There is often a painful gap between what we promise God and what we actually do. We mean every word when we say it. We would die for him, we would never deny him, we would never be the one to let him down. And then the moment of testing arrives, and we discover how little our promises were worth.
Matthew 26:30-35 catches that gap on camera. Hours before his arrest, Jesus tells his closest friends they are all about to abandon him. Peter protests loudest of all, and within the night he will deny that he ever knew the Lord. It is not a flattering portrait. But it is an honest one, and it holds up a mirror to every one of us. We are, at our very best, stumbling disciples, sheep who wander easily and a Saviour who delights to bring us back. Three certainties run through these few verses.
The Shepherd Will Certainly Be Struck
The first surprise is that the central story here is not what is about to happen to the disciples. It is what is about to happen to their Master. "This very night you will all fall away on account of me, for it is written: I will strike the shepherd, and the sheep of the flock will be scattered."
Jesus is quoting Zechariah 13:7, and he is building an unanswerable case that his coming death is no accident and no tragedy that slipped out of God's control. It is the precise unfolding of an eternal plan. He is, in the words of Revelation 13:8, the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world. Zechariah even tells us who the shepherd is: "the man who stands next to me," says the Lord. Astonishing words. The one about to die is a real man, yet no ordinary man. He is the companion of God, the sinless Son of God in the flesh.
And who wields the sword? "I will strike the shepherd." It is God himself. The sword of the Lord is the Old Testament symbol of divine justice, the righteous anger of a holy God against human sin that must be fully satisfied. For ages that sword had been slumbering while God patiently passed over sins committed (Romans 3:25). Now the hour has come. "Awake, O sword, against my shepherd."
Why must the shepherd be struck? For sin. Not his own, but ours. Isaiah saw it centuries before: "All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way; and the LORD has laid on him the iniquity of us all." The sins of the sheep are transferred to the Shepherd, and it pleased the Lord to bruise him in their place. Stop and consider the love in that. Knowing exactly who you are and what your heart is like, the Good Shepherd lays down his life for the very sheep who will scatter. This is the same event traced from another angle in Strike the Shepherd (Mark 14:27-31), and it begins where the meal ended, with the strange dignity of the Singing Saviour who walked out to his suffering with a hymn on his lips.
The Disciples Will Certainly Stumble
"You will all fall away," Jesus says, and the word he uses means to be tripped, to stumble over a stone in the path. It is the word from which we get scandal. The disciples are about to be scandalised by their own Lord. And the scattering of the sheep follows directly from the striking of the Shepherd: it is a crucified Christ they cannot bear to be near.
What makes solid disciples stumble? Three things, and they are as much our story as theirs.
Shame and fear. The disciples will scatter by degrees, dozing in the garden, fleeing from the mob, and finally denying Christ in a courtyard. The cause is fear. There is a cost to being identified with a Saviour the world has condemned. Few people rush to wear the badge of a disgraced criminal, and that is exactly how the world sees our Lord, a failure hanging on a cross. As one writer put it, Christianity is the only major religion whose central event is the humiliation of its God. So when faith makes us the odd one out at work, in the classroom, among friends who know we will not join them, the temptation is to hold back, to soften our colours, to stumble. No one ever stumbles because following Christ turned out to be too comfortable.
Self-confidence. "Even if all fall away on account of you, I never will." It is a staggering thing for Peter to say. Hidden inside it is pride, a denial of God's knowledge, and a flat rejection of Christ's clear word. "Pride goes before destruction, and a haughty spirit before a fall." What makes it more striking is the whiplash: only hours earlier these same men had been asking, fearful and sorrowful, "Lord, is it I?" Now they are boasting that they would die before denying him. Do you know that pendulum in your own heart? You begin the day in sweet communion with God, your soul fed and your sins confessed, and before evening you have fallen flat on your face. Paul knew the war: "O wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death?" (Romans 7).
Comparing ourselves to others. "Even if all fall away, I never will." Peter rates his own strength by measuring it against the men around him, and in doing so he puts them down. We do the same whenever we gauge our standing by other Christians' failures rather than by our relationship with Christ. When Peter was later restored and pointed to his future, he immediately asked about John, and Jesus answered, "What is that to you? You follow me." Jonathan Edwards observed that the proud Christian is quick to notice everyone else's faults, while the truly humble Christian has so much to deal with in his own heart that he has little time to police anyone else's.
The Lord Will Certainly Restore
If the chapter ended there it would crush us. But tucked into the same breath as the prediction of suffering and stumbling is a third certainty, easy to miss: "But after I have risen, I will go ahead of you into Galilee."
The humiliation of Christ is only the doorway to his exaltation. In the same sentence that foretells his violent death, he announces his triumph over the grave. He will be struck down, and he will be raised up. And when he is raised, what is his first thought toward the men who deserted him? Not revenge. Not "I am coming to settle the score." Instead, "I will go ahead of you into Galilee." He is planning the reunion before they have even run away. The Shepherd will go looking for his scattered sheep.
This is the wonder of Christ's compassion on future sinners. He predicts Peter's failure with terrifying precision: he knows what the sin will be (you will deny me), when it will happen (this very night), and how often (three times). He knows every detail of sins you have not yet committed, and he loves you anyway. "God demonstrates his own love toward us in that, while we were still sinners, Christ died for us" (Romans 5:8). Think again of that morning when the Lord drew near to you in prayer, knowing full well you would fall before nightfall. Why did he not hide his face, close the Bible to you, withhold his peace? Because he loved you, and because the sword had already fallen on the Shepherd in your place.
Even while Jesus was predicting their stumbling, he was planning their restoration. That is the meaning of Galilee. The prediction came true in Peter's denial and in the wider failure of the disciples in Gethsemane, but so did the promise, gloriously, on the morning of the resurrection. Isaiah heard God say it long before: "I will not accuse forever, nor will I always be angry."
Not a Licence, but a Love
None of this is permission to sin carelessly. If the certainty of restoration tempts you to play fast and loose with sin, you have misread the whole scene. The right response is the opposite. Let it move you to love Jesus more and to hate your sin more. Let it fill your eyes with tears rather than your mouth with proud protests like Peter's.
The Shepherd will certainly be struck. The disciples will certainly stumble. And the Lord will certainly restore.
He already knows how you will stumble this week, and he is already planning your repentance and your reconciliation. So pray, with more urgency than ever, the words he taught us: "Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil."
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