“Obedience,
fasting, and prayer are laughed at, yet only through them lies the way to real
true freedom. I cut off my superfluous and unnecessary desires, I subdue my
proud and wanton will and chastise it with obedience, and with God's help I
attain freedom of spirit and with it spiritual joy.” ― Fyodor Dostoyevsky, The
Brothers Karamazov
Gospel
Text: (LK 9:18-22)
Once when Jesus was praying in
solitude,
and the disciples were with him,
he asked them, “Who do the crowds say
that I am?”
They said in reply, “John the Baptist;
others, Elijah;
still others, ‘One of the ancient
prophets has arisen.’”
Then he said to them, “But who do you
say that I am?”
Peter said in reply, “The Christ of
God.”
He rebuked them and directed them not
to tell this to anyone.
He said, “The Son of Man must suffer
greatly
and be rejected by the elders, the
chief priests, and the scribes,
and be killed and on the third day be
raised.”
In today’s Gospel reading, Jesus first
asks His disciples what the people think of Him; who were they saying he was.
The disciples give their answers, and then Jesus asks them, “But who do you say
that I am?” And Peter, who so often gets it wrong, gets it right. He says to
Jesus, “The Messiah of God.” And after Jesus warns them not to tell this to
anyone, He then says, “The Son of Man must suffer greatly and be rejected by
the elders, the chief priests, and the scribes, and be killed and on the third
day be raised.”
In acknowledging Peter’s confession of
Him as the Messiah, Jesus then tells them how He will be the Messiah:
neither by military conquest nor by getting rid of corrupt leaders, but by
sacrifice, even to the point of death, followed by resurrection.
For me, the Gospel readings for the
last few days have highlighted the difference between the wisdom of the world
and the wisdom of the Gospel, and we see this once again in today’s reading.
That, I think, is one of the reasons Jesus doesn’t want the apostles to tell
anyone that he was the Messiah. The people were expecting a different kind of
Messiah, and even the apostles had trouble understanding what was going to
occur.
Understanding Jesus’ death on the
Cross as an act of redemption helps us understand that God does not promise to
remove all our difficulties, but instead, God promises us that He will get us
through to the other side. Jesus did not only predict His Passion and Death,
but also His Resurrection!
Can we live in hope, and thereby tell
the world who we say Jesus is by the life we lead day to day?
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