As the liturgical year progresses, we are once more reminded of themes that were put before our minds during Lent and Easter: the Suffering Messiah, the Cross, Death on Good Friday and the Glory of Easter Sunday. The miracle stories of the previous Sundays can mislead us into thinking of the Lord as "Jesus Christ Superstar", all glorious and wonderful. The Jesus that the crowds followed had another side to him, an aspect that even Peter would not accept. Read the relevant article for this Sunday's gospel and use the following for your Sunday reflections.
1. "Get behind me, Satan!" Jesus tells Peter who was dissuading him from realizing the mission he was baptized for (see Mark 1:9-11).
Reflect. Until Jesus dies on the cross and rises again after three days, the disciples will not comprehend who he was. Although there had been prophecies about a Messiah who will suffer in first century Palestine, Peter, like his contemporaries, thought of a Messiah who will come and lead them to freedom in Maccabean fashion. Even Christians nowadays still think of a Messiah who is all about glory and triumph. Are you one of them? Like Peter, we harbor our own image of the Messiah. What image of the Messiah do you have?
2. When Jesus first calls disciples to himself, he tells them to walk behind him and that he would make them fishers of men. After Peter's declaration of His Messiahship, however, Jesus begins to teach his disciples what it means to be associated with him.
Reflect. "Deny yourself, take up your cross and follow me." These are the commands Jesus addresses to those who wish to walk behind him. It is a call to associate oneself with him not only in thought and deed -- as disciples to the Master -- but also in His death. We have been marked with the cross of discipleship when we were baptized. The mark of the cross that we received in baptism is placed on our foreheads every year at the beginning of Lent to remind us of the kind of life we have undertaken when we put ourselves under the rule of Christ, the Messiah. In what ways have you associated yourself with the Cross of Christ and His Death? In what concrete ways have you verified your own discipleship in a world that rejects Christ and what He stands for?
3. "He who saves his life will lose it; he who loses his life for my sake and for the sake of the gospel will save it." Self-denial is putting the Lord and His gospel before one's own self.
Reflect. "I no longer live; the life I live is that of Christ who loves me and gave his life for me." This is how Paul describes his life with Christ (cf. Gal. 2:20). When we were baptized, we too were given the life of Christ in exchange for the life of Adam corrupted by sin and meriting the wages of sin. How do you live this new life that the Lord won for you by his death?
