The Scriptures map out the journey of the spiritual life in various ways. I’ve talked here before, for example, about the last Resurrection narrative in John, where we see in the miraculous catch of fish a whole catechesis on the sacraments of initiation and the three major conversions and ages of the spiritual life – initial conversion and purgation, illumination, union. The Lord already has His own few (Jewish) fish, and now He will eat the Gentile fish caught by Peter, etc.
A similar pattern can be observed in the exodus from Egypt and the entry into Canaan, and the Lord coming down into Israel to become one with His people.
The Lord turning back towards Jerusalem after Peter’s confession of faith at Caesarea Philippi is another moment for consideration. And the trouble starts immediately – with Peter himself. Mere seconds after confessing that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the living God, Peter seeks to deny that the Christ must suffer – the perennial temptation of pastors of souls… to keep their people from suffering, even when that suffering is necessary.
From then on, Christ is basically alone. He is surrounded by others, and He has some friends in Bethany who care for Him just before and during Holy Week, but after Peter’s proposal to avoid the Cross, Christ is in battle-mode. He knows He will be betrayed. Mocked and humiliated. Abandoned. Tortured and killed.
He could have just stayed up north in Caesarea Philippi. It’s as far away from Jerusalem as the Lord ever went during the Public Ministry.
We often think of our own personal crosses in terms of “what” – is your cross a family crisis, bad health, some problem at work, etc… But we should also think of our crosses in terms of “where.” It is all too tempting to press the eject button where there are toxic people, compromised people, evil people… But that was Christ’s Jerusalem. He had to go there, to that place. The great rock at Caesarea Philippi, looming in the background as Peter made his confession of faith, covers the stream where all the demons were said to enter and exit the underworld – thus was the Temple of Pan (“pan-theon,” “all the gods”) placed nearby, and thus we get the rhetoric about the Gates of Hell and Peter being the Rock against which they will not prevail. But Jerusalem was far worse. With Christ’s words about Peter, it’s as if it were an invitation for the roaming spirits of Caesarea Philippi to attack him; immediately, Peter has strayed. He is just like any other man. He is compromised – Satan has entered him, much the same as with Judas. A few days later we will see him whimpering around a fire denying that he even knows Jesus. Peter misunderstood the entire messianic project – he was ready for a physical battle, not a spiritual one. So he panicked when told to put down his sword. Christ sits in silence, and darkness, and cold, knowing that God will deliver Him from death – that is real power. And that power can only really be made manifest in Jerusalem, on Golgotha. That’s where He has to go.
Where are we running away from? Where is the problem that we are called to face? Where can we go to suffer, die, and rise that will have the maximum impact for God’s glory? Where is our Golgotha? Real power comes from the Cross, as does real wisdom. (1 Cor. 1:24) We don’t have to insert ourselves into every bad environment – we shouldn’t, in fact – but surely, if we are always avoiding every Jerusalem, we will never find our Golgotha.
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