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Matthew 16: 21–28
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May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable
in your sight, O Lord our strength and our redeemer. Amen |
Have you ever been to Caesarea Philippi? It’s a beautiful place
in the rugged foothills of northern Israel where the headwaters of the
Jordan River flow clear and cold to the peaceful valley below. No wonder
Jesus and his disciples chose to rest there for a few days before they
began the long trek towards Jerusalem.
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For Jesus knew, even if his disciples did not, just how difficult those
days in Jerusalem would be. So this morning he begins to tell them what
to expect. “It’s going to be bad,” he tells them.
“It’s going to be messy and painful and humiliating as the
chief priests and religious authorities put me to death. But in three
days I will be raised to life again.” And then, as he sees shock
and disbelief register on their faces he adds, “As you see all this
happen, don’t think for a moment it’s all some ghastly
mistake. God will use the whole experience to heal all of humanity.”
And then he adds, “You will have to trust me on this one.”
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But Peter is far from trusting. He simply can’t hear this
paradoxical word of hope and promise in the midst of suffering and death.
Not yet, anyway. The two are polar opposites, aren’t they?
To his way of thinking nothing Jesus is saying now makes much
sense. So he wants his friend to take back these words of death and
darkness, this warning of tough times ahead. He wants Jesus to focus on
the light.
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And this isn’t just selfishness on Peter’s part: For
he’s concerned for his friend. He can’t stand the thought
that his wise young teacher is about to walk straight into the trap the
authorities have laid for him. Then too, if Jesus — the Messiah,
the Son of God — is vulnerable to suffering, then they will be too.
And that, of course, is the reality that Jesus is hinting at. So Peter
explodes – “God forbid it, Lord! This must never happen
to you!”
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But Jesus is not in the mood this morning to tolerate Peter’s
simplistic way of thinking. So he rebukes him in no uncertain terms.
“Get behind me, Satan,” he tells his friend. “You have
confused divine matters with human ones — and that’s not a
minor mistake.” And then he adds, “If you yourselves
don’t take up a cross and follow in the way I am going, you run
the risk of missing the life I’ve come to give you.”
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What in heaven’s name is going on here? How can suffering and
death be paths to life? And what’s all this talk of taking up
our crosses and following after Jesus? Is it true – that if we
don’t we run the risk of losing our very souls? The questions
this brief exchange raises are so large — and so contrary to the
wisdom of the world — that we need to take a moment and look at
them individually.
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Certainly, you and I can understand Peter’s confusion. He had just
heard Jesus congratulate him for proclaiming that he was the Christ,
the Messiah of God. To Peter’s way of thinking that put him on a
winning team — God’s team of power, glory and
triumph. So what, now, was all this talk of ‘losing your life for
my sake’ and ‘taking up a cross’? Peter
didn’t understand, and often enough, we don’t either. You
see, in our day too, no one wants to be a loser. And picking up a cross
and following in the path Jesus walked sounds pretty close to losing.
As Thomas Long puts it,
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Cross bearers forfeit the game of power before the first inning; they
are never selected as “Most Likely to Succeed.” Cross bearers
are dropouts in the school of self–promotion. They do not pick up
their crosses as a means for personal fulfillment, career advancement,
or self–expression: rather they deny
themselves . . . because of the needs of
other people.
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But it’s where “the needs of other people” come in
that God gets involved and turns things around. For the way he sees
things, working on behalf of others, giving to others at our own expense
is no loss at all. Instead, it’s a triumph of generosity and love.
In fact, in Kingdom terms, it’s the only way a human being
comes fully alive. So while the world sees the life of someone who cares
for the sick . . . or the
poor . . . or for little children in
need . . . or who visits people in
prison . . . or hammers nails in houses for
those without shelter . . . where the world
views these efforts as a total waste of time – the Lord sees such
actions as lavish gifts to the treasury of heaven. And enters into those
situations to resurrect and transform them.
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That, in fact, is what happened when Jesus himself picked up his cross
and made his way to Calvary. He had seen the situation correctly. It was
messy. It was painful and confusing. And when he died on that cross it
looked like the world had won. But that’s when God stepped
in – and the world has never been the same.
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For God delights in resurrecting hopeless situations, in turning weeping
into dancing and death into new life. Wherever we least expect him,
wherever the suffering is deep and vulnerability is exposed, that’s
where God shows up.
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But, oh, he wants us ministering alongside him, offering words of
comfort to people who feel hopeless, tutoring children who’ve
nearly given up, bringing food for hungry families, working beside
others for racial justice. Without God, we can’t. Without us,
he won’t.
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It’s when we pick up those crosses, when we dare to enter in to
what seems like the worst of our world, that we will meet the most holy.
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Amen
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