(a.k.a. The Way of the Cross)

Last Sunday, our Gospel reading (Mark 7:24-37) gave us the opportunity to touch on the theme of the great Drama of Salvation. We reflected on how human life simply is a drama – we human beings are simply full of desires that we long to fulfill... but we encounter obstacles to their fulfillment, and how we deal with those obstacles – who, or what, we turn to for help... shapes the story of our lives, shapes the kind of person that we become. And we also looked at the core truth of biblical spirituality that teaches us that we human beings are built to ultimately want nothing less than God. And that becomes a real predicament for us, because... if we are hoping for that ultimate fulfillment, but trying to attain it by clinging to lesser, temporal goods – like material possessions, or new experiences, or even to our friends & family... we are setting ourselves up for great disappointment. Because, in the words of St. Augustine, way back in the 4^th century: “Thou hast formed us for Thyself, and our hearts are restless until they find their rest in Thee.” If the very design of our lives is that they are a love story between us and God, then that is just who we are. We don't get to change that. If that drama is built in to our human nature, we will inevitably seek to live it out in one way or another. And there are many possible dramas that we could live out in this life. Some are better than others. Some are genuinely “Good News.” While others are, sadly, not “Good News” at all. The life and ministry of Jesus is a Living Testament to the truth that the Biblical Drama of Salvation is Good News.

In today's Gospel reading (Mark 8:27-38), we find the crucial ingredient that makes this living Drama of Salvation which Jesus embodies and teaches... truly Good News. And it is not what we might be expecting. It is certainly not what Peter was expecting. Because in this drama we are taught and enabled by Jesus to do something that is truly extraordinary: We are empowered to be with our own pain in a redemptive way. Good news is really only good news if it helps when the chips are down. To quote an old Bob Dylan song, good news is news that – even when “the rain is blowing in your face... and the whole world is on your case” – it makes you feel God's love. It is not hard to trust that God is real and loving and with you... when everything is coming up roses in your life, when your circumstances are bringing you a steady supply of praise instead of blame; gain instead of loss; pleasure instead of pain.

But in real life, outside of the fantasies of Hollywood, we experience not only 'ups' but 'downs.' And so, Good News, to be truly “Good,” has to be effective in both good times and in bad... It has to sustain us when we are rich and when we are poor; when we are healthy and when we are sick... or dying. Otherwise, what is so “Good” about it? Scripture, when we listen to it carefully, teaches us the very same lesson. As we engage in this Living Drama of Salvation we are taught and enabled by God how to be with absolutely every experience that arises in our lives.... (including pain and loss).... in a way that is redemptive, so that these difficult experiences, rather than stunting our growth and leaving us demoralized and dehumanized, actually help us to become more wise, more fully human.

Today's Gospel reading begins with Jesus helping his disciples learn how to be with their own pain in a redemptive way. How to turn poison into medicine. He had already taught them a great deal, already laid a strong spiritual foundation before introducing them to this most difficult teaching. And, up to this point, they seem to have trusted him, but when they hear what Jesus is saying now... they seem to feel that he has really crossed a line which should never be crossed. Peter, standing up for the rest of the disciples, lets Jesus know that all of this talk about rejection and execution is not helpful...

Galilean fishermen, like Peter, were not know for their gentility..... And so, I imagine that Peter “rebukes” Jesus... he probably pulled out all the stops and something along the lines of: “Are you crazy...? I give my entire life to you, to follow you, and this is where you lead me? To your execution... freely accepted no less? You are acting like an absolute fool, Jesus! Who is going to follow you if you are speaking these kinds of insanities?” I don't know any Galilean swearwords, but I imagine Peter probably used a few choice ones..... And Jesus' response.... doesn't miss a beat. He says (in the Old English version): “Get thee behind me Satan!” ... “For you are setting your mind not on divine things but on human things!”

Can you imagine being “told off” by Jesus... even to the point of being identified with Satan... the ultimate symbol of deception and ignorance and evil! It must have been an overwhelming experience for poor Peter. At least, that is how I have always imagined it when I have read today's Gospel reading.

But, at the same time, it is important to recognize that this is not a violent exchange. It is a conflict, yes, but between persons who care enough for one another to be honest about what they perceive and feel is happening in their friendship with one another. There is no loss of love here. It is very easy for us to get “thrown” off track by the colorful word “Satan” in this text, and miss the significance of why Jesus is using this strong symbolic word in this particular context.

Peter, like all human beings, would rather feel pleasure than pain. He would rather be praised than be ridiculed and blamed. What could be more natural? If a person was attracted to pain and ridicule, most of us, myself included, would see that as a serious problem. Peter's reaction to Jesus here is not out of the ordinary. But where Jesus is leading Peter and the other disciples, the Kingdom of God, is out of the out of the the ordinary... It is another world. It operates by different principles.

Jesus is actively leading them into an encounter with the pain of their loss... by telling them very plainly, face to face, that he, the one who loved them and cared for them more than anyone ever had before... was about to be murdered. He is actively leading them into feeling their sense of failure and rejection.... that the public was going to vote in favor of Rome, in favor of corrupt religion and government, rather for the truth, and love, and wisdom, which were being revealed in Jesus.

Peter's reaction screams that Jesus has crossed a line that is never to be crossed. It is that magical line that exists in Peter's mind, and in ours... that line which separates pleasure from pain; gain from loss; praise from blame; popularity from rejection. At some level, we all imagine that the good life is a life which always stays on “the 'happy' side” of that line. At some level, we all imagine that no one in their right mind would accept pain, loss, rejection, blame, and the like. Peter was an ordinary human being, no less than we are. And so the basic purpose of his life... the key principle that ordered all of his values and views about life... was “I've got stay on the right side of that magical line.” Peter had thought that Jesus had come to help him to stay on the right side of that line, not to lead him across it. 

What is the source of this magical line in our minds that separates “acceptable” from “unacceptable” experiences? Well, it is certainly connected to our brains. And it is not just a human thing. Scientists tell us that life forms even as small as single-celled organisms will move toward the pleasant and away from the painful. At some level, all of creation seems to have this magical line wired into it.

And yet, human beings, as strange as we can be at times, are special. There is more to us than simple hard-wired reflexes which grasp the pleasant and push away the painful. Because we want more. We hunger for meaning, for purpose. We long for the Mystery we call God, and that changes everything. It reorders our values, our choices. It colors how we experience everything that arises in this life.

It is because we are special in these ways, that the greatest danger in human life – the thing we need protection from more than anything else – is our clinging to this magical line, which demands that we only experience what we wish to experience... only pleasure, not pain.... only gain, not loss... no matter what the cost to our humanity may be. Jesus goes so far as to name this way of operating in life as a defining characteristic of “Satan,” our ultimate symbol of destructiveness, of choosing of the Way of Death over the Way of life, because it robs us of our greatest human potential.

The Good News is that there is a better way to respond to that little line within our minds. We can bring all of our joys.... and all of our sorrows; our pain, our grief... our all... to the Living Christ, who will bear all things through his divine love for us. When we lay down both our gifts and our burdens at his feet, something mysterious happens. All that we offer to Christ somehow gets transformed. What we pick up is not the same as what we laid down. God in Christ through the Holy Spirit gives us a new yoke to carry (Mat. 11:28-30). And somehow... even if outwardly our life experiences are still difficult and heavy.... inwardly... they become easier and lighter. It is the miracle of Communion with God; it grows us; it forms us, so that we come to actually embody our greatest human potential.

For over 2000 years now, we have been engaging, again and again, in this Sacred Liturgy, this rhythm of laying down our gifts and our burdens and taking up the empowering yoke of Christ. It is this divine rhythm, once we really get it “in our bones,” that teaches us and enables us to be with our own pain in a redemptive way. Because it attunes us to the Living Christ within us. And that makes all the difference.

Thanks be to God!