold. Getting colder by the minute. I feel an icy grip; not just in my bones, but in my very heart. I have never been so scared as this. Not when my boat capsized and dumped me in Gennesaret; not when my wife’s mother was so sick I thought she would die; not even when I sank into the waters trying to run out to the boat. Those were bad, but not as bad as this. I’m scared. I’m terrified. But I dare not show it. If I show it, I will draw attention to myself. And then somebody beside the woman at the gate will know. Somebody who might take me into custody.
The thing to do is to look calm. To join the crowd and blend in. The fire looks good. I could use some warmth right now. The fire may calm my nerves. While I wait for John to come back I will put these rough, red, fisherman’s hands over the flames.
Good. I don’t think they know. No one is saying anything. Maybe I’ve gotten away with it this time, hiding who I am, I mean. Maybe for once in my life I’ve been able to stifle my overactive mouth and keep myself from embarrassment. Maybe this time is different.
Oh, when I think of all the embarrassing moments in my time with Him. Three years of nothing but bleating blusters and wayward words. How many times?
Let’s see. It started at the beginning. There I was, just a boy from the village of Bethsaida, minding my own business and catching fish every day. The Sea of Gennesarett was generous some days, stingy other days, but we did well enough. We kept ourselves alive and sold to others. My father Jonah and my brother Andrew and I could have spent our days in Bethsaida and never ventured anywhere else. After all, I was just doing what my father had done, and what his father before him had done, and his father before that, as far back as anybody can remember, that’s what we did. We fished so that we could eat; we ate so that we could fish. We mended our nets so that we could fish; and we fished to be able to afford new nets. That’s just what we did; we fished.
It was rather boring. It didn’t seem to be leading anywhere. So predictable. Something in me wanted adventure. I wasn’t satisfied out there on the lake. True, I had good friends, a good family, a wife. I had all that anybody in my village had. I guess all that most of us even knew to wish for. But still, there was something missing. That touch of excitement. Zest. Stimulation. More.
And it was not just me, either. My brother Andrew had already found something else to do. Andrew had gone off to follow a wandering preacher named John. The Baptizer, they called him, because his message called people to repentance, and then John would take them out into the river and immerse them in water. Cleanse them, he would say. Andrew went in for that. I didn’t. Just didn’t reach me. Not much good at confessing sin, you know. I’d rather be doing something, getting on with something. Not too interested in spilling my guts out there for everybody to see.
But Andrew was different. Andrew thought John the Baptizer was on to something, and followed him around, trying to get others to come and listen. Andrew was always like that – when he believed something, he wanted to be a witness. He wanted to tell everybody. Not a bad thing, I guess. If something has happened to you, share it. Andrew is a good man. I wonder where he is right now. Oh, Lord, not here, I hope! If my brother should come out of the shadows he will start telling these soldiers how wonderful the Teacher is, and I … !
Maybe I’d better shrink back a little. Just kind of get out of the light here. I cannot risk being found out, not now! And that woman? She’s still back at the gate, isn’t she? Not going inside to get anybody? All right, I think I’m going to be safe.
Simon, just keep cool. Keep calm. Shut that big mouth of yours. It will embarrass you every time.
Hmm. Andrew. Yes, that was the first time my impetuous nature showed up. Andrew, my brother, took me to see Jesus, who looked right through me and changed everything when he said, “You are Simon, son of Jonah. From now on you are to be called Kepha, the rock.” I don’t know why that affected me so, but it did. The rock! I never even went back to the lake to get my nets. I just went off with Jesus. I guess I should have looked at Him more carefully. But it seemed so right at the time.
Rock indeed! More like a bonehead! Rocks in my brain! This is too much!
And my boyhood friends, James and John, the sons of my father’s partner, Zebedee. They were so ambitious. They wanted to be something special. I brought them to Jesus, without so much as asking Him about it. And He took them, too, right there on the spot. You see, being impetuous does work! I’ve always just jumped out there first!
But now – I don’t know. I just don’t know. I should have seen this coming. If only I had shut up and waited and listened. I should have known there would be trouble. I should have known I would embarrass myself.
There was the time I was fishing on Gennesaret, and I was getting nowhere. I had worked all night and had barely a minuscule minnow to show for my labor. So when Jesus came along and asked me to go out into deep water and try my nets, you know what I said? said, “Teacher, you know nothing about fishing. I have worked all night for nothing. But, just to show you, I will try. Watch this, Teacher.” Well, not ten minutes later there were so many fish my nets were about to break! The guys laughed and pointed their fingers at me! “What a fisherman Simon is!”, they said. “Sits all night at one spot and gets nothing, and over there a few feet away are all the fish! Some fisherman you are, Simon!” I was embarrassed, right there in front of my friends, and I turned to that Jesus and spit out at Him, “Get away from me, Teacher. I am just an ordinary man, and you are showing me up.” I was so embarrassed.
Hmm. You know, he seemed to know that. He was so reassuring. He told me not to be afraid, because from here on out I would be fishing for people and their souls. I don’t know. If I am embarrassed at my clumsiness around Him, and around my friends, how could I ever be a witness to anything about Him? I didn’t know. I don’t know now. It seemed as though every time I try to speak the truth, it ends up an embarrassment.
Take the time we were on the road, and just outside of the city of Caesarea Philippi, we stopped to rest a while. Jesus gathered us all around and asked us a strange question. He wanted to know what others thought of Him. “Who do people say that I am?” Well, we all looked at each other for a moment, and somebody murmured, “Some people think you are just like your cousin, John the Baptizer, and that he has come back to life in you.” One of us laughed a little nervously and giggled, “Jesus, some say you are Elijah, especially when you are out here on the road looking kind of tired and hungry.” Jesus smiled at that one. But he was not finished. “Who do you say that I am?” He was putting the question directly to us! Not asking what the rumors are, but where our own hearts were. I looked around at the others; some eyes were on the ground and some found the most interesting things in the sky to look at. Some mouths were gaping wide open and other lips were moving with nothing coming out. What was wrong with these ninnies! If you got something to say, say it, is what I think. So out it came, bold as you please, “I say that you are the Christ, the son of the living God.”
Everybody looked at me as if I had two heads. They groaned and they grunted, and I was so embarrassed! Here I had tried to say the right thing and I was being put down for it! What is wrong with all these other milquetoasts around me?
Oh, oh. Getting too involved in my thoughts. Better watch it. I’ll be caught off guard. Here, let me warm my hands again. They’ll think it odd if I stay away from the fire on a night like tonight. They’ll notice me if I don’t just do the normal things. Got to stow this knife though.
Well, think of it, “You are the Christ, the son of the living God.” I was out there all alone. But, you know, Jesus redeemed that moment of embarrassment. He picked right up and told us all that I was right. He explained that indeed that was the way we should regard Him. He made it all right that I should blurt out so radical a thing! He made my embarrassment into a witness! It ‘s great how he can do that!
Oh, but not twenty minutes later, it all happened again. Jesus went on about how He would go to Jerusalem and suffer and be rejected and killed. I couldn’t take that. That was not what I wanted to hear. And so, without thinking, again I opened my mouth, only to let the demons of embarrassment escape. I rebuked Jesus. I said, “This must not happen. This cannot happen. I will not let it happen.” I got quite agitated about it. What a fire in His eyes when he said, “Get behind me, Satan! For you are setting your mind not on divine things but on human things.” What an awful moment! The others hid their faces, but I knew they were snickering and snarling behind their self-imposed masks! I just knew it! Embarrassment.
But, look out now. I cannot waste time worrying about all of that. The situation is desperate now. They have Jesus. John has gone in after Him. I’m out here, doing God knows what, but because I don’t have any place else to go, and I am the guy who couldn’t hold back. I had to draw my sword on a palace guard. They will be after me. They are after me. And the woman knows, or thinks she knows, who I am. I had to lie. Lying was the only way out.
But a man’s got to do what a man’s got to do. I told Him I would never desert Him. He said I would deny Him three times before the cock crows twice. But, well, He knew that was just another one of my embarrassing bluffs. He would understand. Can’t do Him or myself any good dead, now can I?
Oh! What was that! Sounded like a rooster crowing for the morning! I see the first fingers of dawn’s early light over the wall. Hmm. Cockcrow. Well. That’s only once. Doesn’t mean anything, does it?
Huh? What’s this? The woman! She’s coming over here again. Don’t look at her. Just focus on the fire, focus on the fire. Keep warm. No, keep cool. Uh.
What?! Me, one of His disciples? You mean, what’s His name, the Galilean? No, no, never heard of Him. Don’t know anything about Him. Don’t know anything about anything. Sure is cold out here. Who’s minding your guard post, lady?
Wonder if my face is burning? Do I show it? What a terrible moment! She heard my Galilean accent. Never thought about that. Should have made up a story to cover that. But when you lie, you have to lie again. Got to keep up the show. Got to be one of the boys, once you start that game.
Hey, who you pushing here, man? Get away from me! Keep your hands to yourself! Don’t touch that knife! What are you doing? Give me that! Your cousin? Your cousin’s ear? What do I know about that? I had nothing to do with it. I don’t know what you are talking about? What garden? I was not in the garden with Him. I have been in no garden! I have not been with Jesus! I have not! I have not, I tell you!
Agh! The cock crows. Quiet! Stop, you filthy bird! Stop! If I could reach you the blood on this knife would be yours. Stop! You pierce my soul! You sound like the very fiends of hell shrieking in my heart. Stop! Stop! Stop!
Oh, my Jesus, my Jesus! What have I done? What have I done? Just as the night you took me to the garden to pray, and I would not watch and pray with you, tonight you took me through the garden and let me see your agony. And I could not even witness for you. I could not even speak your name. I was so embarrassed, so caught up in me and what feels comfortable for me, and I could not even speak your name.
Oh, my Jesus, what have I done? And what will you do with me? Can this be redeemed?
Oh, my Jesus, my Jesus! No better friend could anyone have than you. But I have deserted you. I have denied you. And all because of my embarrassment.
I was embarrassed at being too outspoken, so I held in the truth, but I uttered a lie. Cockcrow has come.
I was embarrassed at being too clear about who you are, so I turned the tables and pretended not to know you when it counted the most, out there in the world. Cockcrow has come.
I was embarrassed at being so out of control that I would lash out with my sword at some poor soul just doing his job, so I turned the tables and lashed out at you with the tongue, so much mightier than the sword. Cockcrow has come.
Can I be redeemed? Will I ever be of any value to your Kingdom? Can you forgive me? Can you love even me? Can you take the icy winds of my embarrassed bluster and turn them into warming breezes of witness? Can you, Jesus? Can you, thou Christ, the Son of the Living God? Can you?
I wish I could just go back to the Table with you. I wish you could cleanse me again, as you did that night. I wish.
But cockcrow. Cockcrow. Cockcrow.
