“Who do you say that I am?” This is an important question that we hear Jesus ask his disciples in today’s gospel. It’s an important question that he asks each of us so let’s see how the encounter continues. Peter answers correctly, “You are the Christ.” Since this is the correct answer, we might wonder why Jesus immediately instructs the disciples not to tell anyone about him. Why would he do that? We all know that it’s because they had the wrong notion of who the Christ – the Messiah – was. Their idea of a messiah was based on their memories of King David, anointed by the prophet Samuel, who had overcome the Philistines and united the tribes of Israel into a nation. The people of Jesus’ time were looking for another messiah like David to free them from the Roman occupation and unite them once again as a nation. But Jesus tells them that he must suffer, be rejected by the Jewish leaders and be put to death. He was, indeed, the new messiah but he came as the suffering servant that we hear about in today’s first reading. “I gave my back to those who beat me,” we hear in that reading.
So why would Jesus, the messiah, have to suffer and die? We all know that it was to overcome our sinfulness and lead us back to union with our heavenly Father. This is one of the clearest – and most challenging – teachings of our faith. So many people think that we are in control of our lives and if everyone just tries harder to be good, we’ll figure it all out by ourselves and live happily ever after. They deny the reality of the fall of humanity – symbolized by the story of Adam and Eve. They don’t recognize that we are not God and only God is in charge of our lives and of the world, indeed, the universe. We are called to live according to his will – not ours – and, in fact, his will is the only way to true and lasting happiness.
But, we all struggle with our own strong self-will. We stubbornly insist that we know best how our lives should play out. Listen to how we pray. Do we tell God what he should do or do we ask God to tell us what we should do? Like Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane, we need to humbly submit our will to God’s: “not my will, but yours be done.”
And, due to our pride and selfishness, and the greed and lust of the world, we find this to be very demanding. In the face of this, we hear Jesus declare to his followers – in his day and to us today – “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 and that of the gospel will save it.”
We all want to save our lives and the cross is the only way to do so. That’s why every Church has the cross as the focal point so that our eyes will be drawn to it.
Of course, we can’t forget the very last few words that Jesus teaches us today. After explaining that he must be killed, he then declares that he will rise after three days. His disciples did not understand that – after all, they hadn’t experienced the resurrection yet – but we do and so we are willing to die to ourselves so that we can share in the resurrection; that’s the fullness of faith that we celebrate and declare in our lives.
Yes, Jesus is truly the Christ sent by the Father to lead us all back to him. And, Jesus has really called us to follow him, carrying our daily crosses – dying to ourselves, loving one another as he loves us. All of this leads us to the new life he has offered us through his own death and resurrection. Let us pray daily for God’s help to be his faithful followers for he alone can lead us to eternal joy in heaven.