Matthew 16:21-28 (The path to life.)

From that time on, Jesus began to show his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem and undergo great suffering at the hands of the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and on the third day be raised. And Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him, saying, "God forbid it, Lord! This must never happen to you." But he turned and said to Peter, "Get behind me, Satan! You are a stumbling block to me; for you are setting your mind not on divine things but on human things."

Then Jesus told his disciples, "If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will find it. For what will it profit them if they gain the whole world but forfeit their life? Or what will they give in return for their life? "For the Son of Man is to come with his angels in the glory of his Father, and then he will repay everyone for what has been done. Truly I tell you, there are some standing here who will not taste death before they see the Son of Man coming in his kingdom."

I warned you last week that Peter’s moment of glory wasn’t going to last! You will recall how he had recognised Jesus for who he really was…’You are the Christ, the Son of the Living God’! But it didn’t take long for him to be in trouble again as Jesus rebukes him and says, ‘Get behind me, Satan! You are a stumbling block to me; for you are setting your mind not on divine things but on human things.’ Oh dear. It’s the kind of rebuke that silences a room. Peter must have turned red with embarrassment and the rest of the disciples wouldn’t have known where to look or what to say. On this occasion maybe they felt sorry for Peter. After all, he was only trying to protect Jesus. So, why the outburst?

Jesus was in trouble. Those who wielded power were out to get him. As Jesus tried to prepare his disciples for the deadly showdown, Peter read the situation as a disaster. Most probably it seemed to him that Jesus was throwing in the towel, bowing to the inevitable. What he couldn’t see was that the situation was quite the opposite. In the face of a mounting crisis Jesus still had choices. He could have toned down his rhetoric. He could have retreated to a foreign territory. Presumably he could have played his trump card and called upon legions of angels to defend him. But instead it was Jesus’ choice to hand himself over to his enemies. Peter, in his understandable ignorance, was trying to deny Jesus his right to choose. No wonder Jesus rebukes him. 

A strong Christian teaching is that life is a gift from God. But we are to understand this giving in the spirit of the game ‘pass the parcel’. How often have we seen a child hold onto the parcel hoping that the music would stop so that they could rip the paper apart and win the prize. In contrast. How wonderful it is when a child happily lets the parcel pass to a friend for them to open and enjoy. 

God has given each one of us a great freedom so that we can choose to whom and for what we give our lives away. This is what Jesus was doing, and this is what he meant when he said, ‘For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will find it.’

No-one was going to take Jesus’ life from him. He was going to lay it down freely himself. We often stop at this point and simply applaud Jesus for what he did. We see the cross as a one-off event, unrepeatable, unique. In some ways this is correct. The cross was a moment in history and its consequences were extraordinary. Yes, that is what Jesus’ cross achieved. But he still calls us to take up our cross and to see what our self-giving can achieve. Pass the parcel! Look for the delight in others. It’s our choice.