I Am Peter

Let us turn to the Word of God, brothers and sisters, on this precious evening. I want to invite you to turn to the Gospel according to Saint Luke, chapter 22; and we are going to look at verses 54 and following. On a night like this, when we remember this time of suffering. At a time like this—we are not sure exactly at what moment—but we know it was a Friday, the Lord was arrested and fully entered His time of anguish and suffering and crucifixion and all these things. And that aspect which is called "The Passion of Jesus Christ" has much to teach us.

But in that dark time, in those dark hours that the Lord lived through, one of the terrible things that happened was Peter’s denial. And we are going to see what we can draw from this, what lesson we can draw from it. It says: "Having seized Him—having arrested Jesus—they took Him and led Him to the house of the High Priest, and Peter followed at a distance. And when they had kindled a fire in the middle of the courtyard, they sat down around it, and Peter also sat among them. But a servant girl, seeing him seated by the fire, looked closely at him and said, ‘This man also was with Him.’" That is, referring to Peter, she accused him: "You know, this man also goes around with that man they have arrested; he is part of His group." ‘This man also was with Him,’ "but Peter denied it, saying, ‘Woman, I do not know Him.’ A little later, another person saw him and said, ‘Yes, you also are one of them,’ and Peter said, ‘Man, I am not.’ About an hour later, still another insisted, saying, ‘Truly, this man also was with Him, for he is a Galilean,’ and Peter said, ‘Man, I do not know what you are talking about,’ and immediately, while he was still speaking, the rooster crowed."

Then, "the Lord turned and looked at Peter"—those looks the Lord would give—"the Lord turned..." But it was not a look... I suspect that Jesus’ look was not a condemning look; it was not a stern look, do you understand? It was not an accusing look; it was an understanding look. I imagine that the Lord looked at him and smiled a little, smiled a little with a look that was somewhat sad and very understanding, and it pierced Peter deeply when He looked at him that way. Because we are going to see why. Then He looked at Peter, and Peter remembered the Lord’s word, how He had told him: ‘Before the rooster crows, you will deny Me three times,’ and "Peter went outside and wept bitterly." May the Lord bless His Holy Word.

You know, a few days ago I was having a time of meditation in the morning, and I do not know why I came across that passage about Peter’s denial, and it struck me, and I made a note in my planner for this Good Friday—for today—and I do not believe I have ever preached specifically about Peter’s denial on a Good Friday. But that moment struck me very powerfully, among all the different moments in the Passion of Jesus Christ, the drama. I am not sure, because this sometimes happens to me: a passage strikes me and I—something in my spirit responds to it, and I am not sure what it is—but then I have to set myself the task of digging within my spirit to try to discover what the spirit saw and connect it with my mind. And I put it there and wrote down that I was going to preach about that passage, and what the Lord brought to my mind, embryonically, as I meditated on it, is that, in a sense, Peter, by denying Jesus in that way, is a representative of every one of us. And what... the title that came to mind was "I Am Peter," concerning this passage, "I Am Peter." And you know what? You are Peter.

At this point in Jesus’ painful journey, there is something there for which this was recorded, and it is to remind us of something about the divine drama, the drama of God in His relationship with humanity, with His creature. I do not know whether you dare to think with me for a moment, if I were to say: "I am going to preach a sermon about the loneliness of God"; perhaps some theologians would be scandalized and say: "That is nonsense, because God cannot feel loneliness." "God has the Trinity in perfect harmony, perfect companionship; He is perfect. Loneliness perhaps implies lack, something incomplete. God is perfect, God is complete; therefore, God cannot feel loneliness." But I believe that sometimes, in our desire to glorify God and exalt His uniqueness, we forget that God also has passions like us. Indeed, we have passions because God has passions, because we have been made in the likeness and image of God. I believe that if human beings experience sadness, joy, anger, indignation, love, passion, it is because those emotions, in a very pure, very beautiful, very exalted form, are in the heart of God, so to speak. It is not that God physically has a heart like us, but rather that feeling side of God.

I do not believe at all that I am showing irreverence toward the greatness and fullness of God by saying that God feels. When I read the Bible, I see God feeling anger, terrible anger; indignation, a sense of having been betrayed; I see God feeling a love—but absolutely—I believe that if we could feel for one moment the love God feels for His creature, we would die of a heart attack. We could not process that Love; indeed, I believe we would be incinerated, we would wither away in an instant, because God’s love is so consuming.

There are moments when God feels pain over Israel’s betrayal and sees Himself as a betrayed husband, filled with anger, as though looking for someone to destroy because He is filled with a sense of indignation at having been betrayed. And why not say that God can feel, perhaps at some point—I would say perhaps not loneliness as we feel it—but indeed, at times, a sense of abandonment by His creature? I believe there is pain in God’s heart because of that separation between the man and the woman He has created and His person; and God wants to have absolute intimacy with us.

Sin came between that intimacy God wants and us, and Christ came precisely to bridge that chasm and heal that distance. But God’s heart aches because this creation, which He fashioned with His hands, with His breath, does not recognize Him as He wants to be recognized. Humanity has not given God that total reverence, that total surrender, and that is why, when God sees a man or a woman who loves Him—even if imperfectly—but who loves Him passionately, God’s heart leaps and pours itself out toward that person and blesses, blesses, blesses that person despite his or her imperfections. Because God lives yearning for the love of His creature, and God likes to have fellowship with us and likes to have intimacy with us. I believe it is something... but it truly is strange to think that God likes it when we seek Him in prayer and seek fellowship with Him.

One would think that such a vast Being, so infinitely great, would not be moved because a creature as small as we are made gestures of drawing near to Him. One says, "Ah! Among the billions of people who may be drawing near to Him in some way at this very moment, how is He going to notice my drawing near or my neglect?" But I believe He does, that God, in ways we do not understand, is like a father who, though he has many children—or a mother—loves them all in different ways; how much more is God able to do that. And God desires it.

Look, there in Genesis we see the Lord, supposedly in some form—we do not know how—but coming down to seek companionship with Adam and Eve, remember? And what happens when God enters the garden seeking companionship, to have a cappuccino with Adam and Eve at three in the afternoon, taking a break from keeping the worlds in the universe turning? What happens? He finds them distant; He finds them covered with leaves and says: "Hmm, I have never seen this before. What has happened here? Let us see." And He discovers that His creature has betrayed Him and disobeyed Him in a fundamental way, and that the relationship between Him and them has been broken.

But God, seeking companionship with His creature at that moment, discovers that He has been betrayed. Before that, there had been an even more significant betrayal, when Lucifer—that marvelous Archangel, the pinnacle of God’s creatures—betrays God and becomes filled with pride, believing himself equal to God or seeking to make himself equal to God, and betrays God, rebels against God; and God also has to take that creature whom He has loved so deeply and, I imagine, felt so proud as a father to have created, and He also has to separate him from Himself. What pain God must have felt! And angels, according to what they say—Scripture is not clear about this, but many theologians believe that Satan instigated a rebellion among the angelic hosts and that a fairly large number of angels separated themselves from God, and God cast them out of His Grace, and that explains the existence of demons. "Fallen angels," the Bible says, who "have been kept in prisons of darkness," but who somehow have access to this human dimension; yet they are also angels who betrayed God, did not give Him the Glory and Lordship that belonged to Him, and betrayed Him.

I believe the Lord was... you see that dynamic: God is always looking for people who will honor Him, people who will worship Him, people who will render Him the tribute He needs. Do you remember what I am talking about? The betrayal by one of His closest disciples, the rejection, the denial, the abandonment by one of His closest disciples: Peter; and by the others as well, who also abandoned Him, after walking with Him all those years and seeing miracles and all kinds of things. Remember that, because I am speaking about that specifically, and we are going to see how one thing fits together with the other. There is a meaning in all of this. So, throughout the centuries, I believe God’s heart has been bleeding because His creature does not love Him as He wants to be loved. And you know what, my brother, my sister? One might say, "...Well, all right. Those are the outsiders: the atheists, the Muslims, the other religions that do not know Jesus Christ. We are different." But look, brothers and sisters, I want to take it to a greater point, to take myself there, and say: you know what? Ultimately, we are no different. And that is terrible to contemplate, but we...

Tonight God wants to remind us of that, not so that we leave here feeling guilty or saying, "Oh my God, what is going to happen?" No, but simply so that we may soberly think: "Okay, what do I do with that?"—with the fact that I too have a tendency to neglect my Father and not give Him everything He deserves.

Another association came to mind here. Do you remember Simon the Pharisee and the woman who poured the jar of perfume over the figure of Jesus? Simon the Pharisee invites Jesus into his home to examine Him and treats Him dryly, distantly, coldly, as we have often treated God. Sometimes we give the Lord the leftovers of our day; we give the Lord what we have left; we give the Lord what we do not need. We make sure first to attend to everything else, and if perhaps a few minutes remain to pray to Him hurriedly there, or to offer Him halfhearted service—because, after all, we have to live, we have to do other things—we give Him that. And the Lord says: "Where are the firstfruits? Where is the best? Where is the choice portion? Where is what I deserve? Where is the preference? Where is the fierce passion?"—the passion that says: my Father first, my God first; I must honor Him, I must give Him the best, I must make sure to bless Him and that there be no doubt in anyone’s mind that He is paramount, that He is first in my life.

That is what touches the heart of that wounded Father who, throughout the centuries, has been betrayed again and again by His sons and daughters; God lives yearning to find men and women with hearts that truly honor Him. Because that is the chief controversy in the Father’s heart; that is the number-one pain.

That is why I believe the Word says: "The eyes of God range throughout the whole earth, seeking those whose hearts are perfect toward Him," to show His Mercy, His goodness toward them; to show Himself strong on their behalf.

I did not know where that passage came from. Some time ago... but now that I have been studying the life of King Jehoshaphat, I discovered the exact context of that passage; and it is when Jehoshaphat, before... no, forgive me, Haza, Jehoshaphat’s father, when King Haza hands over the treasures of the temple and also the treasures of his own palace and gives them to a king in order to seek an alliance to escape a military problem he has; and a prophet appears to King Haza and says to him: "Look, how is it possible that you first sought help from a human king and did not seek it from God? Do you not remember that time when there was an army of Ethiopians far more powerful than that other army from which you have now tried to deliver yourself, and the Lord gave you an overwhelming victory?" And he tells him, "You have acted foolishly... because now you will have war all the time, for the eyes of God range throughout the whole earth, seeking those whose hearts are perfect toward Him, to show His favor toward them."

God’s heart felt demeaned, offended. God then saw Himself as a second-class citizen, a second resort, instead of being sought first. You see... if you continually look through the Word, it is there: the heart of the Father, God, who wants the honor and respect, the worship, the preference that He knows He deserves. Because He created; He is the source of everything: He is Creator, He is Sustainer.

So I believe, brothers and sisters, that in the package of the Passion—so to speak—that theme was included there to remind us of that aspect of God’s suffering through Jesus Christ. I believe that if we could understand all the details that went into the Passion of Jesus, I suspect that if we had a book in which all the divine, sacred theological themes and subthemes that were included in the Passion of Jesus were written down, we would discover that every theme of God’s pain was included.

It was not only the suffering on the Cross, the nails, the thirst, the torture—no, there were also pains of God being enacted through the person of Jesus, pains far more exquisite than those. Pains concerning loneliness, abandonment, betrayal, the sin that this perfect Being felt upon his person, which he must have abhorred; Jesus’ sense of abandonment in feeling separated from his Father—all of that was part of the suffering. And part of the suffering did not take place on the Cross, but also in those moments of loneliness when many other aspects of God’s drama unfolded as well, and one of them was precisely that: humanity’s abandonment, humanity’s rejection, the betrayal by those whom God... those for whom God has given everything. Look at this, when the Lord tells his disciples that they are going to leave him.

Let us turn for a moment, right here, to Luke... I am not going to find the... let us go to Matthew chapter 26 for a moment. I believe it is Matthew 26 where the Lord says: “And when they had sung the hymn, they went out to the Mount of Olives,” and then Jesus said to them: “All of you will be offended because of me this night.” Look, “be offended” is a very serious expression; it does not simply mean: You are going to be ashamed, you are going to leave me, you are going to abandon me. No, “you are going to be offended because of me”; it means: You are going to be ashamed in an extreme way; I am going to become an object of scandal to you. For it is written, “I will strike the shepherd, and the sheep of the flock will be scattered.” Why? Why did the Lord speak this prophecy? Why did it have to be included there that his disciples would abandon him and be offended because of him, and that Peter would deny him? Because that drama was embedded there: God’s drama, God’s loneliness. In all of this—the crucifixion, the suffering—there was this matter of separation from his creature. And look, Peter then answered and said to him: “Lord, though everyone else is offended because of you, I will never be offended.” And Jesus said to him: “Truly I tell you that this night, before the rooster crows, you will deny me three times.”

Now, was it Christ’s prophecy that caused Peter to deny him? Or did the prophecy simply announce what had already been predetermined? We do not know, but the fact is that Peter, as a strong disciple of Jesus who shared very intimate, very powerful moments with Jesus, was the one who should have been least likely to reject him. Therefore, his being scandalized by Jesus, his outright denial three times, was an indication of how far the humanity he represented was from the loyalty Jesus deserved.

“Truly I tell you that this night, before the rooster crows, you will deny me three times.” But Peter insists and says to him: “Even if I must die with you, I will not deny you,” and all the disciples said the same thing, just as we sometimes do. We say: “Ah! Even if this hardened humanity denies you, even if they deny you there at the State House, even if they deny you in Vermont, even if they deny you in California, we here at Lion of Judah Congregation will never deny you. We will be with you, Lord, unto death.” And the Lord, looking at us sadly, says: “Hey, you do not know what you are saying. You too.”

That is why I say that, for me, I would call this sermon “I Am Peter,” because even those closest to him, we... Brother, truly examine yourself this week, just as I can and have examined myself. How many times have we done things that we know deny Jesus? How many times? How many times in our lives, after becoming Christians, after coming to know Jesus Christ, after coming to know his Word, do we do things that outright, powerfully, radically deny Jesus—the Jesus we know? I raise my hand, brothers and sisters. Okay. We have rejected, we have denied, we have contradicted our vow of faith to the Lord, our confession to the Lord, and we wound the heart of God again and again.

Let us go back hundreds of years so that you can see that this is not an isolated theme. I am beginning to wrap this up now. Go to Isaiah 51, which I read at the beginning of the service, verse three, speaking about Jesus Christ in the prophecy of the prophet Isaiah: “Despised and rejected among men,” “a man of sorrows, acquainted with grief, and as it were, we hid our faces from him.” It is speaking inclusively, in the second-person plural, “we.” Who is “we”? We, the people of God? Lion of Judah Congregation? You and I? My family, your family? “We, as it were, hid our faces from him.” That “as it were, we hid” means that we acted as though we did not know him, right? We hid our faces in a subtle, slight way so that no one would notice, but, as it were, we hid our faces from the Lord; “as it were, we hid our faces from him; he was despised, and we did not esteem him.” That is the problem, brothers and sisters. God is asking you, and he asks me: “How highly do you esteem me?” “How highly do you esteem me?”

Brother, how much does your life—my life—reflect, through the moments of our lives, the esteem in which we ought to hold God? Can you say, can I say, that I esteem God as he deserves to be esteemed? Christ, as he deserves to be esteemed? Can I truly say that I revere my Father and hold him in the place where he deserves to be? I cannot say yes completely. Every day, like Peter—as we will see later—I come to the point of saying: Lord, every time... only you know; I am not sure. I believe I love you, but the truth is that only you know that completely. Because when we are honest with ourselves and examine our lives step by step, we see that we still fall far short.

I say this to encourage you, not to condemn you. So that from that moment of recognizing that I fall far short, you and I may then leap to a level of greater surrender to the Lord, of greater commitment to the Lord, of honoring, preferring, worshiping and loving him more, defending the Lord’s honor, and being the first one there to give the Lord those twenty dollars. And not feeling as though we have given him some great thing, when he gave everything for us.

It means saying “present” when there is a need for someone to be God’s hand or mouth or heart in the world, and saying: “No, it is not possible that, where there is a child of God representing the Kingdom of God, this or that should be lacking, or this or that should not be done, if I am a representative of the Kingdom of God.” And when you are somewhere, or in a situation where you are about to offend your Father or deny him, may you say: “Wait, you know what? Peter—I am Peter. Let me not fall into that; let me prefer my Father at that moment and give to him.” That is a daily struggle, a decision we must make seventeen or fifty times a day: not to deny the Lord, to give him preference, to love the Lord, to express our worship.

Look at verse six of Isaiah. It says: “All of us”—say, “All of us.” “All of us have gone astray like sheep. Each one has turned to his own way.” What does the Bible say? “For all have sinned and fall short of the Glory of God.”

One last verse. Go to Romans chapter one. Romans chapter one or two—let me see, somewhere around there—it is actually chapter two, now that I picture it here. Romans 2:1. In chapter one of Romans, Paul accuses all those people who have rejected God, who have violated his commandments, who have not acknowledged God’s lordship because they did not render to God the worship he deserved, but gave it to created things. God rejected them and gave them over to a reprobate, rejected mind to do things that ought not to be done. And I imagine that there were Jews and many people saying: “Yes, amen. That is true. Those filthy pagans—we ought to throw every one of them into hell for being the shameless wretches they are.” Just as we sometimes speak about people, right? About the world out there.

But look at what it says in chapter two: “Therefore you are inexcusable, O man, whoever you are who judge”—Lion of Judah, Roberto Miranda, whoever it may be who judges. You know what? In judging another, you condemn yourself, because you who judge do the same thing. All of us have separated ourselves from God; all of us have failed to give the Lord what the Lord needs, and that is part of his Passion, that is part of his suffering, and we need to identify with that and say: Father, forgive me—me too. That is why, when Peter denies Jesus and denies him three times—and there is a parallel passage that says he cursed during one of them—I say, one word... some word or other. Who knows what word he said? “I do not know this man,” as if to seal it with a curse.

Listen to me, what a terrible thing! Peter could not have done anything more terrible than that: deny the Lord that way with a curse. Why did whoever brought that about make sure it happened? Did God use an evil spirit? I do not know. Did God use Peter’s flesh? I do not know. Was it the Holy Spirit, in order to teach Peter and us a lesson throughout the centuries? The fact is that Peter sealed his denial with a curse. This man who was so close to Jesus denied him in that way. And then there is that moment, that terrible moment when the Lord looks at Peter with an understanding, compassionate and merciful gaze, as if to say: “You see, Peter, this is what I have been going through since Adam and Eve. What you have just done—do you see?” In that look Jesus gave him, he told him all of that: “You see, Peter, this is my pain, this is my suffering, this is what I endure. And this is what you and the humanity you represent at this moment have done to me. And this is part of the cross I bear.” And that is why all of this had to happen.

Do you remember the passage where Jesus is praying and the disciples are sleeping? “Once again, they have left me alone.” When he goes to speak with them, to seek comfort in their company, they are all overcome with sleep. They have left him—the loneliness. That was one of the Lord’s sufferings: abandonment.

We must ask the Lord: “Father, help me.” And what does the Lord Jesus Christ say? “Pray that you may not enter into temptation.” Brothers and sisters, we must... the only way I believe we can have the strength to love Christ as he deserves to be loved, to serve him with passion, is by seeking the strength of the Holy Spirit every day, consecrating ourselves more and more, seeking the power of God, living a life of self-denial, fasting, prayer, reading the Word, being in the house of the Lord, seeking the company of the saints, and serving God in order to maintain that love, that ardor God desires.

Finally, it is important for us to understand this human tendency to abandon God, not to give God what he deserves, not to give the Lord what is due to him. First, so that we may redouble our efforts to be faithful to him and not leave him alone, okay?

Tonight, what I want is for you to reconsider, just as I want to do as well, and say: “You know what? I need to make a stronger vow than ever always to give my God preference. Always to give him first place, to love him above all things, to honor him, worship him, give him the best moment of my day, serve him, obey him, prefer him.” Redouble your effort. And secondly, it is important for us to understand that human tendency so that we do not become proud and think ourselves better than others.

It is good for us always to be conscious of that deficit, of that debt we owe God, and to know: “Look, I am no different from the person out there.” The only difference is that Christ, in his mercy, bore my sin through his cross, and I clung to that; otherwise I would deserve the same death as those who are out there, even though I am in here. And may we always have that compassion, that grace, that mercy toward others. I imagine that Peter—the Peter who said: “Lord, even if all these cowards leave you, I will never leave you,” and he said it twice—ah, now, after what happened, I imagine Peter could understand much better the man who fled naked when they tried to seize him. Do you remember? Peter must have said: “Look at that coward! When I catch him, I am going to give him a tremendous beating. Look at him running away with his rear end exposed, leaving all his...” Why? Because he was a coward. Do you remember the man who fled, that comical character in the drama of the Cross, who ran away because apparently they tore off his clothes? And he said: “Better for the clothes to stay behind, but I am getting out of here.” I imagine that when Peter saw that, he said: “Do you see that man? He is worthless; he ought to be crucified too.” But now I imagine that Peter, after having done that, said: “Look, you know what? I am no different from him; in one sense, I am worse than he is.” And I imagine he must have had much more mercy. And so, brothers and sisters, let us always remember this: “No, I am not better than anyone; you are not better than anyone.” We have violated the loyalty and preference we ought to give our God, and we must always entrust ourselves to the Lord’s Mercy and be compassionate toward others.

And finally, it is important to understand this so that we may seek God’s anointing every day. So that he may renew our love and our passion for him, so that we can love him as he truly deserves to be loved. The Lord is compassionate, brothers and sisters.

I want to invite the musicians to come up here for a moment, please. The Lord wants fellowship with us; He knows that we have offended Him. Tonight, that is part of God’s passion: I am part of Peter. I am Peter, you are Peter, or if you are not Peter, you are Petra, but you are... we are Peter, and the Lord simply wants us to remember this. What a great blessing when Jesus meets the chastened Peter at the end! And Peter expected the Lord to reject him, to hate him, to tell him, “I don’t want anything more to do with you; there is no longer any forgiveness for you. You no longer deserve to be my disciple,” and the Lord, with such mercy, says to him, “Peter, do you love me?” I imagine he was almost laughing out loud. “Do you love me?” “Yes, Lord. You know that I love you,” all hunched over there. “Peter, do you love me?” “Yes, Lord, you know that I love you.” He asked him three times to neutralize the three bitter denials from before. In His presence.

How wonderful! How lovely the Lord is, isn’t He?! “Peter, I want to erase with sweetness what you did that time. I am going to give you the opportunity to confess your love for me. And you know what? I am going to believe you; I am going to believe you.” “Peter, do you love me?” “Well, Lord, you know all things. You know that I do; I’m not sure right now, but you know... you know that I love you.” How lovely the Lord is, isn’t He?!

So leave here tonight not feeling rejected, not feeling like a failure, but rather leave with that resolve. Like Peter when he met the Lord. “You know what, Lord?” “Next time I’m going to try a little harder. I’m going to try to do better.” The Lord wants us to leave here tonight more committed than ever to serving our God. Thank God.

Peter, tradition says, history says, finally had his opportunity to redeem that moment completely. Someone has said that Peter died—how was it? He was... he asked to be crucified upside down because he did not deserve to die like his Lord. That is what historical tradition says. Right? Finally, with the power of the Holy Spirit, I imagine that a Peter baptized with the Holy Spirit had the courage to die in an even nobler and more sacrificial way.

So there is always an opportunity for us, brothers and sisters. But let us leave here eager to give our lives to the Lord and give Him the honor He deserves. And we thank God for His goodness... Let us stand and say to Him: Lord, we worship You, we bless You, we thank You for all Your goodness, all Your wonders, for how good You have been. Ask the Lord for forgiveness, just as I have asked the Lord for forgiveness while meditating on this passage. For all the times I have denied Him, I have said, “Father, forgive me, forgive us, cleanse us, heal us, and pour out Your Glory upon us, Lord. We need You, Lord; we need You, Jesus.” Remain there in prayer, brothers and sisters.

Thank You, Lord. To You be the Glory and the honor. Thank You, Jesus. Lord, we surrender our lives to You again; we surrender our treasure to You again. We surrender to You everything we have, everything we are. Father, help us; help this Church to be a Church that prefers You, Lord. Help this Church to be a Church not for our glory, but for Your glory, a Church of men and women radically committed to You. Radically committed to You, Lord. Radically eager to see Your Glory manifested on this Earth, Father. Willing to surrender everything to You. May this word sink deep into our hearts tonight, Lord! I bless Your children, Father. Bring us back here on Sunday to give You all the honor and all the Glory once again. Thank You, Jesus. Amen and Amen.

Sermon by Dr. Roberto Miranda recorded April 10, 2009, at Congregación León de Judá

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