Sitting by the Fire.

Disowning my friend.
Sitting by the fire I watch you at a safe distance.
My body is warmed from the flames
as my heart grow cold from fear.

The light illumines the mob’s darkened faces
as their heated voices chill the air.
And I sit watching-- frozen in terror
wishing I could rise to my feet.

I am a stranger here
truly known only by the One
who I claim I don’t know.

So I sit among the crowd of strangers rather than stand with my one true friend.

This is what came to me from my meditation on Mark’s account of Peter’s disowning Jesus.
I often say, I don’t have the guts to follow Jesus so I settle for being a Christian, for I find that it takes courage to follow Jesus and stand where he dared to stand. Jesus stood out from the religious voices of his day and he often finds himself alone in the midst of a religious mob shouting at "least of these."

How often do I sit by my warm fire as I stare from the safe distance frozen in terror by the religious crowd’s rhetoric?

Will I dare take a stand beside Jesus?
Or do I repudiate and divorce myself from Love?

If I want to stand beside Jesus then I must leave the coziness and safety of the religious crowd and walk to the least of these, trusting that in the end, like a friend, he comes for me and forever calls me by name.