on the other hand...

last week we heard an uplifting message of hope and a call to joy from the post-exilic prophet writing Isaiah XXX. In the Gospel, St. Peter declared that Jesus was the Christ, the Son of God, and that the gates of hell would not stand before the faith of the church. It was a good news kind of weekend.

This week we hear a darker communication. Jeremiah speaks some eighty years before the message from Isaiah. His audience is the parents and grandparents of Isaiah's audience. Jeremiah 15 is stark and grave. God doesn't care if Moses or Elijah interceded, He is done reaching out to a people who disregard Him. "Let them go, each to their own destiny," He says to Jeremiah, "I'm out of here." Jeremiah mourns the predicament of Judah, but even more effusively he laments his own hard life. It has been a lonely and difficult life, remaining faithful to God amidst a hostile and unfaithful people. Then Jeremiah's complaint takes an ugly turn. "You have been a deceitful stream to me," he accuses the Lord. The man of God an accuser...

God's response is interesting. He tells Jeremiah, "talk nonsense if you want, but if you are ready to get back to work I will take you back. I promise you victory. I will make you mighty and I will save you." No time wasted with hurt feelings or unloading emotional baggage--just divine focus on the task at hand.

We see similar focus in Jesus. The Gospels consistently portray Jesus as totally aware of His destiny in Jerusalem. He knows that He is in a conflict with the religious and worldly authorities which will cost Him His life. He gives explicit details but always with the promise of resurrection. Peter (which should be translated as Rock), operating from a human perspective, rejects suffering and death. Jesus calls him a satan, which could be translated adversary.  Peter is getting in the way, trying to trip Jesus up, all with good intentions. 

The road to the new creation includes Jesus' passion and death. The life of faith includes carrying a cross behind Him. Whatever saved by faith means, it includes losing our life in order to find it.

I said this week the message was different, but in a real sense it is the same. Being faithful is costly, but it is worth it. God will be with us through it all. We can complain, or we can push back--or we can say "amen, so be it." The offers is God's, but the choice is ours.