Jesus turned and said to Peter, "Get behind me, Satan! You are a stumbling block to me; you do not have in mind the things of God, but the things of men." (Matthew 16.23)
Those who recognise and embrace Jesus Christ as the One in whom God meets us in our humanity are entrusted with the power of the keys, but this does not make us magicians or superheroes. To be drawn into the path of Jesus’ humanity, we are drawn into the path of suffering. It is inescapable. It is the suffering of the heart of God in the face of endemic sin, defacing and marring humanity.
Why emphasise this? Because for us, like Peter, it is easy to try and make the ‘Jesus event’ a place of escape from the pain of life. All healing and blessing and prosperity. But proclaiming and applauding such a reduced message holds the danger of creating circuses of escapist fantasy, not communities of faith. Peter, like so many, was shocked at facing the inevitable outcome of what Jesus stood for. And Jesus rebukes Him severely for this failure.
The real spiritual power of church, as community in Christ, is found when we recognise that Christ is fully involved in both the heights and the depths of human existence. He walks with us through all of this. The good and the bad. The beautiful and the ugly. Part of what God has given us is the commission to allow others to see His and our involvement in real life and all its consequences. Yes, to bring healing, health and hope of wholness. But also to recognise that there are also hurts and pains and struggles and even agony.
And if this is true for Jesus, it is also true for those who would walk His way with Him. So it is that the declaration of the via crucis - ‘the way of the cross’ - is here made. As Jesus will inevitably suffer, so too will His disciples. There is a losing of our life to be experienced. In order that the full life of Christ be entered:
Then Jesus said to his disciples,
If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me will find it.
(Matthew 16.24-25)
