Twenty-second Sunday in Ordinary Time

Collect of 22nd Sunday of Ordinary Time

Lectionary: 124

Jesus began to show his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem and suffer greatly from the elders, the chief priests, and the scribes, and be killed and on the third day be raised.
Then Peter took Jesus aside and began to rebuke him....



Although Jesus silenced Saint Peter and his objection with a stern rebuke, the conversation continues twenty centuries later. Why must the Lord die on a cross? Why is his obedience absolutely necessary?

Does not a Good, Compassionate, and Merciful God understand how difficult his demands are upon a human being? How many times have you heard people excusing themselves from Sunday worship, or marital fidelity, or respect for another's property with, "I'm only human and God will understand?" They find the Ten Commandments unrealistic and suppose God will allow some noncompliance, so long as it's done nicely, by civil standards.

But Jesus of Nazareth is set on his pilgrimage to Jerusalem. He must do this, he says, in obedience to his Father. We know nothing about Jesus if we do not recognize his willingness even to death, death on a cross. He cannot be unfaithful, as Saint Paul said. He has set his face like flint and must proceed to Jerusalem over the objections of family, admirers, friends, and enemies. If his cross is sacrilegious to the sanctimonious and madness to the intelligentia, it is nonetheless the wisdom of God.

It has something to do with the nature of our human will. Made in God's image, we enjoy a God-like freedom. But it comes with an insatiable anxiety. Everything we do is done, and cannot be undone. It's consequences might be mitigated but the fact that it happened cannot be deleted from the past. I am responsible for both my actions and decisions, including the decisions I chose not to make.  

In the agony of Jesus we see that God too must suffer that anxiety. He must act with infinite courage in the face of mortal reluctance, unwillingness, refusal, and rebellion.  

We have tried to save ourselves without a Savior and failed repeatedly. For every advance we fell back farther. We make progress only if God himself helps us, for just as without love the simplest chore is impossible, so in love we can accomplish the impossible. Such is the Power of the Holy Spirit that empowers our willingness. His crucifixion paradoxically insures our freedom and guarantees our salvation.

In the parable of the faithful servant who was ready for his master's return, Jesus describes the burden that is laid upon him:

Much will be required of the person entrusted with much, and still more will be demanded of the person entrusted with more.

The only begotten Son of God, the image of the invisible God, has been entrusted with more than an infinite blessing. No less is demanded of him. And so he...

"...must go to Jerusalem, suffer greatly from the elders, the chief priests, and the scribes, and be killed and on the third day be raised.

Saint Peter is appalled by Jesus's words. He would defend his friend and champion from the savage treatment of human authorities. But he is thinking as men think, and he is thinking of himself. First he does not want to lose a friend; secondly, he doesn't want to follow in those bloody footprints.

He cannot see it now but he will come to believe what every disciple must accept. As Blaise Pascal said, "The heart has its reasons, of which reason knows nothing."