Twenty second Sunday Ordinary Time - Cycle A, Take up our cross and unite our sacrifices with Jesus

In today’s Gospel, Jesus’ impression of Peter is a drastic turnabout, when says, “Get behind me Satan, you are an obstacle to me.” What a change from last week, when we heard Jesus tell Peter,  “Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah. For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my heavenly Father.  And so, I say to you, you are Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church,and the gates of the netherworld shall not prevail against it.”  Peter goes from being the foundation of the Church, to a stumbling block. How can this be?  Jesus has chosen Peter to lead his Church, and he probably knew that Peter had some rough edges that needed polishing. Peter has a way to go to fully understand who Jesus is, both fully human and fully divine.

This is the first time in Matthew’s Gospel that Jesus reveals his death to his disciples, and that he would be raised after three days. Peter thought Jesus was going to be the long-awaited Messiah who was going to save the Jewish people by conquering the Romans through worldly power.  But Jesus was teaching the disciples that he would be a Messiah who would  conquer the world through sacrificial love in giving his life on the cross. So, when Peter responded to the revelation of Jesus death, “God forbid, Lord! No such thing shall ever happen to you.”  He needs some correction in understanding the type of Messiah that Jesus was.

To be Jesus’ disciple Peter would need to deny himself and take up his cross to follow him. Taking up his cross would have seemed strange for Peter to hear, as it was the instrument of torture that the Romans use to control the people. This wouldn’t make sense to Peter in his human reason. He needed to see the death of Jesus through the divine lens of a suffering servant establishing a new covenant through sacrificial love of giving up his life for all of us.

What do I mean by a new covenant? God had established covenants with the Jewish people before, through Noah, Abraham, and Moses.  A covenant is a special relationship entered in between persons, in this case the people of Israel and God, where they pledge to give themselves fully, faithfully, and forever, like a marriage, until death do us part. When covenants were entered into in the Old Testament an animal was sacrificed to God as symbol of what would happen if the covenant was broken. God always kept his covenant, but the Jewish people did not keep theirs, as they turned to worship other gods.  Jesus became human to to restore the covenant once and for all with humanity in a new way, by offering his life as the ultimate sacrifice. He takes on the sin of humanity, so we no longer have suffer the consequence if we don’t keep the covenant.  We can now be restored to our relationship with God when we sin through the new covenant established by Jesus through the Church and the Sacraments.

So, Jesus is teaching his disciples that he is a Messiah who is going to lead them to God’s eternal glory, where they will live forever with him in heaven.  The way they will get there, is through the cross. St. Rose of Lima said, “apart from the cross, there is no ladder that will get us to heaven.” Jesus teaches his disciples in taking up their cross, they will find their life, “For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.”

So how do we take up the cross in our own lives? There are some ways we can intentionally sacrifice by giving our time, talents, and treasure to serve others.  One I just did yesterday is giving blood.  I used to be extremely scared of needles, but I united my fear with Jesus’ sacrifice on the cross and got the courage to now give blood regularly. I also visit inmates in the Heritage Trail Correction Facility to provide a communion service monthly. Some examples of other ways we sacrifice for others is by visiting them in a care facility.   Many of us have friends or relatives, who are in full time care, and a visit will really lift their spirits.   There are many other activities that we can do by sacrificing over what we would prefer to be doing. But by sacrificing for other we may find it’s what we prefer to do as it brings us closer to Christ.

But we don’t necessarily need to look for sacrifices.  We can embrace those that come up in our lives as our own cross.  We may be suffering from an illness, or a loved one may be and we become their caregiver.   We may have a broken relationship with a family member that causes us to despair. When we encounter these, it may seem unfair that we are going through difficulties and we may be angry at God. We don’t want to experience pain or suffering and desire for God to take it away. But if we enter our suffering united with Jesus, it can give us some meaning because he’s been there too. I recently read a reflection by Vaneetha Rendal Reether that expresses this well: So where can you identify with Jesus in your suffering? If you have ever been betrayed by a friend, someone you loved and trusted, you can know a little of Christ’s fellowship in suffering. Or if you have ever begged God to remove your anguish, and God denied your desperate request, you can know a little of Christ’s fellowship in suffering. Or if you have experienced tormenting, all-consuming physical pain with no relief, you can know a little of Christ’s fellowship in suffering. Suffering brings an intimacy with God, a mysterious fellowship that cannot be captured by words.

To give us hope, when need to keep in mind that the other side of suffering, is resurrection.We may still bear the scars to remind us of what we went through, but so does the resurrected Jesus in the scars on his hands, feet, and side. He accompanied us and we’ve grown closer to him.

As we continue, please remember the Mass is a sacrifice, where Jesus is made present to us through his suffering death on the cross. The priest offers up the bread

and wine, which become Christ’s Body and Blood, sacrificed and presented to God the Father. In the Mass Christ is also resurrected to new life.

The Eucharist that we receive spiritually nourishes us through the graces to help us endure suffering in our life. We are not alone.  Jesus has been there too and wants us to be united with him through our crosses and raised with him when we get through them in this life and in eternal life to come.