"Get Thee Behind Me..."

"Get thee behind me, Satan!"
Matthew 16:21-27

I wrote a small portion of this blog post on Sunday, and it took me almost a week to start it again. x)

Anyway, the reading for Sunday the 28th of August was about how Jesus talked to his disciples about him having to go to Jerusalem to suffer under the hands of the elders, chief priests and the scribes and also be killed. Now, this didn't sit to well with Peter. He said to Jesus,

"God forbid, Lord! No such thing shall ever happen to you."

Jesus' reply is one of the most shocking in this reading...

"Get thee behind me, Satan! You are an obstacle to me. You are thinking not as God does, but as Human beings do."

Then he goes on to talk about how if we wish to follow him we must deny ourselves, take up our crosses and follow him.

To me it seems as if he is saying to Peter "Stop telling me what to do but follow me."

Now think about it, we resist just as much as Peter did. If we were standing there before Jesus, the Christ, our Savior, the son of God, and he tells us he is going off willingly to die, wouldn't you be shocked and dumbstruck? You would say "Lord no! You are God's son, nothing like that could happen to you, and I won't let anything happen to you!" Unfortunately when we say this we stand in the way of God's plans. If Jesus did not die for us, who would have? Who would have stepped up to save our fellow man from sin?  

Jesus also accuses Peter of thinking as Humans, not as God. We think of safety, God thinks entirely of Love. Our mission is to spread the word with no fear of the consequences. Public humiliation, mockery, imprisonment and even death. But if this is what must happen if we are to spread the word, how would we feel if someone who does not fully understand what we are doing stands in front of us and says "No, you can't, you would get hurt..." It's not about us! It's about Him.
You have to ask, how do I love? How you answer that will shape your entire life.

"Whoever wishes to come after me must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me" He did not say "Accept the cross if it comes" he says to Take it Up. To consciously and freely walk the path of suffering love if we are to be his followers. Take it up, actively!
You are meant to be a bearer of the divine love into the world, that is your mission. It takes a million forms but that it's basic purpose, and this will always involve suffering, because it means the path of self denial.

"What path are we walking? The path of self protection, or the path of Self emptying, self forgetting love? Everything else will depend upon that question."

May the Peace and Grace of Christ Jesus remain always with you.
~Katherine