Denial

 

[The following is a manuscript of my meditation delivered on Maundy Thursday afternoon, the 28th of March, 2024, at Pilgrim Reformed Church.  A recording of our service should be available on our YouTube streaming channel: 

https://www.youtube.com/@pilgrimreformedchurch1992/streams.]

Family, let’s step back in time to the first century, to early April in 33 AD.  We’re in the great Jewish city of Jerusalem, where the permanent population has more than tripled as devout Jews from all over gather to observe the Feast of Passover.  Josephus, a Jewish historian who lived in the same age as the Gospel writers, put the Passover population at over 2,000,000!

The city is packed with pilgrims.  All kinds of domestic and exotic goods are being sold in the marketplace, from stalls and carts further clogging the streets.  Up until this past Sunday, you could have purchased doves and grain and incense and the other items used for sacrifices for the atonement of sins, right there on the Temple grounds – convenient for the pilgrims.  But not now, because Sunday was when Jesus came to town.

You’ve heard of Jesus, haven’t you – the great healer and holy man from Nazareth, of all places?  He came in with a large crowd of followers, and all the people came out to see Him.  They shouted “Hosanna” and threw their cloaks and some palm branches onto the road for the whole parade to walk on.  And get this – Jesus came riding in on a donkey.  A donkey!  What kind of king rides into Jerusalem on a donkey?!?  Anyway, He went right into the Temple and ran off everyone who was trying to make a profit from the pilgrims who’d come here to worship, turning over their tables and kicking their chairs.

Well, that was Sunday and now it’s Thursday, the day of preparation for the Feast of Passover, which begins tomorrow evening at sunset.  Come with me and let’s all join Jesus for supper and listen to what He tells His followers.

Please listen and follow along to what the Apostle Mark recorded in verses 12 through 31 of the 14th chapter of his Gospel.  I’ll be reading from the New Living Translation of our Holy Bible…

12 On the first day of the Festival of Unleavened Bread, when the Passover lamb is sacrificed, Jesus’ disciples asked Him, “Where do You want us to go to prepare the Passover meal for You?”

13 So Jesus sent two of them into Jerusalem with these instructions: “As you go into the city, a man carrying a pitcher of water will meet you. Follow him. 14 At the house he enters, say to the owner, ‘The Teacher asks: Where is the guest room where I can eat the Passover meal with My disciples?’ 15 He will take you upstairs to a large room that is already set up. That is where you should prepare our meal.” 16 So the two disciples went into the city and found everything just as Jesus had said, and they prepared the Passover meal there.

17 In the evening Jesus arrived with the Twelve. 18 As they were at the table eating, Jesus said, “I tell you the truth, one of you eating with Me here will betray Me.”

19 Greatly distressed, each one asked in turn, “Am I the one?”

20 He replied, “It is one of you twelve who is eating from this bowl with Me. 21 For the Son of Man must die, as the Scriptures declared long ago. But how terrible it will be for the one who betrays Him. It would be far better for that man if he had never been born!”

22 As they were eating, Jesus took some bread and blessed it. Then He broke it in pieces and gave it to the disciples, saying, “Take it, for this is My body.”

23 And He took a cup of wine and gave thanks to God for it. He gave it to them, and they all drank from it. 24 And He said to them, “This is My blood, which confirms the covenant between God and His people. It is poured out as a sacrifice for many. 25 I tell you the truth, I will not drink wine again until the day I drink it new in the Kingdom of God.”

26 Then they sang a hymn and went out to the Mount of Olives.

27 On the way, Jesus told them, “All of you will desert Me. For the Scriptures say,

‘God will strike the Shepherd,

and the sheep will be scattered.’

28 But after I am raised from the dead, I will go ahead of you to Galilee and meet you there.”

29 Peter said to Him, “Even if everyone else deserts You, I never will.”

30 Jesus replied, “I tell you the truth, Peter — this very night, before the rooster crows twice, you will deny three times that you even know Me.”

31 “No!” Peter declared emphatically. “Even if I have to die with You, I will never deny You!” And all the others vowed the same.

--Mark 14:12-31 (NLT)

Let us pray… Father God, this afternoon we step back to a day nearly 2000 years ago that is meaningless to some and may have lost a little meaning for even us.  It was a long and painful day for Your Son Jesus when so much happened to Him, and all for our benefit, we poor sinners.  Speak to us, Father, speak into our hearts, that we might relive that day and understand its true meaning and full impact on our behavior in this life as we prepare for the next.  Speak to us that we might know the truth of our ways.  Convict us of our sin and forgive us of our disobedience.  This we pray in the name of Christ Jesus, our Lord.  Amen

Today is Maundy Thursday.  The word, “Maundy”, comes from the Latin word meaning command or commandment.  On the night of His last supper with His disciples, Jesus gave us a commandment to “Do this in remembrance of Me”.  He also gave us a new commandment: to love each other, just as much as He loves us.  And He gave us a warning, too.

In just a few minutes we will share the elements of our Lord’s body and blood, just as He shared the bread and the wine with His disciples that night.  We will renew the covenant God made with us, sealed by the precious blood of Jesus.  But first, let’s look a little more closely at the events surrounding that meal on this Thursday so long ago.

Now it’s important to remember that Jesus knew exactly what was about to happen.  This is evident in Mark’s account when he noted that the disciples sent to prepare a place for them all to eat the Passover meal, found everything exactly as Jesus had said they would.  They found a man carrying a water pitcher and followed him into a house.  They told the master of that house that their Teacher needed to use the guest room for the Passover, and he showed them the fully furnished upper room.

Since we believers today know and accept that Jesus was God in the flesh, we are not at all surprised that Jesus knew beforehand what would occur, because God knows everything.  But I bet those two unnamed disciples were a little surprised.  It’s just like last Sunday when He told another pair of followers where they’d find a donkey and her foal.

At some point, you’d think these men would start to realize Jesus would be correct with anything and everything He said, yet they still seemed to doubt Him, they still seemed amazed when He told them something that didn’t quite fit in their mental box.  We can see that again at supper.

While they were eating, Jesus told His friends that one of them present that night, one of them sitting right there, one of His twelve chosen disciples would soon betray Him.  While greatly distressed by this proclamation, they seemed to accept the truth of His words.  I can just imagine all of them clamoring at once, “Am I the one?  Are You talking about me?  Will I betray You?”  I don’t know about you, but after hearing such profoundly bad news, I would think the meal and all normal conversation would have stopped cold!  But no, they continued to eat their supper, almost like nothing had happened.

As they were eating, Jesus varied just a little from the Passover meal tradition by sharing the bread and announcing that it was His body.  Just as He blessed and then broke the loaf of bread so that they might eat, His body - blessed by God - would soon be broken so that they, and all of us, might be forgiven of our sins before God.  Then He passed the cup, declaring its contents to be His blood, poured out to confirm our covenant with God, shed for the many who will believe, not just those gathered there that night.

And then we have a nice touch.  Mark is usually a man of few words when it comes to his account of Jesus’ life and ministry.  He usually sticks just to the details, and the barest minimum of those.  But here he takes a moment to tell us that after they had all eaten, they sang a hymn before heading out to the Mount of Olives.  They sang a hymn.  After some bad news, after being told they were eating Jesus’ body and drinking His blood, they sang a song of worship and praise to God.

Why did Mark bother to tells us this when he is usually so frugal with his words?  Why did God make sure this one little verse was included in our Bible?  Why else but to show us that no matter what we might hear, no matter what we’re going through or what we can expect to happen next, we should always take time to be thankful to our glorious God and praise His holy name in our words, our deeds, and even in our songs.

OK, so Jesus and the disciples headed out for the Mount of Olives, where Jesus would be going off a little ways to pray and where He would be arrested a short time later.  Mark doesn’t mention it, but Judas must have left the group by now, for he will return shortly accompanied by a contingent of Temple guards to perform that aforementioned arrest.  But as Jesus and the rest were making that short walk to the Mount, He rather casually announced, “All of you will desert Me.”

And there's another little shocker for the evening!

“The scripture says it, so it is to be, that soon you will all scatter and leave Me by Myself.  Oh, but after I’m raised from the dead – I did mention I’ll soon be dead, right? – after I’m raised back to life, You can meet up with me in Galilee, where this all started.”

Peter seemed to ignore the part about Jesus being raised from the dead, but jumped on the bit about deserting His Master.  “Not gonna happen, Jesus!  The rest of these guys might walk away, but I will never desert You!”  Jesus calmly responded to His hot-headed disciple, “Not only will you all desert me, but Peter, this very night, before the rooster crows twice to announce the sunrise, you will deny three times that you even know Me.”  And of course Peter became more vehement in his refusal to believe any of this, saying that even if he had to die for it, he would never deny Jesus!

Never.  That’s a mighty long time, isn’t it.  I will never deny You.  I’ve always been told to never say never, because things might change.  But is there anyone here that would deny Jesus?  Would any of us deny knowing Him if asked?

I’m sure I’ve said this before, but I’m a pre-Trib believer.  That means that I believe Jesus will come and call His church home before the great Tribulation begins.  Some believe the Rapture will occur during the Tribulation, and some believe it will happen after.  The Bible has passages that can support all three beliefs, but I feel it gives more evidence of the Rapture happening first.  Of course, I’m a little prejudiced in that belief, because I absolutely hate the thoughts of having to live through the Tribulation.  And one of the reasons is that at one point in that horrible time of chaos and evil, we will be asked if we deny Jesus.  If our answer is “No, we do not deny Him as our Lord and the one true Son of God”, we will be put to death.  Of course if that happens, the Tribulation will be over for us anyway, so maybe it won’t be so bad after all.

At any rate, in this case, Peter should have avoided using that word “never”, for as we know, he did indeed deny knowing Jesus three times when asked.  But what about us?  Would we ever deny Jesus?

My guess is yes, we would.  Now I don’t mean intentionally deny Him, even under threat of death, although that might be sufficient reason for some.  What I mean is, while we may say we will never deny Jesus, our actions might otherwise belie our words.

How do we deny Him?  Anytime we ignore His commands.  Every time we fail to act with a loving attitude and manner.  Whenever we just can't force ourselves to love someone because of something they’ve done or said, or because of their political beliefs, or the color of their skin.  When we hesitate to share what He has done for us with a world that desperately needs His help.

And on and on and on.  There are so many ways we deny Jesus, when we don’t live and act like He told us to.  We deny Jesus when the world can’t tell any difference between us and any non-believer.  And when that difference shrinks away to nothing, we deny evening knowing Him, for we are not listening to Him, obeying His voice, following Him.

Like sheep whose shepherd had been struck down, the disciples all scattered.  First betrayal, then abandonment, and now denial.  Family, sometimes we are in denial.  Like Peter, we firmly believe we would never abandon Jesus or deny Him as our Lord.  But even that belief could be a form of denial, for like a lost sheep, we sometimes stray from where our Shepherd has tried to lead us.

Jesus will never leave us, but sometimes we turn our backs and walk away from Him.  In doing so, we deny that He is our Lord, for we are not doing as He commanded.  Our actions may or may not give evidence of our denial.  We may smile and pretend to love someone we perceive as an enemy, all the while in our heart stabbing them in the back, or strangling them in our mind.  Jesus said that hatred is the same as murder; when we hate someone in our heart it is the same as if we would take their life in cold blood.  Hatred goes against how Jesus commands us to live, so it is a form of denial.  We must work hard to rid ourselves of hatreds, intentionally stop ourselves when a hateful thought creeps up from the depths.  We must stop denying the One who gave up everything just so we might be saved.

Family, tomorrow – Friday - Jesus will be nailed onto a cruel cross, there to yield up His mortal life.  He has been betrayed, He has been abandoned, He has been denied.  All of this must have weighed heavily on His heart.  But surely He feels even greater heartache when we turn our backs and deny Him still today.  When we hesitate to witness for Him, when we fail to respond to apostasy or heresy, when we look the other way while a wrong is committed, when we don’t do what Jesus would have done in any given situation, we deny Him as our Lord.

The Apostle Paul warns us that denying Jesus is a sign of unbelief, defilement, and disobedience.  In the 10th chapter of his Gospel account, the Apostle Matthew records Jesus Himself warning us that, “[Therefore] Whoever confesses Me before men, him I will also confess before My Father who is in heaven.  But whoever denies Me before men, him I will also deny before My Father who is in heaven.”  (Matthew 10:32-33 (NKJV))

Jesus has promised us that He will stand at our side when we approach God at our end.  When that time comes, do we want Him to deny us?  Do we want to hear Him say, “I never knew you”?  It’s up to us, it’s entirely in our control.  Let’s make sure we do not deny Jesus in our words, our actions, or even our thoughts and feelings.

In just a few moments we will come to the table of our Lord to share His last meal with Him.  The Apostle Paul warns that we must be right with God before doing so.  Otherwise, we share the guilt of His execution, of His death, with those who committed the act.  Now is the time to get right with God.

If you are feeling convicted by the Holy Spirit, if you are weighed down by the guilt of disobedience, if you are holding a grudge against a fellow believer, if there is anything in your life that God would see as sinful, lay it all at the foot of our Lord’s cross, repent, and seek forgiveness.  Get right with God.  In the blessed name of Christ Jesus our Lord.  Amen.

Let us pray…  Father God, this afternoon we reflect back on a time when mankind saddened You yet again.  For on that day so long ago we betrayed Your Son, Your only Son, whom You sent to offer us salvation.  Instead of receiving Him, we rejected Him.  And even today, we are often too timid and shy to testify for Him, too fearful of what others may think or say.  Forgive us, Father, for our fear and hesitation to do what we know is right.

Father, we pray that You show us not only the error of our ways, but also how to do what is right in Your eyes.  You gave us the faith to believe in Your Son Jesus, and then He gave of Himself to wash us clean of our sin.  Thank You, Father, for loving us this much!  Please help us understand how everything we do while bearing the name of Jesus, reflects back on Your Son.  Please let others know Your love through our love, through our words and deeds.

Lord Jesus, You gave so much of Yourself on our behalf.  You took our punishment, You bore our stripes, You died so we could avoid the final and permanent death just by believing in You and accepting You as Lord.  You accepted us as if a gift from God, and You loved us to the very end.  

Forgive us, Lord, when we deny You.  Forgive us our times of doubt and confusion.  Forgive those who refuse to believe, who reject Your authority.  Forgive us when we could stand up for You against the doubters and disbelievers, but we are just too timid, too afraid, to do so.  Forgive us when we can’t let go of the world, refusing to put all our faith and trust in You and our Father God.  Help us, please Jesus, to not be so concerned with what others may think about us, or with anything this world might offer.  Give us the strength of our convictions, the fullness of our faith, so that we can serve You by serving others.  Help us be good and faithful servants.

This we pray in Your sweet name, Christ Jesus our Lord, the one true Son of God.  Amen.