Optional Memorial of the Seven Founders of the Order of Servites, religious

Lectionary: 338

He began to teach them that the Son of Man must suffer greatly and be rejected by the elders, the chief priests, and the scribes, and be killed, and rise after three days. He spoke this openly. Then Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him. At this he turned around and, looking at his disciples, rebuked Peter and said, “Get behind me, Satan. You are thinking not as God does, but as human beings do.”

There's that word again, rebuke. It's a strong word which implies anger. 

Modern congregations, accustomed to the professional readers of television news, might not pick up Jesus's smack down of Peter. Nor will they, for that matter, suppose that Jesus has told them about the coming ordeal with intense emotion. 

He doesn't seem to be saying, "Oh, by the way, when we get to Jerusalem? They're going to crucify me!" And the fellows would laugh at his apparent hyperbole. 

Modern congregations suppose that adults repress their emotions all the time. They should not struggle to gasp out news to an impatient audience. Newscasters shouldn't scream as Herbert Morrison did when he saw the Hindenburg crash to the ground: 

Oh, the humanity, and all the passengers screaming around here! I told you; it – I can't even talk to people, their friends are on there! Ah! It's... it... it's a... ah! I... I can't talk, ladies and gentlemen. Honest: it's just laying there, a mass of smoking wreckage. Ah! And everybody can hardly breathe and talk and the screaming. I... I... I'm sorry. Honest: I... I can hardly breathe. I... I'm going to step inside, where I cannot see it. Charlie, that's terrible. Ah, ah... I can't. Listen, folks; I... I'm gonna have to stop for a minute because I've lost my voice. This is the worst thing I've ever witnessed.

But did Jesus tell his disciples about the coming ordeal dispassionately, as if, "It's no big deal!" and, "Don't worry about it?" 

I believe he struggled like the newscaster Morrison as he felt an imperative to reveal what will happen soon. He had to speak but he could barely get the words out. 

And Saint Peter, shocked by the Master's discomposure, impulsively rebuked him, "Get a hold of yourself, Man! Don't talk like that. Nothings going to happen in Jerusalem that you can't handle! And we'll be right there with you!" 

And then the Lord angrily rebuked Peter even as the moment of terror passed. "Get behind me, Satan!" 

He would not be ashamed of his anguish nor would he adapt his pronouncement to make it more palatable, "You are thinking not as God does, but as human beings do.” 

When we arrive in Jerusalem and Gethsemane, Saint Mark will describe Jesus's anguish:

Then he said to them, “My soul is sorrowful even to death. Remain here and keep watch.” He advanced a little and fell to the ground and prayed that if it were possible the hour might pass by him; he said, “Abba, Father, all things are possible to you. Take this cup away from me, but not what I will but what you will.”

"He fell to the ground" doesn't mean he slowly, carefully knelt down and rested his arms on a convenient boulder. It means his composure collapsed, his knees buckled, and he fell prostrate with his face in the dirt. The man was staring death in the face; what would we expect of him? 

Nor did Jesus, as Saint Mark tells the story, use the proper expression of resignation in the religious language of Hebrew. Rather he groaned in his native Aramaic: 

“Eloi, Eloi, lema sabachthani?” which is translated, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”

If we deny Jesus's humanity -- or our own -- we sabotage his mission to save us. There is no pretending to be strong, composed, or in control before the approach of death. Surrender means letting go of all that as we collapse and finally let God be God. "For I am God and there is no other!"