He Found Them Sleeping

Wednesday, April 1

Jesus’ words to Peter in Gethsemane, “the spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak,” express in simplest terms one of the central challenges of Christian discipleship. Up to this point in Matthew’s narrative, Peter has already had two memorable encounters with Jesus where he was rebuked for a particular weakness. He will have one more just a few verses after this. The three weaknesses concern Peter’s faith, focus, and fear.

On the heels of the feeding of the five thousand, Matthew records the famous scene of Jesus walking on the water and Peter attempting to walk toward him (Matthew 14:22-33). Peter’s attempt could be summarized as a kind of “one step forward, two steps back,” where his initial success is almost immediately thwarted when he becomes distracted by the strong wind. After rescuing the sinking Peter, Jesus asks him the penetrating question “why did you doubt?” Faith is demonstrated through action, but not isolated, spasmodic action. True faith is demonstrated through consistent actions, as Jesus himself perfectly modeled.

The second Petrine episode of note occurs further into Jesus’ last year of ministry, often referred to as his year of increasing opposition. Matthew 16 records Peter first making the “Great Confession” that Jesus is indeed the promised Messiah, but then, as with the previous water episode, his initial success is swiftly subsumed by another failure, this time regarding the focus of his mind (Matthew 16:13-23). In a scene meant to evoke the temptation in the wilderness story from back in chapter 4, Peter is cast as the “Satan” who tries to steer Jesus away from his Messianic task of going to the cross. Jesus tells him that his mind is not set on the things of God, but of man. The problem here regards his focus, or vision. In Pauline language, Peter is still working from the “old self,” that cannot see the spiritual but instead only focuses on the physical. The writer of Hebrews describes how Jesus’ focus remained fixed and steadfast, however: “... who for the joy set before Him endured the cross” (Hebrews 12:2).

The third and final failure of Peter concerns his fear. As Jesus is in the midst of his Jewish trial, Peter is outside in the courtyard, when a servant girl asks if he is associated with Jesus. His three-fold denial coincides with the rooster crowing, causing Peter to remember Jesus’ prediction from earlier that evening and to leave the courtyard weeping. At the same time, though, Jesus was already redeeming Peter’s failure. Ultimately, Peter did not let fear get the best of him but instead finished running his race for Jesus perfectly.

Dear Lord and Savior Jesus Christ: I hold up all my weakness to your strength, my failure to your faithfulness, my sinfulness to your perfection. Show me how to live in true humility, true contrition, and true love. Amen.

Written by Faculty Members of the Gary Cook School of Leadership at Dallas Baptist University.