It looks like the suffering and death of Jesus will be the work of the religious leaders in Jerusalem. Still, Jesus must go, must suffer, must be killed and must be raised from death. All Peter can hear is the first bit, so he takes Jesus aside to talk some sense into him. He wants God to forbid the suffering and death of Jesus. The Lord turns. The rock on which the New Humanity is to be built now looks like a stumbling block. Jesus speaks to Peter, taking back the role of leader that Peter has just stolen. Peter must submit. He must set aside ordinary thinking and reach for higher ground. To do this, Peter will have to deny himself and his desire to avoid suffering and loss at any cost. He must make space in his panic for what he cannot hear – Resurrection. Disciples are to take up the cross gladly. If they do this, it will be a path of transformation for others and the doorway to resurrection for themselves.
Jesus hopes they will have the wisdom to see that when they are following Him, what looks like loss is really gain. Nothing the world has to offer can come close to the Kingdom of Heaven. They cannot be traded. And, at the end of time, the Son of God will come and repay everyone in accordance with how they have responded to His offer of a new humanity. The whole scene – the Father’s Glory, the Son of Man, the Angels, the gathering of all time and space – is an invitation to see how our small contribution has been well received. The end of history judges all history and the end of history belongs only to the Son of Man and the new humanity who follow Him.
It is a sad fact of life that those who stand up get knocked down. A police officer reports corruption in his team and is shunned for the rest of his working life. A woman reports accounting ‘inaccuracies’ in her office. She is thanked and made redundant a few weeks later. Criticism and cover up go hand in hand. And Jesus was a fierce critic of the hypocrisy of many so-called religious leaders. They were taken up with their own importance, loving the trappings of their status rather than its substance. They loved money, elaborate robes, seats at the top table, ego massages in the town centre and being called teachers. They polished the outside of the cup. They kept people from the knowledge that would help them. They laid burdens on others and enjoyed watching them stumble and fall. Jesus saw the organisational abuse and he named it. When He did this, he was not naive. He knows that those who have power over others, destroy those who question them.
Anyone who takes a stand knows that there will be reprisals. So why do people continue to criticise this kind of wrongdoing? Some say, ‘I just couldn’t let it go on.’ Others say, ‘I couldn’t live with myself if I kept quiet any longer.’ But whatever the reason for the critique, it is because the right thing means so much for them. And in the Gospel, the deeper life of God depends on the voice of prophets. Every time the ‘Cross’ is taken up, a double revelation unfolds. God’s Love is easier to see, as is the resistance of those who stand against it. The Cross is the symbol of the standoff between divine Love and Human sin.
And Jesus must take you and me aside to explain to us why this is necessary. Given who God is and who we are, it cannot be any other way. And as Jesus talks to us about the need to take up our cross and follow Him, He must keep saying the word we cannot hear – the word that was lost in the sound of our hearts pounding and our feet running from suffering and death. The sacred word. The most sacred word of all. Resurrection.
