“No such thing shall ever happen to you.”
In a society based on human rights we feel that we are entitled to many things. This entitlement attitude also affects the way we think about the spiritual life. In this Gospel, Jesus and the Apostles have gone to the region of Caesarea Philippi and have just experienced amazing miracles. In previous Gospels, Jesus has walked on water, calmed the storm, fed five thousand, cured the Canaanite woman, etc. Things are going well. The apostles have also made their own sacrifices in accompanying Jesus, but these sacrifices seem to be paying off as they witness the miracles and glory of the Son of God.
We live in an entitlement culture in which we believe that we deserve everything. Many times people say that they deserve this or that. Sometimes people say, “That’s not fair, I didn’t get what I deserve.” It is good that we do not get what we deserve, because we deserve hell. It is only through the grace and mercy of God that we do not get what we deserve. People also say, “I worked hard today; I deserve something for that.” We can tend to bring that attitude into our spiritual life. “If I go to Mass I deserve grace. If I pray the Rosary or go on pilgrimage, I deserve something.” We cannot earn our way into Heaven let alone think we are entitled to it. The question we need to ask ourselves is, “Would you go to Mass, pray the Rosary and go on pilgrimage even if you didn’t get a thing? Would you go to Mass, pray the Rosary and go on pilgrimage simply out of love?”
It seems to make sense that if we are followers of Jesus Christ we are entitled to miracles and glorious things. It seems to make even more sense that if we actually are the Son of God, which Jesus is, that we would be entitled to a great life with many blessings. The son of a King gets to live in the palace, have the finest clothes, has servants, education, etc. How much more should the Son of God have? The Son of God should be entitled to a lot and so too should the friends of the Son of God. These thoughts which seem rational are crushed when, “Jesus began to show his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem and suffer greatly from the elders, the chief priests, and the scribes, and be killed and on the third day be raised.”
All of a sudden at the height of glory when everything is going well, Jesus begins to prepare his disciples for His passion, death and resurrection. No one, not even the Son of God, can escape suffering and death. If anyone is entitled to a life with no suffering or death it would be Jesus Christ, but we see that He does not take what He is entitled to but, “rather, he emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, coming in human likeness; and found human in appearance, he humbled himself, becoming obedient to death, even death on a cross.” [1]
Why does Peter take Jesus aside? In the midst of Jesus sharing about his future suffering, death and resurrection, Saint Peter takes Jesus aside. We can see Peter does not like what he is hearing and says, “Um, Jesus, can I talk to you for a minute?” “Peter took Jesus aside and began to rebuke him, ‘God forbid, Lord! No such thing shall ever happen to you.’” Peter rebukes the Lord! Peter must feel that Jesus is not entitled to this suffering and death and that the followers of Christ also should not have to suffer and die. He says, “No such thing shall ever happen to you.” The vision of the future that Jesus casts does not match with the miraculous and glorious past events of His ministry. Jesus is about to show Peter and His disciples that, “suffering out of love for God is better than working miracles.” [2]
Jesus is about to reveal that the way, the truth and the life is not about the miracles and glory, but rather about sacrifice and humility. The sacrifice and humility, not the miracles and glory, will sustain the Christian on their pilgrimage to heaven, just as the passion and death led to the Resurrection. Saint Padre Pio says, “The Cross will not crush you; if its weight makes you stagger, its power will also sustain you.” It is the power of the Cross that will sustain the staggering apostles and enable them to fulfill the words of Jesus, “…you will be my witness in Jerusalem, throughout Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.” [3] This power however will only come by way of the Cross.
What are we entitled to then? We are entitled to a cross. This is the only thing Jesus offers to His apostles in today’s Gospel reading. Saint Louis, the King of France, who was born in 1214, was the father of eleven children. As the King of the Holy Roman Empire, we could say that he was entitled to a lot of things. Saint Louis however did not feel that he was entitled to anything other than what God gave him. He also knew that his title of King did not entitle him to a life void of suffering. Saint Louis was a Third Order Franciscan and knew that suffering was a part of the Christian life. He also did not believe that his children were entitled to a life without suffering. .He wrote to his son, “If the Lord has permitted you to have some trial, bear it willingly and with gratitude, considering that it has happened for your good and that perhaps you well deserved it. If the Lord bestows upon you any kind of prosperity, thank him humbly and see that you become no worse for it, either through vain pride or anything else, because you ought not to oppose God or offend him in the matter of his gifts.” [4]
Saint Louis knew that God gives and takes away. [5] When He takes away it is for a reason, and when He gives it is a greater gift that any temporal gift. The gifts that God gives are eternal and unsurpassable, but yet we are so often focused not on what God can give us but rather what we can give ourselves or what others can give us. “Many hear the world more easily that they hear God; they follow the desires of the flesh more readily than the pleasure of God. The world promises rewards that are temporal and insignificant, and these are pursued with great longing; I promise rewards that are eternal and unsurpassable, yet the hearts of mortals respond sluggishly.” [6]
Jesus used the rebuke of Saint Peter as His moment to teach the value of the Cross, the Way of the Cross, a way that will be the bridge for His followers. “The crosses we meet on the road to heaven are like a fine stone bridge on which you can cross a river. Christians who don’t suffer cross this river on a shaky bridge that’s always in danger of giving way under their feet.”[vii] A wooden suspension bridge can be scary, but it would truly be scary and even dangerous if every third or fourth plank was missing. The missing wood planks would cause the bride to loose stability and might even cause the person crossing the bridge to fall into the river below. The wood of the cross in our life is like the wood planks on the bridge to heaven. Each plank is a suffering that we go through.
The cross that we are asked to carry is the perfect size and weight necessary and will act as a bridge to heaven. Our cross is one of our greatest gifts and tools to bridge the gap between us and God, for it is in the cross that the words of the Mass, “…may we come to share in the divinity of Christ who humbled himself to share in our humanity,”[viii] are fulfilled. The cross has two beams, horizontal (humanity) and vertical (divinity), this is a reminder that in the Incarnation the Word becomes flesh, God becomes man, divinity is clothed in humanity.
It is at this moment in the Gospel that Jesus “draws the line.” At the Battle of the Alamo a line was drawn. Those, who crossed would fight and were assured most likely to die; those that did not cross the line were free to leave, thus saving their life. Caesarea Philippi is where Jesus “draws the line.” Those that cross will accompany Him to Jerusalem and not only follow Him on the Way of the Cross but will each suffer their own way of the cross. This is the moment. “For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.” Those who cross the line and follow Jesus to Jerusalem will lose their life - - what they might feel entitled to, but in the end they will find eternal life and share in the inheritance of the Son of God. Those who do not cross the line, they save their physical life, but lose not only their spiritual life, but the inheritance of the Son of God.
We remember that even though we deserve hell due to our human nature, Jesus Christ has redeemed our human nature. God has adopted us as His sons and daughters. Since we are no longer absent from Christ, but rather, connected to the Life of Christ, we get what Christ received, our inheritance, which is eternal life. This inheritance does not come without a fight or without suffering. It did not come without opposition or suffering for Christ, so how can we expect that it would come without a fight or suffering for us.
[1] Philippians 2:7-8
[2] Saint John of the Cross; Paul Thigpen; Dictionary of Quotes from the Saints; page 223
[3] Acts 1:8
[4] Liturgy of the Hours Vol. 4; Office of Readings, August 25, Saint Louis
[5] Job 1:21
[6] Spiritual Reading in this Link to Liturgy packet
[7] Saint John Vianney; Paul Thigpen; Dictionary of Quotes from the Saints; page 225
[8] Order of the Mass