‘When the Going gets Tough’. Sunday 31st August 2014. Jeremiah 15:15-21; Psalm 26:1-8; Matthew 16:21-28.
It is one of those sayings that for some reason get stuck in the subconscious and rears its head at odd moments. I can’t remember which advert it was with, but the voice-over was:
“When the going gets tough, the tough get going”.
And that is exactly what we have today. Jesus has been hinting for some time about his eventual fate. But it is not until the disciples have recognized him for who he is that he starts to talk openly about it.
“From that time on, Jesus began to show his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem and undergo great suffering at the hands of the elders and the chief priests and the scribe and be killed and on the third day be raised”.
Much to the horror of Peter, who having declared Jesus the son of the living God, cannot comprehend that this is what Messiahship means. Imagine the warm glow Peter must have had when he alone recognised Jesus for who he was, then to have that ripped away as Jesus explains what is going to happen next. Peter urges him to turn back, not to continue the journey to Jerusalem where the Romans plainly intended to execute the itinerant preacher.
Yet the unorthodoxy of this Messiah is that he has to prove himself and be recognised before he dare speak openly about his death. Otherwise he would have no credibility. Jesus had come to tell people that God loves everyone and nobody would believe him if he put his own safety before proclaiming the message.
Once he has proved himself, he can lead his disciples on from the known to the unknown and thereby expand their comprehension of the things of God.
If you know you are lovable, because God loves you, that gives you enough self-respect to love your neighbour as much as you love yourself.
But if you are so self- centred that you love yourself narcissistically to the exclusion of all others, then you cannot even begin to know that God loves you.
To jolt us out of our vanity, Jesus tells us to deny ourselves. This does not mean giving up chocolates for Lent, which is what most people mean by self-denial, it means crossing out the word ‘I’ altogether as of no importance.
And an ‘I’ crossed is the cross, the symbol of self-sacrificing love.
In the context of Jesus’ discussion about his own death, his earlier words about those who follow him taking up their cross and losing their life in order to save it, have a new seriousness. Discipleship is certainly not for the faint-hearted, but it will be rewarded.
‘When the going gets tough, the tough get going’.
Rev’d Edwina Wallace.