God Forbid!

Those hardest moments of life often come when we look at something happening right in front of us and we just cannot stand to let it happen. The slow decline of a loved one’s health, the dissolution of a cherished friendship, moving to an unfamiliar place, losing a desired job, or many other unexpected events challenge us to say things like, “Heaven forbid!” We struggle as a species with these big transitions. Well, how much more did Peter fight back when the person whom he had just realized was the Messiah now spoke of his impending suffering and death?

This week’s Gospel lesson challenges us to see characteristics that we so rarely want to put together. Son of the Most High God meant Messiah or Savior or one who came to put things right. This person was the hope of an entire people. This person would have properly come in riding high, garbed in conquering armor, and belayed by the cheers of the powerful elite. To associate this champion with suffering and death would have been so abhorrent as to cause one to stop dead in his or her tracks. Peter indeed could not wrap his mind around a suffering savior, a maligned messiah, or a dying Jesus because that is just not how things were supposed to happen.

At our staff meeting this morning a colleague commented about this reading that we seem to get Peter wrong. We want to make him the bad guy, she said. And, to tell you the truth she is right, and we are frankly wrong. We want to make Peter into the guy who is making the big mistake, but as I put myself in his shoes I find myself saying, “God forbid it! You cannot die! This cannot be happening!” I become a stumbling block just like Peter was. So knowing this what do we do? How do I un-block myself?

In a vacuum it is quite easy to say that we ought to roll with the punches of life. We may hope that when we come face-to-face with a shocking realization of death, loss, or transition we will easily adjust. Somehow though, I believe I will always be a little bit like Peter in these moments. He did not want his teacher, his leader, and his friend to suffer or die. He had found a place where his life was most alive, his soul was awakened, and his spirit felt on fire, and now this was all to come to a crashing halt with the death of his dear Jesus. Obviously, he was upset! Of course, “God forbid!” In the mess of life though, how do we keep trusting God? How do we keep following Jesus?

Perhaps the how is not the best question. We all will follow Jesus in our own way. In the darkest moments it will be so, so difficult, but there is another question worth asking before we wonder, "How?" We must go first to the why question. Why are we following Jesus? Even though we know that death came knocking even at our Savior's door? Why follow the Messiah who dies? I think strangely the suffering, Cross, and death of Jesus are preciously why we do follow him. We follow him because we know that even in death Jesus will go with us. Our Savior willingly took on death, not so that we could avoid death, but so that we would not experience it without him. Jesus walked before us and walks with us into suffering and pain and loss and transition and death. Is this not the Messiah we want, the one who goes with us?

A suffering savior does not make sense in the ways of this world. Society craves power and one-up-man-ship. Culture strives to outrun death. Our faith calls us in a different direction though. We are called to walk assuredly in the direction of suffering and loss and even death because that is where Jesus walked and that is where Jesus is walking. We may start with “heaven forbid it!”—and that is the most human of responses—but on the other side of that we are called to say, “Not my will, but yours be done.” For we are called like Jesus to take up suffering and death as we take hold of our own crosses. Then, and truly only then, on the other side of that cross and death will we find resurrected life!