What does Luke 22:56 mean?

Inside the estate of the high priest Caiaphas, an illegal court is challenging Jesus. Soon they will start beating Him. Peter, in the courtyard outside, has his own problems. He followed the mob that arrested Jesus when John, who knows the high priest, got him in (John 18:15–16). What does he do now? He can't rescue Jesus. He sits by the fire and tries to avoid attention.

The sequence of events seems straightforward when reading the Synoptic Gospels; John, who was there in person, adds more detail. The guards don't take Jesus to Caiaphas's house first; they take Him to Annas. Annas is a former high priest who holds so much influence he manages to get his sons and his son-in-law—Caiaphas—appointed as high priest after him. Annas is referred to as a "chief priest": a role not established by the Old Testament. It seems to refer to priests who have a particular amount of power and influence.

John asks a servant girl at Annas's house to let Peter in (John 18:16). This girl is the first to accuse Peter of being Jesus' disciples (John 18:17). We don't know if the girl to whom Luke is referring here is the same one from Annas's gate or another servant girl. Some scholars think Annas and Caiaphas lived next door to each other with an open gate between their estates; the girl could have followed Peter from Annas's gate to Caiaphas's courtyard.

The other theory is that when Jesus prophesied that Peter would deny Him three times (Luke 22:34), He didn't count the first time at Annas's gate since it didn't happen near the larger gathering of Sanhedrin members at Caiaphas's. We don't know why the girl recognizes that Peter knows Jesus. It may be because she knows John and John asked her to let Peter in. Or it may be that his accent gives him away as a Galilean (Matthew 26:73).