16.02 | When Hope is Reduced to One
Matthew 26:69-27:10
‘Now Peter was sitting outside in the courtyard. And a servant girl came up to him and said, “You also were with Jesus the Galilean.” But he denied it before them all, saying, “I do not know what you mean.”’
Matthew 26:69-70
When the early church was retelling this part of the story, I wonder if Peter wanted to say;
“Do we have to keep emphasising that it was a servant girl?”
Why couldn’t it have been a soldier? Or a religious leader? Or at least a grown man? Could we just leave it to the reader’s imagination, rather than emphasising mercilessly that I crumbled in the face of the inquisition of a little girl?
Peter’s fear is only part of how dark this moment is. Today’s reading contains echoes of stories of darkness that have come before.
There’s an echo from the writings of Zechariah. Zechariah was a priest and prophet in Jerusalem some five hundred years earlier, as the first exiles returned to their ruined city. He spoke in a time of fragility and fear, as the people realised that living in a ruined city is incredibly vulnerable. Fear so often leads to compromise. Zechariah spoke into this moment, calling them back to integrity and courage.
Zechariah, however, wasn’t eternally patient with them. At one stage, furious with them, he demands them to pay them his wages for his prophetic service.
They pay him thirty pieces of silver.
It’s a tiny amount. It’s an insulting amount. Zechariah throws the thirty pieces into the temple, where a potter is currently at work.1
There’s the echo from Jeremiah, another priestly prophet, who was speaking to the people around a century before Zechariah. Jeremiah was also urging the people back to purity of worship and to build a society of justice and goodness. And he also found his listeners did not listen.
And so, one day, he took them to one of the gates of Jerusalem, overlooking the very valley where the people had committed some of their most grotesque acts of idolatry. It was the gate that potters would come to to discard their broken pots. Jeremiah pulls these images together, smashing a pot there, and renaming the valley as a coming place of burial. Later this valley becomes known as Gehenna—the word that we usually translate as hell.2
And there’s the echo of the Jewish Law, that put a price on the life of a slave. The price?
Thirty pieces of silver.3
The echoes tell us something.
They tell us that we are reaching humanity’s darkest hour. The former stories are weaving together into this moment. All stories were leading to the One Story.
Peter—Jesus’ most dependable, rock-like, disciple—capitulates in the face of the questions of a little girl.
The religious leaders, so cemented in their opinion of Jesus, would rather have him crucified than have their religious institutionalism disturbed.
And Judas.
Judas, who has walked with Jesus these three years. Judas, who saw all these miracles. Who heard all this teaching. Who saw how Jesus gave such value to the most devalued individuals society knew.
Judas betrays.
He brings the true leader of integrity and goodness, and sells Him for the price of a slave.
He throws the blood money into the temple.
The temple pays the potter for a field.
And the field is in the very valley that Jeremiah pointed to as the graphic illustration that life without God leads to death.
It’s the darkest hour in history.
And yet,
In the midst of all the failure,
We see that our hopes have been reduced to One.
Not leaders of charisma. Not religious institutions. Not big names on the disciples list.
But Jesus.
Who stands with such unshifting poise in the face of such murderous opposition.
Today’s passage takes us to our darkest moments. When the leader we’d trusted has failed. When the institutions we believed in turn out to be broken. When our own courage is shown to be so fragile. When everything else that would give us cause for confidence fades away.
In these moments, we are offered again the truth that was actually always true.
That our hope is always and only in One.
One place of confidence. One reason for joy. One Messiah to follow. One Name to uphold. One Lord to love.
One source of hope.
Jesus.
And that He, and only He,
Can walk you through this darkest place,
Through cross and pain and shame,
Into a Resurrection morning beyond.
Reflect:
When everything feels dark and difficult, and all those things that seemed so dependable seem to be breaking, it’s easy to lose hope.
Spend some time today, just resting your imagination on the unflinching peace of Jesus, in the midst of that room full of such hatred and accusation. His peace is what gives us peace. And He—above any other circumstance or person—is the reason we have hope.
Pray:
Father,
Today’s reading feels hard and heavy;
It brings to mind pain and the disappointments;
It brings to mind the fragility of the world we live in;
It brings to mind my own flakiness in the face of opposition.
Into this place, loving Father
Would you help me to bring to mind
Jesus
Who, even in these very moments,
Stood with such resilient hope:
Hope untouchable;
Hope undefiled;
Hope unshakable;
That I may, like Him,
Stand in all situations,
Not with the fears and duplicity and disorientation that I so often feel
But with steadfast, immovable, and world-changing
Hope.
That the world around me might see in me a better story
And a better way.
In Jesus’ Name,
Amen
Old Testament:
For those also reading the Old Testament this year, your additional readings are here:
Leviticus 8-9 | Proverbs 7
Zechariah 11:12-13
Jeremiah 19
Exodus 21:32