Finding Our Cross
Have you ever been put down? I mean really put down by someone you love and care deeply for?
But turning and looking at his disciples, he rebuked Peter and said, "Get behind me, Satan! For you are setting your mind not on divine things but on human things."- Mark 8:33
In today's reading from Mark's Gospel, Jesus is trying to tell his disciples what is about to happen to him. He will be persecuted and killed.
Peter doesn't want to hear it. None of them do, but Peter takes Jesus aside and gives him hell.
Jesus throws it back in his face telling him his entire focus on life is wrong. We may find it humorous that he calls him Satan, but Peter would have heard that as the deepest, most hurtful insult a devout Jew could be called.
Jesus was not juts angry with him. He was practically casting him out of the group, in front of everyone.
We are getting to that time in Lent when things turn serious. As we come into the last weeks, we are hit with the whole story of Jesus standing before his accusers, brought to earthly justice and put to a horrible death.
Because we know that the death on the cross is not the end of the story, we may think we are focused on heavenly things, as Jesus is telling us we must do, but are we?
Aren't we just saying that everything is going to be fine, not after we suffer in this life, but now, living our lives free of suffering?
Before we dismiss Peter's comments as foolishness or a reaction to his emotions and fear, consider that we are all Peter and we are all living in Peter's Truth.
We want this life to be the best it can be. Who wouldn't?
But there are some horrible things that happen in this life, and we can avoid them or accept it as our mission to do something about them.
That's tough stuff.
If we see something and don't do something, where is our focus?
So, as we come to the final hours of Lent next week, let us consider what we have seen that we could do something about. And let us pray for the strength and courage to do it.
Let us find our cross together.
More to come...