When the Shame Won't Let You Stop Hiding

There's a moment a lot of people carry around that they're sure defines them. Not a mistake, a verdict. A thing they did that quietly rewrote how they see themselves, from "I did a bad thing" to "I am a bad person". And once that verdict is in, it's hard to imagine anyone, least of all God, wanting anything to do with you.

This week, back after the summer break, Matt Edmundson took us to a story that runs across all four Gospels in unusual detail. It's about a man called Peter, one of Jesus' closest friends, and the worst night of his life. If you've ever had a moment you can't shake, keep reading, because of what Jesus does with Peter's.

The night it all fell apart

A few hours before the arrest, Peter is full of confidence. Jesus warns him that he'll deny knowing Him three times before the rooster crows, and Peter won't have it.

Even if I must die with you, I will not deny you. (Peter)

You can hear the bravado in it, and all the other disciples say the same. Then Jesus is arrested. The friend Peter had built his life around, the one he was so sure was going to put the world right, tells him to put his sword away and lets Himself be led off into the dark without lifting a finger. This wasn't the Jesus Peter had signed up for.

Peter follows at a distance into the courtyard of the high priest's house. It's spring in Jerusalem and cold at night, so the servants and guards have made a charcoal fire, and Peter stands there warming his hands at it. A servant girl looks at him and says, you were with Jesus.

Woman, I do not know Him.

It's out of his mouth before he's really decided to say it. And the awful thing, as Matt put it, is how easy it was. No torture. No threat. Just a servant girl by a fire. It happens twice more, and by the third time Peter is swearing and calling down curses on himself, insisting he's never met the man. Then the rooster crows. Across the whole courtyard, through the smoke, Jesus turns His head and looks straight at him. Peter goes out and weeps bitterly.

The same fire

Here's the detail that turns this from a sad story into something else entirely.

Smell has a way of dragging you straight back into a memory. For Matt it's chlorine at a swimming pool, which takes him back to being a kid learning to swim and eating barbecue Hula Hoops his dad bought. For Peter, it would be charcoal. Every fire he ever stood near would carry him back to the night he denied his friend. And Peter was going to smell a lot of charcoal fires.

After the crucifixion and the resurrection, Peter has gone back to fishing, because what else do you do when you're sure you've disqualified yourself. He comes ashore one morning and finds Jesus on the beach, cooking breakfast. And John, who was there, is very careful about how he describes the scene.

When they landed, they saw a fire of burning coals there with fish on it, and some bread. (John 21:9)

The Greek word for that fire is anthrakia, a charcoal fire. It appears exactly twice in the whole New Testament. Once here, on the beach where Jesus is making breakfast. And once before, to describe the fire in the courtyard where Peter warmed his hands and said he'd never met Him.

Same word. The same fire.

John records it on purpose. Jesus doesn't restore Peter over a neutral coffee somewhere. He lights the exact same fire, the same smell, the same red glow, and walks Peter straight back into the sensory scene of the worst night of his life. And there, at that fire, He asks him three times, once for each denial, do you love me?

When a bad thing becomes a bad person

Matt told a story of his own here.

As a teenager he worked in his local chip shop, frying everything from chips to Mars bars. Security was different in the 1980s, and when people paid cash for five or six meals, he'd add it up in his head, take their money, give them the right change, and then quietly put a smaller amount through the till and pocket the difference. He knew it was wrong every single time. It was a small family business that didn't have much, and he was stealing from them.

I moved from doing a bad thing to being a bad thing. I moved from stealing something to being a thief, and shame grew. (Matt Edmundson)

That's what shame does. It takes your worst moment, holds it up, and tells you that's the real you and everything else is you pretending. You can carry that for years.

Which is the difference between what shame does and what Jesus does.

Shame takes you back to the fire and rubs your face in it. Jesus takes you to the fire and feeds you breakfast. (Matt Edmundson)

Your own courtyard

You might have a fire of your own. For some people it looks a lot like Peter's, in that they genuinely knew Him once. They heard His voice, walked with Him for years, and then somewhere along the way started to deny Him. We've got a nicer word for that now. We call it deconstruction.

Maybe Jesus didn't turn out to be the Jesus you expected. Maybe something didn't add up. Maybe the church hurt you, or an important prayer went unanswered, or the world didn't get put right the way you were sure it would. And like Peter, the disillusionment says, I do not know Him, and the heart hardens, and you walk back to whatever you knew before.

The thing worth noticing is that the story flatly refuses to leave Peter by that fire.

He is not standing at your fire to cancel you. He's standing at it to cook you breakfast. (Matt Edmundson)

And notice what Jesus doesn't do on the beach. He doesn't wave it off or say don't worry about it. He asks three times, once for each denial, and walks Peter back through the wound. He doesn't skip the failure. He heals it, one layer at a time.

Then He gives Peter a job. Not a demotion, not a probation period. "Feed my sheep." Look after my people. The man who denied Him goes on to lead the whole thing.

Grace doesn't just pardon Peter. Grace promotes him. (Matt Edmundson)

Matt sees the same pattern in his own story. The first job God gave him as a new Christian was treasurer, looking after the money for the Christian Union.

The man who robbed money became the man who accounted for it. It's like a reverse Judas. (Matt Edmundson)

And notice where Jesus meets Peter. Not in a church. At work, on an ordinary morning, after a failed night's fishing, with the smell of charcoal already in the air.

Conversation Street

After the talk, Anna Kettle and Dan Orange opened it up with the community.

Why does Peter get this and other people don't?

Dan pointed out that this is the older brother in the story of the prodigal son. Why do they get welcomed back, and I didn't? It's a fair, human question. What stood out in the conversation was that John was there too. John watched Peter deny Jesus, and John was on the beach for the restoration. There's no record of John holding it against him. Instead the two of them go on to become close friends and partners for years. Sometimes walking with someone through their worst moment doesn't break the friendship, it deepens it.

Isn't some shame actually good for us?

The distinction that came up was between shame and conviction. Shame is what Adam felt in the garden, so he hid. It makes you bury the thing, push it down and hope it goes away. Conviction is more like an arrow you take on the chin, the kind that draws you towards God rather than away from Him. As Matt put it, "it's the goodness of God that leads you to repentance". The conversation didn't dodge the heavy edge of this either, touching on Judas, on CALM (Campaigning Against Living Miserably), and on how many men in particular carry something locked away by shame. And the idea that "this is who you are now" is simply not true.

What about people who walk away from a faith they once really knew?

This is the one Matt said he wrestles with most. The conversation landed on an idea often put like this, that the opposite of faith isn't doubt, it's certainty. The disciples were so sure of themselves ("we will die with you") that the fall, when it came, hit all the harder. A better prayer than all that bravado might simply have been, God, help me. There's confidence to be had in God, and boldness is a good thing. But the honest posture underneath it is, by the grace of God, there go I.

Something to do this week

1. Name your fire. Say the actual thing to God. "Here's the moment I'm sure disqualifies me." Out loud, if you can. Naming it is where it stops being a secret you're hiding from.
2. Listen for the question He actually asks. Not "how could you?" or "what's wrong with you?" but "do you love me?" Restoration starts there, not with defending yourself or making excuses.
3. Notice the difference between shame and conviction. One sends you into hiding. The other draws you back towards God. If you're hiding, that's worth bringing into the open with Him, or with someone you trust.
4. If your faith is the thing that's unravelling, take the questions somewhere rather than sitting on them. Alpha is built for exactly that kind of honest, no-pressure conversation. The next course starts on Wednesday 9 September at 7:30pm UK time, on Zoom. You don't need a camera on and you won't get preached at.

Where this leaves us

Your worst moment is not your final moment, and it isn't your truest one either. It doesn't get to be the thing that defines you, because there's a fire on the beach and there's breakfast cooking on it.

So what's the fire you keep going back to? And what would it change to hear that Jesus is standing at it, not to rub your face in it, but to feed you?