15.02 | What Pressure Reveals
Matthew 26:31-68
‘Peter said to him, “Even if I must die with you, I will not deny you!” And all the disciples said the same.’
Matthew 26:35
I’m a regular cyclist. Not the kind who dresses in skintight clothing, going out on the weekends for an eighty mile circuit of the local countryside. I’m more of a cycling commuter. An A-to-B-er. It cuts the traffic and environmental impact of driving, and keeps me fitter. My bike has two working gears, and was bought third hand from a guy with a van around ten miles from my home. It does the job, and in its own way, I’m kind of fond of it.
The roads I cycle tell the story of a financially stretched city council—with potholes only really addressed when they reach the scale of small meteoric craters. The Birmingham cyclist, then, gets used to two things: weaving the potholes, and repairing punctures.
Puncture repair essentially takes a small rubber patch, which is then glued to the inner inflatable tube of the bike tyre. Usually it works pretty well. But here’s the thing: you only know if it’s succeeded when you reinflate the tyre and get cycling again.
The bike tyre only reveals its condition under pressure.
Which, if we’re honest, is also very true of ourselves.
The leader only truly sees their true conviction in the face of opposition.
The teacher finds their true ability, not with the well-behaved students, but the challenging ones.
The sportsman only really finds their greatness when their team is at the brink of loss.
The disciple only really sees their true condition when their rabbi is being bound by a mob and led away.
The fall from grace must have been devastating for the disciples of Jesus. Just hours before, they were all protesting their enduring faithfulness to Jesus. But then, pressure. They felt the pressure of fatigue, and they didn’t face it with disciplined prayerfulness, but fell asleep. They faced the pressure of Jesus’ arrest, and rather than handling it with calm and poise, they panicked and started wildly swinging their swords. They faced the pressure of fear of their own capture, and rather than demonstrating the conviction they had so claimed, they succumbed to their fears and they fled.
Pressure reveals our condition. And often what we see in those places is not pretty.
We see that we are more prone to anxiety,
to selfishness
to anger,
to passive aggression,
to sleepiness,
to addictions,
to fear,
than we had hoped we were.
This is humbling. Brutal. Even devastating. Our punctures were less well patched than we thought they were, and the road busted us open again.
But here’s the thing:
Revealing our condition is essential for growth.
Truth precedes change. Honesty precedes reorientation. Conviction precedes repentance.
Because in those moments, when our confidence in our own ability is shaken, and we are brought low again, running away into the night with tears on our faces, we have a choice.
Let the failure become our story.
Or, from this very place humbled and now oh-so-apparent weakness, to return. To return to the Jesus of the cross and empty tomb. To return to the Jesus who picks up every failure and coward and snooze-button junkie and undisciplined fool, and allow Him to wipe our grubby hands and clean up our sticky faces, and to go again.
Because these sleepy, violent, cowardly runaways didn’t end their story here.
They came back, bringing the floppy tyres of their punctured lives back to Jesus, and became men of such conviction and courage that all Europe was to be shaken by their message and their means.
Pressure reveals. But it doesn’t end the story.
It just invites you to come back to the Mechanic of your soul, to get patched up,
And get back on the road.
Reflect:
What pressure comes to mind that has revealed my broken condition?
Take this to Him. Tell Him all that you have felt about it, and the things you’ve believed.
Into this place, invite His Spirit to renew and restore. And be ready; He has so much more for you in all that is to come.
Pray:
Father,
I look back at when the pressure was on,
And I crumbled.
I was tired,
I was fearful,
I didn’t get around to prayer,
But leaned on my own resources.
And here I learned, once again, that they are inadequate.
But Father,
I come back,
I come back to you who is True Love,
My healer,
My restorer,
And the teller of my true story.
Would you patch me up, restore me in courage,
And grant me the grace to hope again.
To risk again,
To speak again,
Into the full measure of what you have called me into being.
Through the power of your Spirit in me,
And the Name of Jesus my Lord,
Amen
Old Testament:
For those also reading the Old Testament this year, your additional readings are here:
Leviticus 6:8-7:38 | Psalm 23