+ In so many ways this past week has been one of heartache.
• We’ve seen the body of a young Syrian refugee wash up on shore; a vivid example of the lengths people will go, the pain people will endure to move out of darkness and into light. The strength of the refugees is inspirational, and the price they pay is excruciatingly high.
• 14 years ago this very, we were all still in shock—the heartache and horror of 9/11 was raw. Life, as we knew it was changed. Forever. Any semblance of innocence and invincibility was removed by the events in Manhattan, Washington DC and Shanksville, PA. Each year, as the anniversary comes and the anniversary goes, our hearts are, once aain, pierced as we remember those who ran in while others ran out, those who knew they were going to die, but still made sure that the terrorists, at least those on Flight 93, wouldn’t take anymore than their lives…
These memories cut deep, the heartache is raw and the darkness and evil of this world is exposed for all to see.
Yet somehow, someway, 14 years after that awful Tuesday morning here we are; relatively safe, able to feel joy again. New life has emerged from that dark September day in 2001. Somehow, someway, our country has taken the depth of darkness, the height of evil, the fullness of what human beings can do to one another and have carried on.
We’re definitely different, many lives have been unnecessarily lost in our misguided revengeful reaction, but yet, here we are, worshipping and praising a good and gracious God. As a people we walked through the valley of the shadow of death and emerged on the other side.
To live fully as Christians, we must die. We must pick up our crosses---whatever ours happen to be-- and enter the darkness, the abyss, the loss and the pain. To get to Easter morning we must enter Holy Week, we must walk the hill known as Calvary, we must stretch out our arms on the cross, we must cry out in fear, we must breathe our last, we must lay ourselves in the tomb. We must descend into death and then, AND ONLY then can we rise into the glories of resurrected life.
We must, as Jesus says, lose our lives in order to live them.
And we must do this repeatedly.
For it is only in dying that we can truly live.
It’s called The Way of the Cross.
The Dean of Christ Church Cathedral in St Louis, Mike Kinman, and I have very similar theologies about what happens at this altar each and every time we have a celebration of the Holy Eucharist. Mike describes it like this:
At the Eucharist we lay our lives on the table, the same table Jesus is on. It all gets mixed up and God does what God does and makes something altogether new. And then we all take a piece of this new creation---a little bit of you…and you…and you….a little bit of me, a little bit of Jesus , we all take a piece of one another, infused by and through God and go out into the world, as something new and ready to create, all around us, something altogether new.
And we do it, again and again and again.
This is exactly what Jesus was trying to get across to Peter in today’s Gospel.
There’s a lot in this Gospel and it’s easy, at least for me, to get lost.
But the bottom line is found in two sentences: Who do YOU say I am and Get behind me Satan!
When Jesus asks, but who do you say I am? Peter, just like the kid in school who quickly and loudly raises his hand like Horseshack on Welcome Back Kotter every time the teacher posed a question, Peter says, decisively and simply “You are the Christ.” No doubt Jesus is surprised that any of them had figured out that He was indeed, The Christ, that is the Messiah, the one promised, the one waited for. He is the One. God come to earth. Peter is right.
And he’s also really wrong.
He’s wrong because although Jesus is, indeed the Messiah, the Son of God and the King of Kings, he’s not above or beyond humanity. He is in humanity.
He’s God and He’s Human and he’ll never, not ever, use his divinity, his God-ness, to bypass any single part of the Human condition. Including humiliation, suffering, execution and the deepest darkest piece of the human condition, death itself.
Peter can’t wrap his brain around Jesus as God and Jesus as Human. Peter can’t believe that Jesus would accept the fullness of the human experience. Peter cannot and will not believe that the only way to gain a God-filled life, that the only way bring God’s reign of Love, Justice and Righteousness for all on earth, forever; is to die.
Peter cannot accept that the Way of Jesus is, indeed, the Way of the Cross.
And so Jesus exclaims:
“Get Behind me Satan!”
Get Behind me, all you who are so afraid of the darkness that you go to extensive lengths to keep it at bay…which just gives it control over everything that you do.
Get Behind me, Satan all of you who so fear death that you absolutely forget to, refuse to, live.
Get Behind me Satan… you who want easy answers, who want the quick fix, who want the gain bypassing the pain.
Get Behind me Satan for the life you seek, the life you live, isn’t life at all:
It’s Good Friday without Easter
It’s the dark of night without the light of dawn.
Jesus kind of unloads on Peter, doesn’t he?
But I get it…there is so much more joy in life when we stop fighting the pain.
There’s so much more light in life when we stop railing against the darkness
Jesus doesn’t want Peter to miss one minute of this thing called life.
And he doesn’t want us too, either.
Come, my friends, all you who are weary and heavy laden. Bring your brokenness to this Holy Table and let God make you and me and all of us into something new; for the Way of the Cross takes the broken and makes it Holy. Amen.
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