He Denied Not Peter

“But I have prayed for thee, that thy faith fail not: and when thou art converted, strengthen thy brethren.” — Luke 22:32 (KJV)

Sibbes now shows how Jesus treated people whose faith was weak. It is one of the most encouraging parts of the book.

Thomas doubted that Jesus had risen. Jesus didn’t reject him; he showed Thomas his hands and his side. Two disciples walking to Emmaus had given up hope. Jesus walked with them and explained the Scriptures until their hearts burned.

And then there is Peter, who swore he didn’t know Jesus. Sibbes sums it up in one of his most famous lines:

“Peter denied him, but he denied not Peter.”

After the resurrection Jesus came looking for Peter, cooked him breakfast on a beach, and gave him a fresh start. He had already told Peter, before the denial, that he was praying for him so that his faith would not fail.

Sibbes keeps going. A man with leprosy came to Jesus and said, “If thou wilt, thou canst make me clean.” He wasn’t sure Jesus wanted to help him. Another man said, “If thou canst do any thing”, not sure Jesus was able. Both had weak faith, with an “if” in it. Sibbes says Jesus could have stood on his own greatness and rejected them. Instead he answered the man’s “if” with a full, gracious yes: “I will; be thou clean.”

Then there is the woman who had been ill for twelve years. She was too scared to ask Jesus for anything. She crept up in the crowd and touched just the edge of his clothes. Sibbes notices the details: she “did but touch, and with a trembling hand, and but the hem of his garment, and yet went away both healed and comforted.”

Even when the disciples fell asleep in the garden of Gethsemane while Jesus was in agony, he made an excuse for them: “the spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak.”

Sibbes says this is the opposite of how people often behave. We tend to snuff out the light because of a little smoke. If someone fails, we write them off. “Man for a little smoke will quench the light,” he says. Christ “cherisheth even the least beginnings.”

Whatever your “if” is, whatever your failure, bring it to him. He has not denied you.

One thing to do this week: read John 21:1–19, where Jesus restores Peter. If there is something you are ashamed of, tell Jesus about it this week, and then read verse 17 again and hear him asking you, too: “Lovest thou me?”