One of the keen skills of our military Special Forces is the ability to blend into a culture very different from our own. The master the language, the customs, the mannerisms, the dress, the eating habits of the other culture. Then they slip in and live among that population unnoticed. At the right moment they act. I admire their dedication to their task.
We all have to learn to blend in. We go to school and try to dress like the other kids. If we don’t, we are picked on and made fun of. As adults we have usually learned the limits of acceptable behavior. We curb our desires to act too crazy for fear of rejection. About the only time blending isn’t important is in marketing. When we want to sell something, we want to stand out from the crowd, we want to be noticed.
When I lived overseas I was often told to try to blend into the surrounding culture. We were all told to not wear American looking clothes. The American flag T-shirts were a definite no go. We had to curb our public behavior. We Americans can be loud and intrusive compared to other European cultures. We usually stick out like sore thumbs.
I remember moving to San Antonio, TX. As an English speaker, I stuck out! I was also a non-Texan. Two strikes. And I wasn’t tan. Strike three.
Peter, the apostle, didn’t do any better at blending in than many of us in a foreign location. He was under pressure. He was right under the nose of those who had captured his leader. Fear was rampant, probably palatable. It is late at night. He is in the courtyard of the high priest, a very powerful and probably wealthy individual. It would have been a large house with a courtyard large enough for Peter to have moved around and try to evade detection.
This kind of wealth was very different than what Peter was used to. He was a fisherman by trade, hardly the kind of career that led to great wealth. He didn’t manage a fleet of boats. He manned his own vessel, probably a fairly small, sail and oar driven vessel. He would have caught enough to feed himself and his family with enough left over to sell to pay for the other necessities of life. No 401k padded him from retirement poverty. If he didn’t fish, he didn’t eat.
So standing in this rather lavish house and grounds would have been difficult for him under any circumstance. But these weren’t just any circumstances. Jesus had been arrested and was being questioned only a few feet away, behind those walls. The One in whom Peter had put his earthly, and maybe spiritual hopes, was being railroaded. And there was nothing he could do about it.
He tries to blend into the crowd, but a pesky servant keeps poking her nose into his business. He wants to blend in, but she keeps pointing the spotlight his direction.
The Arnold Journey 