Fast Fridays: 30 Minutes for God: Difference between revisions
→Friday, Nov 15: "Get behind me, Satan!"
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== Friday, Nov 15: "Get behind me, Satan!" == | == Friday, Nov 15: "Get behind me, Satan!" == | ||
< | As at the arrest of Jesus in the Garden, Peter brashly tries to defend Jesus. He just didn’t get it, didn't get the logic of God’s plan. (Perhaps had he not slept through Jesus’ prayer in the Garden, he would have better understood...). Nearing the time of the Passover festival, Jesus had prepared the disciples for his coming Passion: <blockquote>From that time on, Jesus began to show his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem and suffer greatly from the elders, the chief priests, and the scribes, and be killed and on the third day be raised. </blockquote>to which Peter objects: <blockquote>Then Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him, “God forbid, Lord! No such thing shall ever happen to you.” ([https://bible.usccb.org/bible/matthew/16?21 Mt 16:21])</blockquote> | ||
Jesus replies ([https://bible.usccb.org/bible/matthew/16?23 Mt 16:23] and [https://bible.usccb.org/bible/mark/8:33 Mk 8:33]): <blockquote>''"Get behind me, Satan! You are an obstacle to me. You are thinking not as God does, but as human beings do.”''</blockquote> | |||
Peter kinda missed that "and... on the third day be raised," business. Naturally, he was shocked that Jesus said he would be betrayed and killed, the purpose of which the Peter and the disciples failed to understand. The rebuke, then, is plainly that Paul was thinking this life not the next, thinking like a human and not like God. | |||
We’re worse than Peter though— God's plan has been fully revealed to us and we are still stuck “''thinking… as human beings do.''” | We’re worse than Peter though— God's plan has been fully revealed to us and we are still stuck “''thinking… as human beings do.''” | ||
So how does "God think"? | |||
The passage follows Simon's appointment as head of the Church, the rock, "Peter," which itself follow's Peter's declaration that Jesus is "the Messiah, the son of the living God." | The passage follows Simon's appointment as head of the Church, the rock, "Peter," which itself follow's Peter's declaration that Jesus is "the Messiah, the son of the living God." | ||
John, as usual, gives us some different passages, including the seven "I am" statements of Jesus, with the most direct one in Jesus' challenge to the Pharisees: <blockquote>So the Jews said to him, “You are not yet fifty years old and you have seen Abraham?” Jesus said to them, “Amen, amen, I say to you, before Abraham came to be, I AM.” ([https://bible.usccb.org/bible/john/8:57 Jn 8:57-8:x]) </blockquote>His listeners take great offence at this claim and try to stone him. But the Messiah will be "lifted up" not knocked down, so Jesus miraculously escapes. | |||
Even if they understood him to be the Messiah, as did Peter (albeit by divine inspiration; see [https://bible.usccb.org/bible/matthew/16?17 Mt 16:17]), none of them had any notion of the Messiah's actual mission. Instead they understood that the Son of David would free Israel from foreign enslavement, as did Moses for them out of Egypt, and then restore the kingdom. This is why Jesus (and John the Baptist) says, repeatedly, "The Kingdom of God is at hand" -- to clarify that the "kingdom" is not of man (a "son of David") and thereby not of this world.<ref>The phrase "Kingdom of God" appears but once in the Old Testament, coming in [https://bible.usccb.org/bible/wisdom/10:10 WI 10:10] in reference to staying faithful to God. </ref> | |||
Not only do they not comprehend the role of the Messiah, their confirmation bias is so strong that they completely mistake Jesus' miracles for demonstrations of power, not mercy, and his teachings of repentance for expiation of Israel and not for personal salvation. As such, the Pharisees accuse Jesus of acting through Satan ([https://bible.usccb.org/bible/matthew/12:25 Mt 12:25]), and when he slaps that accusation down, they demand "a sign" ([https://bible.usccb.org/bible/matthew/12?25 Mt 12:38]). The sign they wanted was Caesar's head, not cured lepers. They're just enraged by it all, and their frustration is palpable in their constant questioning of Jesus about it: if you're the Messiah, save us already! <blockquote>Asked by the Pharisees when the kingdom of God would come, he said in reply, “The coming of the kingdom of God cannot be observed, and no one will announce, ‘Look, here it is,’ or, ‘There it is.’ For behold, the kingdom of God is among you.” </blockquote> | |||
And then mock him when he is on the Cross:<blockquote> | |||
And then mock him when he is on the Cross<blockquote> | |||
Let the Messiah, the King of Israel, come down now from the cross that we may see and believe.” Those who were crucified with him also kept abusing him. ([https://bible.usccb.org/bible/mark/15?32 Mt 15:32])</blockquote> | Let the Messiah, the King of Israel, come down now from the cross that we may see and believe.” Those who were crucified with him also kept abusing him. ([https://bible.usccb.org/bible/mark/15?32 Mt 15:32])</blockquote> | ||
It's not in any sense ironic that forty years later the Romans ended up destroying Jerusalem, killing hundreds of thousands of people through warfare, starvation, and, again, no irony, crucifixion. It's logical for them to have thought that God would once again save his chosen people | It's not in any sense ironic that forty years later the Romans ended up destroying Jerusalem, killing hundreds of thousands of people through warfare, starvation, and, again, no irony, crucifixion. It's logical for them to have thought that God would once again save his chosen people: he brought them from Egypt, he saved them from the Babylonians and Assyrians, and he gave them victory over the Seleucids (Greeks) who had profaned the Temple. For the Israelites, the lesson was always that God punishes infidelity and rewards faith. Along with the element of thanksgiving, the Jewish system of sacrifice was for expiation of the sins of Israel and the ongoing restoration of its kingdom. | ||
It is ironic, however, that the only person in the Gospel who realizes before Jesus' death what was actually going on was the "good thief," who after mocking Jesus for not saving himself ([https://bible.usccb.org/bible/matthew/27:44 Mt 27:44]), repents, telling Jesus,<blockquote> | It is ironic, however, that the only person in the Gospel who realizes before Jesus' death what was actually going on was the "good thief," who after mocking Jesus for not saving himself ([https://bible.usccb.org/bible/matthew/27:44 Mt 27:44]), repents, telling Jesus,<blockquote> | ||
“Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.” ([https://bible.usccb.org/bible/luke/23:42 Lk 23:42])</blockquote> | “Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.” ([https://bible.usccb.org/bible/luke/23:42 Lk 23:42])</blockquote>Upon his death, and upon watching Jesus die, he finally understood what Jesus had been saying so plainly all along: the Messiah will restore not the temporal throne of Israel, but lead her people -- and the rest, as God had promised Abraham, to the Kingdom of God. | ||
Indeed, one of my favorite lines from Jesus comes after Peter slashes at the soldiers who came to arrest Jesus: <blockquote> | |||
Then Jesus said to him, “Put your sword back into its sheath, for all who take the sword will perish by the sword. | Then Jesus said to him, “Put your sword back into its sheath, for all who take the sword will perish by the sword. | ||
Do you think that I cannot call upon my Father and he will not provide me at this moment with more than twelve legions of angels? ([https://bible.usccb.org/bible/matthew/26?52 Mt 26:52])</blockquote> | Do you think that I cannot call upon my Father and he will not provide me at this moment with more than twelve legions of angels? ([https://bible.usccb.org/bible/matthew/26?52 Mt 26:52])</blockquote> | ||
That's what the pharisees and the disciples and all the Jews wanted and what they wanted at the expense of actually thinking as God thinks. Jesus could have at any time ordered down "twelve legions of angels" and thrown the Romans out of Palestine. He could have climbed down from the Cross and laughed at the utterly shocked jokesters who mocked him. But that's how men think, not God. | |||
Jesus rebuked Peter for trying to be an obstacle to the Cross. It was a bit of a learning curve, but Peter eventually got it and could preach:<blockquote> | |||
Peter, an apostle of Jesus Christ, to the chosen sojourners of the dispersion in Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia, in the foreknowledge of God the Father, through sanctification by the Spirit, for obedience and sprinkling with the blood of Jesus Christ: may grace and peace be yours in abundance. | |||
Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who in his great mercy gave us a new birth to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, | |||
to an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you | |||
who by the power of God are safeguarded through faith, to a salvation that is ready to be revealed in the final time. ([https://bible.usccb.org/bible/1peter/1:1 1Pet 1:1-5])</blockquote> | |||
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> | <nowiki>**</nowiki> under construction as of 5:45 pm Nov 15 **getting there but still not quite done.** | ||
> | <nowiki>-----------</nowiki> | ||
> the Cross | > the Cross | ||
It | It'd be remarkable if people in our own day were so plainly blind to simple truths. | ||
> they way God thinks | |||
== Friday, Nov 8: Saint Paul, the perfect choice for Christ == | == Friday, Nov 8: Saint Paul, the perfect choice for Christ == | ||