When the Rooster Crows

Verse: Because of the increase of wickedness the love of most will grow cold, but the one who stands firm to the end will be saved. - Matthew 24:12-13

Topic: How can I move beyond the past?

Personal Piece:  This past week, well really this past month, but this week especially has been quite the struggle for me.  Last week I wrote about Jacob wrestling with God and challenged you to have your own wrestling match with God.  Well I have been wrestling God for close to 4 months now and I feel like I'm finally starting to reach the breakthrough.  For those of you who don't know me well I have worked for a restaurant chain called Chick-fil-A for nearly 7 years now.  Though initially a southern chain it has been slowly making its way into my northern state of Wisconsin and the store I currently work at has been open for little under a year.  I'll admit that after 7 years of working for this company the transition to this new store has been a VERY difficult one for me and God has really been breaking my pride in a lot of ways.  Unfortunately, I don't think he's done yet but I know that when he's through the struggle will be worth it.

Thought of the Week:  A couple weeks ago I told a story about Simon Peter facing a storm on the sea of Galilee.  This week I'm going to return to Peter's story as he faces a darker kind of storm.  It was the night of the Passover, a time of somber remembrance for the Jewish people.  A time when the people would gather together and share a quiet meal in remembrance of a time thousands of years earlier when the blood of a lamb on their doorposts spared them from the angel of death and brought freedom from the slavery they had endured in Egypt.  But this particular Passover the blood of a different lamb would spare them.  They sat around the table and shared the meal just like they had every year but this year when the teacher blessed the bread and the wine he told them that he was the bread and his blood was the wine.  What could it mean?  Peter had no idea.  The teacher always said strange things.  He said he wouldn't drink wine again, what foolishness!  He said one of them would betray him, yeah right!  He even said Peter would deny knowing him, as if!

Later that night the teacher led them to a place called Gethsemane where they made camp for the night.  Peter was ready to turn in, he was exhausted from travelling and ministry and Passover preparations.  But then Jesus said he was going off to pray and asked Peter and the Zebedee brother's to join him.  He was tired but how could he pass up a request from the man he had long since declared to be the Messiah.  As they walked Peter noticed that Jesus was not himself.  He was normally a man filled with joy and peace, but tonight he seemed to be in great turmoil.  "My soul is overwhelmed with sorrow" he finally admitted but would say no more, then after a moment, "Stay here and pray for me."  Peter did as the teacher asked but soon could keep his eyes open no longer and drifted to sleep.

For years later Peter would wonder how that night might have turned out differently had he been more determined to stay awake.  Would he have seen Judas sneak away from the camp to do his dirty work?  Would his eyes have been opened to the spiritual realm before he had a chance to draw his sword?  Would he have stood by his master's side when all else ran?  Peter would never get the answers to these questions and neither do we in our own lives.  We spend so much time stirring over and over our mistakes, turning over the what-ifs.  For Peter the sound of a rooster would have reminded him every day of his failure.  But what-if Peter really had stayed awake?  Yes it was a mistake and he responded out of emotion when he cut off a man's ear but if he had seen Judas leave would he have stopped him?  If he had gone with Jesus would he have died too?  He couldn't have stopped Jesus from dying and he was the only disciple other than John who is even mentioned in these last moments.  Without the mistakes of these days Peter would not have become the rock on which Jesus built his church.

We all make mistakes but we can never make a mistake that is so big that God didn't see it coming.   Jesus knew that the disciples would sleep, he knew they were exhausted and that their physical bodies would overcome their spiritual determination and he didn't condemn them for it. Instead, he took the opportunity to teach them a lesson that would stick with them for the rest of their lives: "The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak." (Matthew 26:41) They were words that would bring them to their knees night after night for the rest of their lives as one by one each of them (and many others) would follow Jesus into death.  If Peter hadn't experienced that dark night, if he hadn't denied Jesus then he would not have had the strength of character he would need to build the church.

I have made many mistakes in my life but I have no regrets.  Were those moments hard?  Yes!  Would I want to live through them again? Absolutely not!  If I had another chance would I do things the same way?  Probably not exactly.  But knowing what I know now I can see how God was working in each of those moments to bring me to the person I am today.  Those moments and those struggles, those all-night wrestling matches that sometimes become necessary, and yes, even our failures are all tools that God uses to fashion us into the strong and beautiful vessels he wants us to be.

It takes a lot of work and a lot of times the pain deters us from going through the process.  Like Peter, our flesh overcomes our spiritual determination.  But what I have found to be hardest of all, is looking myself in the mirror after I've messed up.  It's one thing to know that mistakes are part of life, it's another to live through them.  It can be hard to look in the mirror and know that all your promises came to nothing because you just went off and messed up again anyway.  How can we possibly expect God to like us when the one and only person on the planet who should always be on our side can't even look themselves in the eye?  And yet he does.

That took me a long time to understand.  To truly understand the concept of God's forgiveness (and forgetfulness) is truly mind-blowing.  When you grasp it, it will change everything.  If Jesus could take Peter by the hand and call him to be the catalyst of a world-changing movement then he can forgive your betrayals.  If he can speak to a socially awkward man through a burning bush and call him speak in boldness then certainly he can give you the same boldness.  If he can use a young boy rejected by his brothers to save the entire eastern world from plague, then he can fulfill your impossible dreams too.  If he can put a shepherds call on a woman who has cursed his name too many times for her to count and sit with her and speak words of healing and forgiveness over her in the moments of her deepest despair, if he can lead me out of the darkness of depression and the burden of anxiety then he can do the same for you.  He doesn't want you to be overwhelmed by the failures of yesterday (even if they were literally yesterday) instead he wants you to focus entirely on the present. He sees you for what you can be and he wants to make what you can be in the future,
who you are in the present.  You just have to let him.

Digging Deeper:  The story of Peter during Passover week can be found in Matthew 26, Mark 14, Luke 22 or John 18.  Peter's restoration and calling can be found in John 21:15-25 and Acts 2-4.

Other stories mentioned in this entry include Moses' burning bush experience found in Exodus 3-4 and Joseph's dreams and their fulfillment from Genesis 37 and 42-45.

The story of the first Passover can be found in Exodus 12.  For more about the Passover celebration and what it has to do with Jesus check out "Celebrating Jesus in the Biblical Feasts" by Richard Booker.

The title of this entry comes from the prophesy Jesus gave to Peter concerning his denial and it's fulfillment found in Matthew 26:33-34 and 74-75.  In this case the "rooster's crow" represents the sinking feeling of realizing that you have failed.  It can also be a term used to describe something that reminds a person of a past failure and hopefully the redemption that followed.  Mark Batterson's book Wild Goose Chase dives deeper into this idea in his chapter on Peter.

I know this can be a hard topic to apply so if there is any way I can pray for you please share in the comments.

Challenge:  This past week God has been challenging me to remember what he has brought me out of.  It is not bad to remember our pasts as long as we don't get lost in our mistakes.  I want to challenge you this week to take some time to write down your testimony.  It doesn't have to be long or go through every minute detail of your life just choose 2 or 3 significant events that led up to your life changing encounter with God.  If you were raised in a Christian home than take the time to determine when the moment was that you decided you wanted Jesus for yourself or choose 2 or 3 of the significant encounters you had with him that convinced you that he was real.  Most importantly paint a picture for yourself of who you were before the encounter and who you are now that he's become a major part of your life.  Don't feel like you have to have been delivered from some horrible life of sin to have a good testimony.  Many people wouldn't see freedom from depression as a huge deal compared to freedom from drugs but to me it's everything.  It's your story and no one should tell you it isn't a good one.  It's important to realize that God didn't make a mistake in writing yours.