{"id":3501,"date":"2024-02-28T03:48:00","date_gmt":"2024-02-28T03:48:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/?p=3501"},"modified":"2026-10-02T01:32:26","modified_gmt":"2026-10-02T01:32:26","slug":"betrayal-and-denial","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/?p=3501","title":{"rendered":"BETRAYAL AND DENIAL"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">This week in my sermon preparation I am studying the tail end of John 13 in the lead up to Easter at the end of March.<\/p>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">What I find interesting here is that within a dozen verses, Jesus addresses Judas&#8217; betrayal as well as Peter&#8217;s denial. Jesus tells Judas, &#8220;What you are about to do, do quickly&#8221;(v.27). And to Peter He says, &#8220;Before the rooster crows, you will disown me three times&#8221; (v.38).\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">How tragic! Jesus is facing His own impending death and yet His companions &#8211; His students &#8211; His friends &#8211; are proving to be less than supportive. In fact, they are adding to His grief and suffering long before the nails are driven through His flesh.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">In this passage, the betrayal and the denial have some commonalities:<\/p>\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n\n<li>Both are done in secret &#8211; and yet Jesus knows.<\/li>\n\n\n<li>Both cause Jesus pain.<\/li>\n\n\n<li>Both entail a rejection of Jesus and a separation from Him.\u00a0<\/li>\n\n<\/ul>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">But there must be major differences as well. Clearly, the betrayal is the greater sin. Jesus does not announce at supper, &#8220;One of you is going to disown me&#8221;.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Also, the separation of betrayal becomes permanent (and deadly) while the separation of denial turns out to be temporary (by God&#8217;s grace).<\/p>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I am just starting to grapple with this, but it seems to me that at the core, the major difference between these two failings is that the betrayal <i>revealed a truth<\/i>: Judas had not been on board with Jesus for some time and now he was making it official.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The denial, on the other hand, involved <i>hiding a truth<\/i>: Peter <i><b>did <\/b><\/i>know and love Jesus, but contradicted that reality out of fear.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Have you ever wondered if Judas would have found forgiveness if he had not rashly taken his own life out of guilt and shame?\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I need to reflect more on this, but it seems to me that\u00a0<i>betrayal <\/i>is on an entirely different level from <i>denial<\/i>.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Peter&#8217;s denial was a sin &#8211; and he later found forgiveness.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Judas&#8217; betrayal was more than a sin. It was an abandonment of Jesus as the Christ.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>This week in my sermon preparation I am studying the tail end of John 13 in the lead up to Easter at the end of March. What I find interesting here is that within a dozen verses, Jesus addresses Judas&#8217; betrayal as well as Peter&#8217;s denial. Jesus tells Judas, &#8220;What you are about to do, [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3501","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3501","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3501"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3501\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3502,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3501\/revisions\/3502"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3501"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3501"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3501"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}