What does the rooster represent in Christianity?

Now we have the little episode of Peter warming himself. Cannot you fancy him sunk down into humanity? He became not the companion of Jesus of Gethsemane, but of a poor man in the outer court of the palace. Here we have two things, the crow and the look. How do you interpret them? They are symbols of very different things, but two things we must all have to do with: conscience and Christ. The crow awakened his conscience; the look placed him with Jesus. I want to have an awakened conscience and an eye by faith directed to Jesus. Then let Jesus close the story of my soul. If we are not all conscious of the cock-crow and the look, we are not yet in the school of God. My intellectual activity about the things of God will not do. Conscience must be occupied, and faith must be occupied. "And Peter went out, and wept bitterly." But his faith did not fail. He may be sent through sorrow and tears, but his faith does not fail.

There and then it was that Peter heard a cock crow twice immediately after he denied his Master thrice. How insignificant such a sound ordinarily! Then how pregnant with the deepest consequence, not to the penitent apostle only, but to his brethren whom he soon began to strengthen, and to the multitudes whom he was honoured of God in bringing by the word he preached, out of darkness into His marvellous light! But it was the Lord's look upon Peter, and the remembrance of His words, which gave it all the force that wrought in conscience and heart, the look and words of the Saviour brought home by the Holy Spirit where there was life Godward. But alas! flesh had shrouded all and the believer, having slept, had cursed and sworn as if he never knew the Master. Now in bitter grief he learns himself humiliatingly, and what the world is in its highest religious pretensions; yet what would all else have been, had he not learnt the grace of Christ and His moral glory, and God Himself in the cross of Christ and the purpose and ways of redeeming love?

In divine faithfulness, Peter's denial is placed side by side with the holy confession of our Lord: the One, undeterred from the purposes of His love by the malice, bigotry, and certainty of death at the hands of His enemies; the other, too weak to stand before the word of a maid. Thrice he repeats his denial, but the crowing of the cock foretells, at the darkest hour, the coming of the morning, and Peter's tears are precursors of a new day for himself.

In Mark (Mark 14:53-72), the narrative follows closely that of Matthew. In addition to Peter's following afar off, we have the added touch,: "He … warmed himself at the fire" — in too close association with the enemies of our Lord. The false witnesses, the adjuration of the priest, and the condemnation follow in the same order. The denial, with the exception that the crow of the cock is twice repeated, is the same as in Matthew.

Mentioned only in connection with the denial of Peter, Matt. 26:34, 74, 75; and with the 'cock crowing,' a division of time at which the Lord may come, Mark 13:35: this corresponds to the third watch of the night, and would be about 3 o'clock, A.M.

No doubt much banter went on, as they asked him, again, and again, if he were not one of His disciples, and at last Peter denied with oaths and cursings that he had ever known the Lord. Poor Peter! Old habits are easily revived. Fishermen and sailors, notoriously, are great swearers, and what had probably been Simon's style of language by the Sea of Galilee, before the Lord called him, comes out again now.

When, for the third time, Peter has denied his Master, whom at bottom he really loved, the cock crows again. The cock had already crowed once, and Peter should have remembered the word that Jesus had said to him, and been warned by it. I ask you, my Christian reader, Is the cock crowing for you today? that is, Is the Word of the Lord speaking home to you today about something? Oh, if so, give heed to it, get nearer to Jesus; may God draw you nearer to His blessed Son, that you may not go on, as Peter did, to still greater lengths. Peter heeded not the first crowing of the cock, but went on to deny Him again, with oaths and cursings; and then I think I see that man, as the cock crowed a second time, and he pulled himself up to remember that he had done the very thing his Master had said he would do.

Peter loved his Master in spite of everything, and now, as the cock crew, and he called to mind what Jesus had said, he turned toward Him, and "the Lord turned and looked upon Peter." What did that look say? Was it a look of anger, or withering scorn?

Mark alone notices the twofold crowing of the cock, the latter being at the general cock-crowing of which the other Gospels speak. The first fails to arouse Peter; so easily may the conscience become torpid through the power of sin. Only Luke notices the tender reproof of the Lord's look, which followed the second: in fact those eyes had never been withdrawn from him; though the "look" was more than this: it was the divine recall of the wanderer to himself and to God.

Alas for human love and human righteousness! The crowing of the cock reminds us of that self-confident boasting which ends in open denials of our Lord.

A more hopeless condition than that of Naomi could scarce be imagined — bereft of husband and sons, in the land of a stranger and an enemy. And yet how true it is that the darkest hour is that which just precedes the dawn. It was in divine fitness that our Lord should have selected the cock-crowing as the time to mark Peter's denial. It was the darkest hour in his history — he thrice denied his Saviour, Friend and Lord, with cursing. And yet that awful outburst of evil brought it to the surface, where it could no longer hide behind loud protestations of devotedness. Peter sees himself, nevermore could trust himself, and in that darkest hour is heard the herald of the coming day. So widowed Naomi, in the hour of her desertion, turns in dim faith to the One from whom she had so deeply revolted.

Fishermen, as a rule, are given to swearing a great deal, and very likely it was an old habit that Peter had been rescued from. Well, the cock-crew, according to the word of the Lord. The whole thing was the result of lack of prayer and watching. Had he watched and prayed, he would have got strength for the temptation.

It was a mercy the cock crew. It was a mercy he remembered the word of Jesus. I have no doubt you get right through here the difference between Peter and Judas. The sorrow of the world works death. You see this in Judas. Peter, on the other hand, was a real penitent. He had godly sorrow.

But at that moment Peter's self-confidence was so strong that he virtually said the Lord was in error by telling Him that he was ready to accompany Him to prison and to death. His denial later was sadly shameful, yet his self-confidence was worse evil than his denial because it was the root cause of his denial. The Lord had the last word, however, telling Peter firmly that the rooster would not crow until Peter had three times denied that he knew Him.