Please...not again

 

It all began with Adam, didn’t it? When he fell he introduced and asserted his free will and with it, independence. However, Adam also introduced chaos, dying, misery and death as our legacy. “No! No! No!” Writes Kruger in the character of God , “Not on our watch! We did not create you to perish, to die, to live in such appalling pain and blindness and brokenness. We created you to share in our life, to taste and feel and know and experience what we have known for all eternity.” (The Shack Revisited)

So Jesus’ frustration with Peter in denying his destiny for our sake is palpable. You could almost hear him say, Please... not again. This is why I’ve made this trip Peter. You don’t know the mind of God and you can’t put words in my mouth. Adam got it wrong in the beginning and now you are repeating his original mistake. Please don’t be an obstacle to me. You are thinking not as God does, but as human beings.  

And so Jesus came as The One through whom the very life of the triune God would enter human existence. This in turn would allow us to be raised up and share in the very life of God. We have to get it right this time.

So part of what strikes me in (Matthew 16:21-27) is how it reveals something deeply true about our human nature, and is personified in the behavior of Peter. We don’t want to hear bad news. We certainly don’t want to know that our best friend and our Savior will have to suffer and die so that we free. And can we bear to know that we too will follow him on our journey through this vale of tears as part of Adam’s legacy? We have to get it right this time.