Luke 22:54-62--Peter Denies Jesus

Luke 22:54-62
English Standard Version
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Peter Denies Jesus
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.

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Luke gives quiet a few details here that we won't find in other gospels so perhaps Luke had other eyewitnesses who helped fill in some of these gaps (or maybe Luke himself was there for this since every Jewish person would have had to travel to Jerusalem for the feast of the Passover and there is solid evidence and sound logical arguments to say that Luke was Jewish, despite what others may try to argue).  No matter the source of these additional details, we can be sure that all that was written was inspired by the Holy Spirit as He directed others in what to tell Luke, what He brought to Luke's memory, and what He instructed Luke to write down.

We have jumped from the Garden where Jesus was arrested to the court of the home of the high priest where Jesus was taken in the middle of the night for trial (all this was against the laws of the Jewish people--the trial should not have been held at night or in secret).  Peter and John have both followed Jesus (though Luke only focuses on Peter here) as Peter waited outside while John who was more connected to the family of the high priest was able to get himself inside.

While Peter is sitting by the fire, he is recognized as being one of Jesus' disciples by one of the servant girls.  Fearing that he too would be arrested and possibly put to death, Peter denies even knowing Jesus (which would be a silly lie because there probably wasn't a single person in Jerusalem at that time who hadn't at least heard of Jesus after Palm Sunday).  Then another person also recognizes Peter and insists "You also are one of them."  Peter now denies belonging to Jesus or having association with any of the other disciples.

Finally, after about an hour someone insists that he must be one of Jesus' disciples because Peter has a Galilean accent (this is nothing more than profiling at its worst because there should be all kinds of Galilean Jews in Jerusalem, but I guess they are saying none of them would be coming to the trial unless they knew Jesus and had some interest in what happened to him.  The opposition to Jesus mostly came from Jews around Jerusalem who would have had a different accent).  Peter make this denial "with an oath" (probably meaning that he curses in some way) to try to get people to believe his denial and make it more emphatic.  Remember Jesus' teaching about Vows and Oaths in Matthew 5?  "Let what you say be simply ‘Yes’ or ‘No’; anything more than this comes from evil."  (Matthew 5:37).  There should be no need for Peter to have felt the need to add an oath or a curse to his words to make people believe him if he had a reputation of being an honest person.  Peter also failed to trust God to take care of him in this time as He had put his security in Jesus for the pas three years (that's good), but Jesus was now arrested.  Could Jesus still take care of Him?  Did He even know what was going on with Peter in that moment or was He too distracted by His own trial?

The text tells us the answer to that as when Peter denied Jesus for the third time, the rooster crowed and Jesus turns around and looks directly at Peter.  Peter remembers that prophecy that Jesus had spoken and how Peter had denied that he would ever deny Jesus and that he would be willing to die for Him, and, yet, here they were exactly as Jesus said where Peter had denied Jesus three times before the rooster crowed.  Peter runs away sobbing for he can no longer bear to see Jesus or have Jesus see him, and we won't really see or hear anything more for Peter until the Resurrection, but have hope--Jesus is not done with Peter (but you probably already knew that).