The Cross and Our Salvation (Sunday, Week 22, Year A)

Last Sunday, the spotlight was on Peter: he was praised and given power and authority for his courageous profession of faith in Jesus in Caesarea Philippi, a very unlikely place to profess Christ at that time. In today’s gospel reading, the spotlight is still on Peter: he is rebuked and called a Satan. What really happened that made Jesus rebuke Peter a man He had earlier praised and given authority and power? 

Let's note that all these were happening towards the end of Jesus’ earthly ministry: sooner, He would head towards Jerusalem for his passion and death. But the disciples to whom He would entrust his ministry needed to know who He truly is and what He actually came for: there are two things here – they needed to know Jesus’ IDENTITY and His MISSION. If they do not have the true knowledge of who Jesus is, they may have no message to deliver to the world. And if they do not understand his mission, they can’t continue with it. Thus, it was very necessary that Jesus makes things very clear to them before He physically leaves them.

Last Sunday was like a lecture on His true identity at which Peter was highly praised for saying that Jesus is the Messiah, the Christ, the Anointed One. However, the Bible says that it was not flesh and blood that revealed that to Peter. It was revealed to him by the heavenly Father. In today’s Gospel passage, just immediately after that commendation from Jesus, Peter, who earlier spoke under the inspiration of the Spirit, now spoke according to the flesh. Yes, he professed Jesus as the Christ, as the Messiah; but it seems what he had in mind was far from who Jesus truly is. As at that time, every Jew believed that a certain Messiah would come, conquer their enemies and establish Israel as a world power, an everlasting worldly kingdom. So, this was what Peter had in mind. He was right to say that Jesus is the Messiah; but he did not know what the Messiah has actually come to do. And so, Jesus needed to deliver another lecture on His mission. When He began to say that “He the Messiah must go to Jerusalem, MUST SUFFER many things from the elders and chief priests and scribes and must BE KILLED and on the third day BE RAISED”, Peter was taken aback. “God forbid, Lord! This shall not happen to you”, Peter quickly rebuked Jesus. As a Jew, he had believed that the Messiah should not and cannot suffer. Jesus turned and said to him, “Get behind me, Satan. You are a hindrance to me; for you are not on the side of God, but men”. 

It was now a very big opportunity for Jesus to take it further and make it very clear to his followers that “if anyone wants to be his follower, the person must deny the self, take up the cross and follow Him”. I am sure this must have sounded like a bombshell to the disciples who were typical Jews; and for the Jews, to die on the cross is to be under God’s curse (cf. Deut. 21:23). When Jeremiah was told when he was called that he had been appointed over nations and kingdoms to pluck up and to tear down, to destroy and to overthrow, to build and to plant (cf. Jer. 1:10), he thought that it would be an easy mission, a mission without suffering. But when he began to suffer and face insults, failure, mockery, persecution, violence and destruction, he cried out, “O Lord, you have deceived me and I was deceived”. Just like Peter, Jeremiah did not want to accept suffering and the cross.   

Now, let me make this very clear: one of the biggest lies from the devil that many of us have accepted is that “a Christian is not supposed to suffer”. Remember that the devil came with this lie to tempt Jesus in the wilderness at the beginning of his ministry: “convert stone to bread, worship me and everything in the world will be yours” (cf. Matt. 4). Well, he did not succeed. And he came again through Peter with the same lie; and he was quickly rebuked and dismissed. Regrettably, many of us have been bought over: we are comfortable with this lie; we have believed it and refused to disbelieve it no matter how often it has been talked about. The cross is part and parcel of what makes you a Christian and a conqueror: the Messiah will be victorious not through worldly warfare, but on and through the Cross. Yes, Jesus died so that we can have eternal salvation; but this salvation can only be reached when we follow the rough, rugged, narrow and difficult path of the Cross. Whatever or whoever that is telling you that you are not supposed to suffer or carry the cross, please know that it is Satan; and I advise you to beg Jesus to command that “Satan” to get behind you.

We have been fed with too many lies by "fraudsters-with-Bible" and untrained preachers who parade themselves as evangelists and men and women of God: and the biggest of these lies is a “Cross-less Christianity” – Christianity without cross is no Christianity. The consequences of adhering to this lie or false belief are here with us: these days, many people don’t want to do genuine work but they want to eat; many want to stay in their rooms and expect money to fill their pockets – and that is why there are so many fraudsters; students don’t want to study but they want to pass – that is why they cheat; and so on. I am not saying that we should not pray for God’s blessings; in fact, we have to pray for it always. But any time we begin to believe that possession of material things are the ONLY MANIFESTATION of God’s blessings, not even minding how these riches come, we must pray that the devil should get behind us. For us to be saved, we have only one path to follow – the path of the cross. In the words of St Paul in Romans 12:1-2, we pray that we may no longer be conformed to this world but be transformed by the renewal of our minds so that we can begin to think like Jesus, present our bodies as a living sacrifice to God and follow the path that Jesus followed, Amen.