”The maid who kept the door said to Peter, ‘Are not you also one of this man’s disciples?’ He said, ‘I am not.’” (Jn 18: 18)
Peter is the same man who, earlier in this very chapter of the Gospel according to John, drew a sword when our Lord was arrested in Gethsemane, and in a vain attempt to “stand up” for His Master, cut off the right ear of the high priest’s slave (Jn 18: 10). But nobody asked or “called” Peter to do that. Yet a bit later, as we see above, when he is truly ”called” to stand up and be counted as one of the Lord’s disciples in a less dramatic way, – to respond truthfully to a maid’s simple question, – he fails to do so.
So the call to being a “martyr” or “witness” to the Lord does not always come wrapped in heroism and extraordinary chivalry. It might come to me in my everyday, undramatic circumstances, when I am trying to “blend in” or “belong” in ways that I should not. Lord, grant me the courage to be the true “me” I am in You, regardless of the circumstances. Amen!
