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spent1502
"Lord Over Death"
Text: Matthew 16:21-26
Date: The Fifteenth Sunday after Pentecost 
9/1/02 spyware 1.0.5
In Saint Matthew's Gospel we have seen Jesus
bringing his disciples along the way to faith in him by means of
his teaching and his miracles. With every step forward he was revealing
to them (and to us), little by little, the depth and the fullness
of who he is and what he came to accomplish. On the basis of his
words and works, thus far, when asked straight out, "who do you
say that I am?" Peter confessed, "You are the Christ, the Son of
the living God" [Mt. 16:16]. It was a mighty confession of faith
(and still is)-revealed to Peter (and to us) not by flesh and blood,
that is, not by logic, proof or examination of the facts, but by
the heavenly Father himself. To call Jesus the Christ, the Son of
God, is to acknowledge him as God the Redeemer who has taken on
our flesh and blood, conceived by the Holy Spirit and born of the
Virgin Mary. To call Jesus the Christ, the Son of God, is to acknowledge
that he came to usher in salvation in the Kingdom of God. To call
Jesus the Christ, the Son of God, is to begin to understand the
love of God for his world and everyone in it. But there's more-because
the salvation he came to bring us is for more than saving us from
mere hunger as at the feeding of the 5,000, from inclement weather
as when he stilled the storm on the lake, from sickness and suffering
as with the daughter of the Canaanite woman, all of which is but
the common lot of all in this sinful world. For, the love of God
goes to the deepest roots of our need. And that's precisely the
destination and destiny of the Christ, the Son of God.
At this point in the story, time is beginning
to run short. The disciples were as ready as they were going to
be, and so, "from that time Jesus began to show his disciples that
he must go to Jerusalem and suffer many things from the elders and
chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and on the third day be
raised." "Great Confessor Peter," however, demonstrated their shallow
understanding and partial-faith by his reply, "Far be it from you,
Lord! This shall never happen to you." Going to Jerusalem? Fine!
Suffering many things from the elders and chief priests and scribes?
We can understand that. In fact, we've already seen that! But they're
going to kill him? "Never, Lord!" And Peter meant that rebuke from
a heart-felt loyalty and love and faith. So shocking were the words
"and be killed," it is as though they never really heard the last
words, "on the third day be raised." Jesus must have briefly thought
to himself, "See, I was afraid this would be too much for you to
understand."
But don't we have the same problem, in a reverse
sort of way? To the extent that the first disciples were shocked
at his prediction of being killed in Jerusalem, to that same extent
we take it all-too-lightly, as simply a matter of historical fact
that shocks us not at all! To take anything "for granted" can be
just another form of denial. As my dear friend, Herb Mueller, has
written, "the Gospel assumed is the Gospel denied." Like Peter,
we would rather not hear or speak of death at all, much less Jesus'
death on the cross. Death is a subject-THE subject-to be avoided
as too negative, too depressing, too distressing. And there's a
kernel of truth in that! Death is negative, depressing, wrong, evil,
or as the Scriptures call it, "the last enemy to be destroyed" [1
Cor. 15:26 (ESV)]. Yet, the Christ and Son of God came not merely
to rearrange our present circumstances to make them more tolerable,
to give short-lived success to this otherwise transitory life, to
provide a religious cosmetic that only makes us look good and doesn't
get to the real problem. All suffering and sickness, anger and separation,
all loneliness and isolation, all fear and terror stems from but
one thing: death, the limits determined by God that we cannot pass
[Job 14:5].
Whether out of misguided loyalty like Peter's,
or out of a faith distracted by earthly fears and worries, God is
patient. "For he knows our frame; he remembers that we are dust"
[Psalm 103:14 (ESV)]. The question is, do we remember that? It is
because of the primeval judgment, "remember that you are dust, and
to dust you shall return" [Gen. 3:19], and our complete inability
to save ourselves from death, that God promised and sent his Son,
the Messiah, the Christ, ultimately to meet the Enemy head on-sent
him to his own people who would not receive him, so that, precisely
by their rejection, betrayal and murder of the Son of God, he would
become "the source of eternal salvation to all who obey him" [Hebrews
5:9 (ESV)]. It was precisely into the confusion and drama and contradictions
that characterize life as we know it that he came and took it all
on himself, paying the price for us, taking on himself all the curse
and judgment of God for the sin of the world, that we might awaken
to life as he knows it.
They heard the words "go to Jerusalem," "suffer
many things," "and be killed." But there was also this: "and on
the third day be raised." The "things of man," the feeble considerations
of our finite minds, are all about death, finally. The "things of
God," however, are life eternalized, restored, redeemed, raised
up from the dust. And it all centers on Jesus, the Christ, the Son
of the living God. "For from him and through him and to him are
all things" [Romans 11:36a (ESV)].
It is interesting that, in the Greek, Jesus
uses the same word for both Peter, when he called him Satan, and
for all who would be his disciple. "Get behind me, Satan!" "If anyone
would come behind me…." Either way, Christ is in the lead. When
he passes by, everything is behind him…either in the dust of judgment
to those who reject him, or on the dusty trails of faith for those
who deny self, take up their cross and follow behind him to eternal
life. The price was paid, once for all, by Jesus on a cross on the
outskirts of Jerusalem. Faith is centered in that cross. But it
doesn't end there. For faith is also a journey, a following, an
action-packed adventure and struggle marked all along the way by
denial of self, keeping your eyes fixed on Jesus. The daily call
to take up your cross is to discover the mystery, as St. Paul says
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