Sometimes, what is right and loving is also very hard. Sometimes, what is right can have tragic consequences. Sometimes, what is right still needs to happen, even if it will cause pain.
I do not think that I need to tell you that a common temptation for all of us is to shy away from what is difficult.
As Jesus faces a future filled with ridicule coming from the lips of his peers, a future with thorny pain pressing down on his head, lashes across his back and piercing pain through his hands and feet, a future of blood spilling on the ground, and a future ending in death itself…as Jesus faces that future, a temptation suddenly comes from the mouth of one of his best friends.
It is a temptation that stems from his friend’s love for him. It is a temptation that would spare him from this pain and would keep him alive. Peter urgently prays out loud that God never allow Jesus to suffer. He prays it right to Jesus face. I imagine that Peter even prays it with love and concern in his eyes. Peter prays it as a friend. “God forbid it, Lord! This must never happen to you.”
I have heard this prayer before. It urgently came from the lips of a parent who was paralyzed with fear as their child, who was age 23 at the time, left to serve the poor in a dangerous land.
“You can’t do this!” the parent pleaded. “What if you never come home?” the parent asked as they took their child’s hand, pulling them away from the door as if they were a toddler about to step into a busy street.
“God forbid it, Lord! This must never happen to you” Peter insists as Jesus prepares his journey toward his death on the cross.
Jesus has been tempted like this before. Satan, the great tempter once enticed Jesus to stop the suffering of his hungering stomach by having him turn stones into bread. “You do not have to suffer,” was Satan’s enticing lesson.
Jesus was not persuaded, but Satan further tempted Jesus by asking him to test God the Father’s reliability by leaping from the temple and allowing angels to cushion his fall.
And then there is the temptation of the whole world as Jesus stared down upon it from the top of a mountain. A life, living anywhere he wanted in the greatness of the kingdoms below, could be all his. He could have a life filled with arts, and good food, and fine clothes, and all the good things that the kingdoms can provide if only he would bow down and worship Satan. If only he would abandon what God the Father had in store. If only he would at least postpone what is right and good for a little self-indulgence. A bit of self-indulgence is healthy, right? Jesus could show love later.
“You have such a nice home here. There won’t be home cooked meals where you are going,” the parent pressed upon the daughter as she packed her things. Sometimes what is right and loving is also very hard.
“There are others who can help the poor there. There are poor people in our nation? Stay and help them. Please stay. Why are you leaving me?” The parental temptations were reasonable and full of love and concern. And, they cut to core.
“Why are you leaving me?” I wonder if that heartfelt cry was behind Peter’s protests to Jesus’ cross shaped plans?
Jesus looked at Peter and answered his protests: “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” (Matthew 16:23).
I wonder how harshly Jesus said this. Was he mad that his own friend was tempting him to abandon his ultimate act of love? Was calling him “Satan” intended to cut Peter to the core?
Or, was there understanding and tenderness in his eyes as Jesus explained how Peter, the rock, was being less of the foundation for faith as Jesus had hoped, but more of a stumbling block to what God desires?
When Satan tempted Jesus, Jesus responded forcefully, “Away from me, Satan!” (Matthew 4:10). But, when responding to Peter Jesus says, “Get behind me, Satan.”
There must be a reason for the difference. It must be that Jesus has not given up on Peter. It must be that Jesus literally wants Peter to get behind him and follow him, something that Satan would never do. “Get behind me…” Jesus wants Peter to lift his mind above his fears and above the impending sense of loss of his friend Jesus, and follow him.
“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?” (Matthew 16:24-26).
“What will it profit them if they gain the whole world but forfeit their life?” That is it, right there. That is the temptation Satan proposed to Jesus. “Be a part of the world. Fully embrace the world. Take the whole world. I will give it to you. There you will find life!” That is the temptation.
Sometimes what is right and loving is also very hard.
Sometimes, following Jesus is very hard. Sometimes, following in ways of divine love disrupt life more than it eases life. Sometimes, following in ways of divine love lead to a cross. Sometimes it is the case that only when life as you know it is lost can true, divine life finally be found. “Get behind me.” “Follow me.”
“Come with me,” the young woman answered back. “Be a part of the solution. Come with me and you will not have to let me go.”
Sometimes what is right and loving is also very hard. Sometimes, following Jesus, even today, can still lead to a cross. But, is that such a bad thing? To the world the cross is a symbol of death, but to us it is also a symbol of love. It is “the” symbol of love. Even more than a heart as a symbol of love, the cross is a symbol of a love so deep that the one bearing that sort of love would go to death in order to provide that love.
There is an old story in the Bible. It is a story about how a snake tempted the first people to abandon their trust in God. As punishment, the snake is stripped of its legs or its wings, the Bible does not actually say, but what it does say is that the snake is given the dust to eat from that point forward. Further, there will be continued strife between humans and the snake. God says to the snake that humans “will strike your head, and you will strike” the human’s “heel.”
From then on, humans awaited the snake crusher. They awaited a savior, sent by God, who could defeat the temptations. They awaited a savior who could crush the head of the one who would strike out and bring death. But, what many of them forgot was that the old Bible story said that the snake would “strike” the human’s “heel.” What many people forgot was that from the very beginning, the savior would be given a deadly blow in return for crushing the snake.
Jesus did not forget. Jesus defeated death, by dying. Jesus saved us through death on a cross. Jesus saved us by refusing the very loving and very rational pleadings of his best friend, Peter. Sometimes what is right and loving is also very hard.
She did not die, by the way. The young woman served her two years, loving the people with whom she helped. And, her parents even visited the unstable country, to see her at work.
She could have died, of course. Jesus did. But, sometimes the threats that are caused by following Jesus are worth it. Sometimes, what is right and loving is also very hard. But, sometimes these hard acts of love are worth the risk. Sometimes, taking up a cross can save. Sometimes, someone taking up a cross can save you, and me, and the entire world. Jesus took up a cross, turned his back on temptation, and saved us all from the power of death by dying and rising again to new life on the third day. What a glorious day that was!
Sometimes hard acts of love are worth the risk, because you are worth the risk to Jesus.
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