Mark 14:72 Commentary - Dr Peter Masters

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Mark 14:72

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Then comes the second crowing of the cock and Peter remembers Christ’s words and his heart is pierced and he is crushed with an unbearable sense of shame. Luke adds this record: ‘And the Lord turned, and looked upon Peter’ (Luke 22:61). At this point, the Lord was being bundled out of the hearing, probably bound, spat upon. He was being moved from one place to another, probably across a corner of the courtyard. His back was to Peter but as Peter denied and the cock crew, we read this, that the Lord saw him and he turned ‘and looked upon Peter’. He knew exactly what Peter had done. What a look that must have been. So many sermons have been preached on that look of Christ. A look of reproof, possibly. A look of pity, possibly, because all the self-confidence; the pride of Peter was just crushed out of him by that look. But a look of love, too, and of mercy. A look of comfort – ‘You can be forgiven, Peter. I will forgive you this, Peter. You don’t know what you are doing. You are still mine.’ It just opened rivers of sorrow in Peter and he wept, but there was somehow in that look this tremendous assurance that the Lord would stand by him and would forgive him and would accept him and restore him. That is why the Lord had added the words of comfort and of his continued usefulness: ‘But I have prayed for thee, that thy faith fail not: and when thou art converted, strengthen thy brethren’ (Luke 22:32). It wasn’t a suspicious look, like the staring of the maids. It wasn’t a venomous look, like the looks of the temple police. It wasn’t a look of contempt, like the look of the servants, as he, the apostle Peter crumbled before the accusations, but it gave him hope.Now the Lord, being taken across the corner of the courtyard, must have completely distracted everyone’s attention, because it also brought about the opportunity for Peter to leave and to make his getaway and his escape and he did so and he simply went out and he wept. Matthew and Luke tell us, he ‘wept bitterly.’ ‘I cannot be forgiven surely! I have been a wretched individual,’ he said to himself. ‘I have denied the Lord not once, not twice, but three times with vehemence. I have reverted to my old sinful self. I have used oaths and curses and profanities. I have been like I used to be, as a godless fisherman. I have lied. I have done everything wrong. I have been so proud and so cowardly. I have been utterly disloyal.’ But that look had communicated love and compassion and readiness to forgive. So, with tears of repentance, he made his peace with the Lord. Somewhere outside, in the darkness, he fell to the ground and repented. It was the look that did everything. So it was in a sense the restoration of Peter. He would never be so self-confident again. He would never resist the word of the Lord again. He would be a different man.The apostle Peter was forgiven; he was restored. Very shortly after that, you see him preaching the inaugural sermon of the new age – that great sermon on the Day of Pentecost, with the salvation of 3,000. Then you see him standing boldly before the Sanhedrin and refusing to be silenced throughout his life, until ultimately, as Christ had said would happen, he suffered a martyr’s death himself and joined the noble army of martyrs.

Application

It reminds us of Thomas Bilney, the English Reformer. He found the Lord reading the Scripture. There he was, a hardened Roman Catholic, a young clergyman but by reading the Bible for himself, he found the necessity of the atonement, justification by grace and gave his life to Christ. He was the one who influenced and brought Hugh Latimer to conversion. When he was 28, he was dragged out of a pulpit in Ipswich, taken down to London, put into the Tower of London and prepared for trial and execution, and the young clergyman buckled. He recanted; he denied the Lord. But after he had done it, he had to spend another year in the Tower and his heart was torn in two, and just two years after that, he said, ‘I must put the clock back. I cannot deny him.’ He was shut out of the pulpit, but he went out into the fields and he preached Christ with such vigour and such clarity, and of course they arrested him again and he was burned. In 1531 he suffered death by burning at the stake. His whole attitude was: ‘I have denied the Lord, I must go right back to preaching Christ. The only way I can make amends is to be taken again and be burned at the stake.’

Do you remember how Christ dealt with Peter? After the resurrection, one of the appearances of the risen Lord, the great catch of fish? That sermon by the fireside, that address to Peter by the risen Lord? And he put his finger on the greatest failing of all. ‘Peter ,’– as it has turned out, now looking at what has happened – ‘can you really say, Peter, that you love me more than these others, as you said you would?’ And then Peter says, ‘Yes, I do love you, Lord.’ And the Lord goes on to say a second time, ‘Lovest thou me?’ And Peter was shaken, and he insisted that he did. And just as there were three denials, so there were three challenges, and the third come surely, ‘Lovest thou me?’ That was the biggest thing, the failing of his love for the Lord. Don't let your love for the Lord flag. Fire it up every day. Think of the kindness of Christ towards you; think of his love set upon you; love him in return; dedicate yourself to him; put him first; yield to him; obey him. And then, you will not fall. You will not fall. You will not discredit the gospel. You will not discredit him, and you will remain in his hands and under his care.

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Mark 14:72 Commentary and Bible Study