The following is a Meditation written by Doug Hood's son,
Nathanael Hood, MA, New York University.
Then Jesus said to his disciples, “All who want to
come after me must say no to themselves, take up their cross, and follow me.
All who want to save their lives will lose them. But all who lose their lives
because of me will find them.”
Matthew 16:24-25 (Common English Bible)
Of all Jesus’ disciples—save
perhaps Judas Iscariot—it is Peter Simon, that lowly fisherman, who comes
across to us from the pages of history as the most fully realized and most
fully human. The Gospels paint him as a man of great, seismic contradictions:
confident enough in his faith to leap upon the waters of Galilee yet doubtful
enough to sink below them; brave enough to attack the Sanhedrin in Gethsemane,
yet frightened enough to deny Christ three times in the high priest’s
courtyard. In the sixteenth chapter of Matthew, we see yet another
demonstration of Peter’s conflicted faithfulness. Upon reaching Caesarea
Philippi, Jesus asks his disciples “Who do people say the Human One is?” Eleven
of them mutter noncommittally, but Peter leaps in: “You are the Christ, the Son
of the living God.” Many forget that when Jesus first began his ministry, he
hid his lineage as the Son of God from his followers, instead presenting
himself as a rabbi preaching radical reform of Jewish tradition in the face of
Roman imperialism. It was here, in this moment, that a fisherman’s faith
revealed Jesus’ true identity to the world.
In response, Jesus praises Peter
and declares him the rock upon which he will build his church. But pay very
close attention to what happens next, particularly to the language used in the
Common English Bible translation. After Jesus explains his mission to suffer
and die at the hand of their Roman oppressors, Peter “took hold” of him,
“scolds” him, and “began to correct him.” Certainly Jesus, the promised
Messiah, would tear down the Romans, reunite the Twelve Tribes, and restore the
Davidic monarchy to power once and for all. Yet Jesus savagely scolds him with
one of the most cutting rebukes in scripture: “Get behind me, Satan.”
But just as Jesus condemns he
comforts, immediately informing Peter and the rest of the disciples that his is
not the way of meek surrender, but the path to everlasting life. Again, pay
close attention to the language: “All who want to come after me must say
no to themselves, take up their cross, and follow
me.” [Emphasis mine] We find three demands—one of self-denial, one of
self-sacrifice, and one of self-submission. First, we must reject all our
preconceptions about who God is or what God wants. Second, we must humble
ourselves before him in front of the whole world. And third, we must follow in
his footsteps, not in the footsteps we proscribe for him.
Peter’s mistake wasn’t his lack of
faith, rather its willfully misguided application. Unable to envision a Messiah
who didn’t avenge and conquer, he literally tried to seize and bully God
incarnated in flesh. And how often have we seen the same thing happen today? It
seems we can’t turn on a TV or open a newspaper without hearing or reading
somebody screeching about what God wants or what God needs. God has become a
cudgel with which to assault political adversaries, a club to self-righteously
attack those who don’t fall into the proper ideological or moral line. In these
troubling, divisive times, we must look to the words of the Gospel of Matthew:
to find one’s life, one must lose it. Just as Peter was rebuked, so we must
rebuke ourselves and humbly follow.
Joy,
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