Tuesday, Oct. 15
Matthew 16:13 – 18:35 Read it here
I once heard panicked whining from my previous dog, Horatio, and found that he had gotten his head stuck under a dresser and couldn’t figure out how to get out.
The problem, it turned out, is that the dresser had only a low opening at floor level—enough room for Horatio to get his head underneath to retrieve his toy that had rolled under there, but not enough room to get his head out with the toy in his mouth. He didn’t like being stuck, but he wasn’t willing to let go.
It was an easy matter for me to get down on the floor and get the toy away from him and get both dog and toy back where they belonged. It’s easy to laugh at a dog for getting himself trapped by his own stubbornness, but it’s also too easy to see how often we do the same thing. Sometimes, holding on is the problem.
God, though, is more patient than I am. I simply forced Horatio to let go, then solved the problem for him.
As we talked about when we looked at the healing miracles, we know that there are times when God intervenes and solves the problem for us…but most of the time he doesn’t. It is in living through the challenge that we find growth.
In Matthew 16:21-28, Jesus tells his disciples about his upcoming death. He even includes the good news, “on the third day be raised to life.”
Yet Peter sees only the defeat, not the victory it will bring. “Never, Lord! This shall never happen to you!”
Jesus’s reply is emphatic: “Get behind me, Satan! You are a stumbling block to me; you do not have in mind the things of God, but the things of man.”
I’ve always thought the harshness of the reply suggests that Jesus might have been dealing with the same temptation to avoid the painful experience—few things anger us more than seeing our own weakness reflected back to us—but that’s just speculation. We know, though, that he realized that Peter’s desire to hold on to him was counter to what needed to happen. To win his glorious victory, Jesus must first accept a humiliating defeat.
Jesus continued, “For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me will find it.”
Embracing Jesus and the eternal life he offers requires giving up the limited but familiar life we have now…it is only in letting go of the things we cling to most tightly that we can trust Jesus to be our strength and rest.