Narrative Lectionary Key Verse for Today
“Now Simon Peter was standing and warming himself. They asked him, ‘You are not also one of his disciples, are you?’ He denied it and said, ‘I am not.’”
NL Daily Devotion for Sunday, March 8, 2026
by Rev. Dr. Miles Hopgood, Clergy Stuff
Main Idea: Discipleship is complicated and we will fall short. But God’s love does not waver even as our own commitment to God falters and fails.
There are many reasons I am not a fan of horror movies. I have a low tolerance for gore, violence, and suspense for suspense’s sake. But more than anything, what I hate about the horror genre is the trope of that moment where the protagonists do something that leaves you screaming, “No! Don’t! What are you thinking?!” Splitting up the party, opening the spooky door, deciding to investigate further—whatever it is, that moment of watching someone do the exact opposite of what is so obviously the right thing to do is maddening in a way I simply cannot bear.
The Peter’s denial of Jesus evokes similar emotions for me. Like the old man at the gas station warning the teens that the cabin is haunted, Peter had Jesus telling him exactly what would happen. And just like the hubris of the teens to persist sets off their inevitable demise, Peter’s confidence that he would not thrice deny Jesus provides the dramatic irony for what we hear in today’s gospel.
Let us take a break from our backseat driving to attend to what might complicate our judgment of Peter. First, he is one of only two disciples who did not outright flee following Jesus’s arrest. That Peter was in a place to deny Jesus at all was because he followed him. Even as the constant questions about his relationship with Jesus heightened the danger that sticking around entailed, Peter did not leave. Unequivocally, Peter denies Christ here, but those denials exist within the context of a degree of faithfulness which other disciples did not show. Taken together, this passage presents a much more realistic picture of discipleship: desiring and trying to follow Jesus, yet inevitably falling short, and hopefully sticking around to try and fail again.
To be clear, Peter’s acts of faithfulness do not balance out his denials of Jesus. But it is a pity that we highlight Peter’s denials when the greater denial would have been to flee entirely, as so many others did. Highlighting the conflict within Peter’s narrative helps us to see why, even in a moment like this, he is a model for our own discipleship. If Peter has a singular virtue, it is that he always acts in accordance with the mantra that it is far better to try and fail than not to try at all, even as his track record shows he is not very successful. If we let the inevitability of our falling short keep us from trying to follow Christ, we imply that our sin is so great that Christ cannot overcome it. Trying to be faithful, even though we know it will lead us to places where we sin and fall short, is itself a testament to a God who has saved and redeemed us, not because we would ever live up to the calling but purely as an act of God’s unmerited grace.
