|
On
the surface, what Jesus is suggesting goes against every
political strategy in the book. Peter understands what’s at
stake. No matter what the posturing and intentional
hyping….no matter how good the dream might sound….if we
are going to overthrow the Romans and take back Jerusalem,
this talk about you dying, Jesus, has got to stop. A dead
figurehead is hard to follow. Peter is saying: “Lord,
don’t do it!” The problem is, Peter and Jesus have two
different ideas of what is really going on here. There are two
paths, as the poet Robert Frost described in The Road Not Taken.
Two roads
diverged into a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both,
And be one traveler, long I stood,
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;
Then took
the other, as just as fair.
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same.
And both
that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day
Yet knowing how way leads on to way
I doubted if I should ever come back.
I shall
be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I –
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.
When
Jesus speaks about dying, he’s not talking about a political
movement. He’s not talking about a social service program.
He’s not talking about a temple or its rituals. He’s
talking of a path that no other would choose to take, one that
while all others would say, “No Jesus, that’s not the
way,” he is called by God to journey on. It’s the way of
the cross.
Scholars
today argue over whether Jesus really knew beforehand that he
would die. Whether he really thought of himself as God’s
true messiah. Whether he really understood his part in the
events to come as somehow being a part of what God was doing.
I
appreciate the scholar’s inquiry and debate. I respect the
earnest search for truth. Yet at the end of the day, after all
the theories and counter-theories, the cross remains standing.
Jesus has gone where no one dared think he would go, where
conventional wisdom said not to go, where even Satan desired
to distract him from going. The way of suffering. The way of
sacrifice. The way of the cross.
I
wonder why it is that Satan would want to keep us from
suffering? The images painted in our minds of Satan are, more
often than not, of one who desires us to suffer. But here
Jesus tells Satan to step aside.
What
is it that we might learn if we were allowed to get closer to
sacrifice? I have to admit that I’ve always been one who has
lived by the adage: “If it doesn’t kill you, it will make
you stronger.” And so far nothing has killed me (although
there are those occasions when I hesitate to pursue that too
far with Bron). But by and large, God’s spiritual exercise
plan makes sense to me.
When
Moses led the people out of Egypt, God didn’t say: “Go up
yonder, around the
Red Sea.” No, he said: “Go through it.” Before coming to
the Promised Land, they didn’t go around
the wilderness. No, they walked in it. In the same way, when
they could see Canaan Land, when the Promised Land was just in
sight, they didn’t have a bridge to get there, they had to
go through the
Jordan. There just wasn’t any getting around it.
Going
through it, walking in it and stepping on it formed and shaped
them. It took “trusting in God” out of the academy—out
of the head—and made it a day-to-day faith of the heart, a
vital part of life, a vital part of who they were, of who we
are.
And
so, too, Jesus—baptized by John in the very river his people
crossed centuries before, sure of who he is in his Father’s
eyes—answers the call. He answers the call to the path less
traveled.
Whenever
we start talking about self-denial, sacrifice or suffering, we
naturally get a little bit edgy. It’s not a part of our
cultural mindset, our world view. There may have been a time
when it was easier to think of loving our neighbors because
you knew them. Or there may have been championed causes that
rallied the nation in our history. But, in every time and
every place, Jesus’ invitation to take up one’s cross and
follow him has always been shocking. It has never been easy,
so we can’t say: “Oh, it was easier back when. Things were
different then.” Yes, things were different; people were
being physically hung on those crosses. Let’s not fool
ourselves. Self-denial, sacrifice and giving of oneself has
never been a well-trod path.
Our
natural inclination is to be comfortable. Manufacturers like
Serta and my beloved La-Z-Boy have made an industry of helping
people get comfortable. But what about the comfort of the
soul? After sitting in hundreds of La-Z-Boys—and sleeping on
a fair amount of Sertas—I’ll tell you, the comfort of the
soul has nothing to do with physical comfort. It has to do
with how we have faced our crosses, and our willingness to
take them up.
We
know a great deal today about the comfort of the body. But I
fear we know little of the comfort of the soul. So it is good,
every so often, to look back and meet those who have traveled
a different path, to see where the cross leads.
It was a young Roman boy of 16 who walked along the
seashore not far from his home. In those days, western Britain
was not a safe place. It was around 430 AD, and the garrison
of Roman soldiers had long ago returned to defend Rome. Now
the village by the sea lay unprotected. That was the home of
the boy Patricus. The day the barbaric Celts came, they burned
the village and took him as a slave to their faraway land of
Ireland.
For
six years, Patricius labored in the isolated hills. He would
spend months alone, living outdoors caring for the
chieftain’s pigs. And while raised in a Christian home from
birth, it was there, on those lonely hills, that he
experienced for the first time the God of his childhood.
In his autobiography, The
Confessions, he records: “I would pray all through the
day, wanting someone to talk to, and through the weeks and
months the love of God surrounded me more and more.”
We
don’t know all the details; much has been lost in the mist
of time. But in a dream, the young man hears God speaking to
him: “Soon you will return to your homeland.” It was true.
Soon the young man escaped back to England.
This
could have been the end of the story. He was received back
into his family. He continued on with his education. At 23, he
was picking up the pieces of his life. And then came the
second dream. In it, he heard the people of Ireland calling
out to him from across the water: “Holy boy, we are asking
you to come home and walk among us again.”
This
“holy boy” had grown close to God in the midst of his
captivity. While all around him voices were saying “No,
don’t go down that path,” it would be to Ireland that he
would return, this time bringing the light of Christianity.
Today
we know Patricus, the Bishop of Ireland, as Saint Patrick. And
this week there might be a few who know that March 17 is the
date of his death in 461. Many more will wear green hats and
ties. We might wear a shamrock on our coats or around our
necks. Then, maybe on some solitary stretch of commute,
we’ll sing a hearty rendition of “Ol’ Danny Boy” to
put us in the Irish spirit.
But
as we journey, it’s good to pause and remember what God
accomplished through him and others who have followed the path
of the cross. I wonder what would have happened if Patrick had
never been taken to Ireland? How would things be different had
he not gone through that ordeal? Never suffered, never
answered the call to return.
In
the same way, would we be as close to our God if we did not go
through the things that made us stronger?
May
the season of Lent, for us, be days of searching, wrestling,
struggle, thirst and hunger. May it be a season in which
we’re drawn to consider what it is to follow the way of the
cross and just where that will lead us, so that we, too, might
take the path less traveled and recognize how, in God’s
kingdom, that makes all the difference.
Lord, may
it be so. Amen.
|
