Every time we gather to celebrate the Eucharist, we experience God’s presence in two amazing ways: in his living Word and in our Lord’s life-giving Body and Blood. As I mentioned at the beginning of this Mass, we are excited for several of our young parishioners who will experience God’s presence in a new way for them as they receive Holy Communion for the first time. It is, indeed, a special moment for you and we rejoice with you!
But, we also experience God’s presence as we hear him speak to us through Sacred Scripture. They are truly God’s word and we need to listen carefully. Through them, God reveals himself to us and teaches us important life lessons. We need to pay attention to them – even when they are unpleasant or challenging. The readings today are good examples. In the first reading, we hear Jeremiah complain because the mission God has given him has brought him scorn and derision. In the second reading, Paul tells us not to be conformed to the world around us, but to be transformed by the renewal of our minds, so that we can discern the will of God and grow to perfection. Finally, in the Gospel, we hear Jesus call us to take up our cross and follow him. In these readings, we learn that God has a task for each of us to perform in life and we can only find peace when we accept the task. We also learn that, although life in this world can be good, it’s not our final goal. Just as we work hard in school to prepare us for a good life, so we are called to work hard in this world to prepare us for an eternally good life in heaven. And, we learn that suffering and death are essential aspects of life here on earth. These are certainly challenging teachings and we spend our entire lives learning how to be better at responding to the challenge.
St. Peter can be a good model for us. You will recall that, last Sunday, we heard St. Peter recognize Jesus as the Messiah, the Son of the Living God. His proclamation of faith earned him the new name – Peter, or Rock – and Jesus’ announcement that it would be upon this rock that he would build his Church. This incident was a significant moment in the development of the mission of Jesus. But today, we hear Jesus introduce another essential dimension of his mission: he would be a Suffering Messiah. We hear him announce to 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.”
You will recall that the popular Jewish belief at the time of Jesus was that a conquering Messiah would come who would bring military success, wealth and prosperity to Israel – the same thing David had done when he was king. The disciples of Jesus shared this popular belief. So when Peter heard Jesus announce that he must endure the cross, he figured that Jesus must have made a mistake. We hear in today’s Gospel that Peter took Jesus aside and began to rebuke him, “God forbid, Lord! No such thing shall ever happen to you.”
Peter was tempting Jesus to abandon God’s hard and narrow way of the Messiah for the broad and easy way of the world, just as Satan had done when Jesus spent time in the desert preparing for his public ministry. Although Jesus had just called him the Rock, the one on whom he would build his Church, he now looks Peter in the face and says to him: “Get behind me, Satan! You are an obstacle to me. You are thinking not as God does, but as human beings do.”
God’s ways are very different from our ways and, as we heard last week, they are often inscrutable – that is, mysterious and hard to understand. The coronavirus is a good example of that. The Gospel message is another good example. Like a coin that has two sides, the Gospel has two sides: the Cross and the Crown. If we try to embrace just one side – the glorious side – and reject the suffering side, we miss the full message of the Gospel. The same Jesus who said, “I give to you the keys to the kingdom of heaven” also said, “Whoever wishes to come after me must deny himself, take up his cross, and follow me. For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.”
We come to Jesus to be freed from meaningless and futile burdens and take on the cross that leads to salvation and glory. Jesus’ words today challenge us to say no to the sugarcoated worldly gospel of instant gratification, with its false promises. As much as we would like them to be so, we know they aren’t true. There is no lasting joy in this world; only glimpses of the eternal joy that God has in store for us in heaven!
And, it all started with Adam and Eve. Before they sinned, they lived in blessed communion with God and with each other. After they sinned by listening to the devil and trying to play God, they were banished from the beautiful Garden of Eden and we hear that the struggle all begin with Cain slaying his brother, Abel.
Of course, this could lead us to complain, “So why do we have to suffer for what they did?” But, if we’re honest with ourselves, we would have to admit that, given the chance, we would fail as badly as they did. After all, who here doesn’t like to play God? Pay attention to how you pray when you find yourself facing some difficulty. Don’t we present our problems to the Lord with a ready solution; it’s as if we know better than God! Rather, we should come before God with our problems and concerns and ask him for the wisdom to understand why he has sent them to us and the courage to face them. So, we find ourselves in this world where our struggles with coming to understand, accept and proclaim the fullness of the truth inevitably leads to suffering. Jeremiah knew this. Jesus knew this. Paul knew this. And when we find ourselves in the midst of suffering, our faith response should not be: “Why me?” Rather, we should recognize that these trials are necessary preparation for our future glory. In this world, we find the cross. The place for the crown is in heaven.
Let us pray for the humility, courage and fortitude to continue the great work that Jesus began as he proclaimed: “The kingdom of God is at hand; repent and believe in the Gospel!” And, let us, like these young men and women before us today, eagerly receive the Lord often in Holy Communion so that we can receive the necessary spiritual nourishment to follow our Lord to the cross so that, as we hear him tell at the end of today’s Gospel, when he comes with his angels in his Father’s glory, he will repay us according to our conduct and lead to God’s kingdom; it’s there where we will find true joy and everlasting happiness!