This week's verse at Crossings was a tough one. Jesus asks the disciples who they think he is. Peter answers, "the messiah." Jesus says, "yep, and here's a secret. I'm going to go to Jerusalem and the chief priests are going to have me killed."
TIME OUT! If you are the messiah, the one who's going to save us. The one who's going to restore God's favor to the earth, why are you going to die? We were waiting for utopia. We don't get it...
Furthermore, Jesus says to them. If anyone wants to follow me, he needs to pick up his cross.
DOUBLE TIME OUT! Not only are you going to die and leave us in this miserable world but now you want us to die too? What is this, mass suicide? Why so much death? I was very puzzled by this. How could God's will be so seemingly destructive and pointless.
Jesus knows life beyond death. God sees the past and the future and the present all at once. I remember as a child having a very painful splinter. My mom said, it had to come out and it would feel better. I didn't want her to touch it. Why would she make it hurt more? She's supposed to make it better. Like God, she knew that once I went through the pain of getting it out I would be healed.
Death is a letting go. Picking up our cross to follow Jesus is a choice to let go of something in this world (a dream, a job, money, a relationship, a habit, a hobby) and follow what God calls us to do and be. To let our identity be changed by God. And if we do, let go and trust God, what life is waiting on the other side? Will it be better or worse? This is faith.
Jesus choose to let go of his Godliness and to die, a man on a cross. On the otherside of death he found life and a the relationship between God and humanity restored. What will we find?
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