Matthew 26:69.

“Now Peter was sitting out in the courtyard, and a servant girl came to him, ‘You also were with Jesus of Galilee.'”

Matthew caught the incongruity of the scene.  Peter, who swore to never leave Jesus a few hours before, has now left him! As did all the disciples. Jesus was in there before the rulers of the Jews, being held up to ridicule and derision, all alone.  He has absolutely no human being on the face of the entire earth to speak for him. Peter is the most likely one to do so because he is near to Jesus, because he is the obvious leader of the apostles and because he declared that he would never leave Jesus.

We might have expected Peter, the impetuous one, the risk taker, to rush in to stand with Jesus and defend him against the false witnesses who determined to kill him.  Remember, this is Peter, the one who walked on the water, who seeing Jesus in the stormy sea, threw caution to the wind and walked out to him. What has gone wrong with Peter? Where is his courage?

Instead of running toward Jesus  he was running away from him, denying any connection, any knowledge of this Jesus of Galilee.  Peter was paralyzed with fear, perhaps, or by a confusion that few will ever experience in life.

In this moment of intense testing, Peter decided to not only disown Jesus but to deny that he ever new him at all.  There Peter was, a Galilean among the Judeans, like Jesus, seeing Jesus being humiliated by the rulers of the Jews.

Something obviously snapped inside Peter.  Listen to this man, the leader among Jesus’ disciples.  The slave girl said, “You also were with Jesus of Galilee.”  Peter’s response? Without hesitation he replied, “I don’t know what you are talking about.”  v 70 A bit later on another slave girl said, “This fellow was with Jesus of Nazareth.”  v 71  Peter punctuated his next statement with a binding oath, shouting “I do not know the man.”  Completely confused he called down “curses on himself and he swore to them, ‘I don’t know the man.'”. v 74

For Peter, it was night, as the Scriptures say.  He was crushed with it all.  Never was it darker and more opaque than that.

Then “the rooster crowed.”  v 74  It is not over, Peter, a new day is dawning. Your sin can be washed away. You might deny Jesus but, Peter, Jesus Christ, the one you now disown will never, ever deny you. In a few hours Jesus will take upon himself your sin and the sins of all the world and will atone for them with his own life blood.  The new day dawns!  The rooster has crowed.  Praise God.