The Ministry of Healing and the Gospel of Hope - Chapter Two

Chapter 2: Hope on the Way of the Cross

‘But who do you say that I am?’ Peter answered him, ‘You are the Messiah.’ And he sternly ordered them not to tell anyone about him. Then he began to teach them that the Son of Man must undergo great suffering, and be rejected by the elders, the chief priests, and the scribes, and be killed, and after three days rise again. He said all this quite openly. And Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him. But turning and looking at his disciples, he rebuked Peter and said, ‘Get behind me, Satan! For you are setting your mind not on divine things but on human things.’ -- Mark 8:29-33

Why do we retreat into illusion?  The answer is a simple one: fear. We are afraid. When we consider the alternative option, despair, illusion seems a much happier alternative, and perhaps, the only alternative.  We have a couple of radio stations in Toronto that I sometimes enjoy listening to. One of them plays a lot of “old time” music and the other is a classical music station.  The target demographic for both stations is the Baby Boom generation.  After a few minutes of listening to the advertising and programing on the sister stations, a certain philosophy of life, or rather, illusion, becomes quite evident. Listeners are characterized not a “Boomers” but as “Zoomers,” that is, “boomers with a zip!”  On those two station you will hear all kinds of public service announcements, summaries of research, and items that demonstrate how aging can be defeated through keeping fit in body, mind, and spirit.  But can aging really be stopped, much less defeated?  The advertisements are mostly for hucksterish creams that will make your wrinkles and age spots disappear, tonics that will cleanse your bowels of cancer-causing materials, and wellness belts that will reduce your waistline. What all of this reveals is that we are living in a society that is deeply afraid not only of our own mortality, but of anything that suggests that we might someday die, that our bodies are failing, that we are all, to some degree or another, walking “terminal cases.” Now don’t get me wrong, taking care of one’s body is a crucial piece of stewardship of God’s most precious gift to us.  But is this about stewardship or denial of mortality?  My deep concern in all of this is that when we buy into such a completely and utterly false vision of reality, we are not only hiding behind an illusion, but within an illusion, and what is worse, we are participating in its proclamation.  What is even more insidious about this, though, is that I fervently believe that any flight away from authenticity is a retreat into deeper brokenness and a flight away from true healing.   

In the eighth chapter of St. Mark, when Jesus began to teach his disciples that the Son of Man must undergo great suffering, rejection, and indeed, death, Peter recoiled, took Jesus aside and rebuked him.  Peter simply could not believe what he was hearing, and to top it all off, Jesus was proclaiming this quite openly. We must remember that this story follows immediately on Peter’s confession of Jesus as Messiah, and Jesus’ stern warning that he not tell anyone.  Peter was perhaps justifiably confused, and possibly even angered.  What was all this about?

Perhaps this was not the moment for Peter to proclaim the messiah.  That moment would come.  This was not the moment of Peter’s trial.  That moment would come.  It was Jesus’ moment for open proclamation.  It was Jesus’ moment of trial long before he was brought before Pilate.  To those who would be his disciples and follow him, it was their moment to judge: to receive him or turn away from him. It is in this story that we learn what it means to be a follower of Jesus. 

To follow Jesus means to follow a messiah whose victory is preceded by great suffering.  To follow Jesus is to follow one who is despised and rejected.  To follow Jesus is to choose to put your stake on the one who knows that his mission ends, at least in the first instance, in failure. To follow Jesus means something more deeply profound and troubling, though. It means that we who follow him should expect his path to be our path.  We who follow him should realize that the road to victory is fraught with much suffering and loss: “If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me.  For those who wish to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake, and for the sake of the gospel, will save it.”  This is a hard saying of Jesus.  Sadly, it is a saying that we have domesticated.  For example, we ritually walk through times of self-denial, through fasting and almsgiving, of taking up our cross and following the way of the cross in the season of Lent.  This is, of course, a good thing; yet this ritual following on the way of the cross is still a controlled journey.  Every once in a while though, things spin out of control and we cannot put an annual date on the wilderness theatre of Lent. Every once in a while we truly find ourselves in the wilderness unexpectedly, regular programming having been interrupted by natural disaster, plague, trauma, or death. It seems to me that it is these times when uncontrollable events overtake, when we are forced to take up the Lenten journey and walk the way of the cross, forced to give up what we cling to so dearly, forced to deny ourselves, forced to accept that many things, especially suffering and pain, are beyond our control, that is when we really come to appreciate what the Christian life is all about, and what the hope of resurrection means.

We live in a culture of illusion.  We believe that we can control our destinies.  We believe that our God-given free will, our ability to choose, makes us omnipotent.  But what happens when life intervenes? Or more poignantly death? What happens when death intervenes?  What happens when we lose control to an illness that will not be beaten?  What happens when our lives are interrupted by crisis, calamity, or loss of control?  What happens when someone who we thought loved us betrays us?  What happens when through no apparent fault of our own, our lives spin out of control?   

These things happen.  And yet we live in a culture that denies them.  Even in this very moment in which COVID-19 is so demonstrably real, we deny that it will affect us and we move merrily toward the world we once knew, but now can never be again. We live in a culture that denies incurable illness. We live in a culture that denies aging.  We live in a culture that denies and ignores poverty.  We live in a culture that denies death and pretends that it can be avoided through the next miracle drug or vaccine.  It is not so.  While we may prolong our existence, death comes to us all.  Whether long or short, every life is full of pain of some sort. This world is full of pain. What are we to do with the pain that necessarily comes with living? When we ignore the pain that is around us, and the pain that is hidden within us, we become members of the culture of illusion.  I would even go a step further to suggest that we become proclaimers of illusion as another gospel.

What frightened Peter so desperately was that Jesus spoke the truth.  Jesus proclaimed the reality that not only would he know suffering and pain, not only would he know temptation and despair, not only would he have to face the cross, and not only must he faith death, so too would we.  Peter, who claimed to be a devoted follower of our Lord, who indeed had just proclaimed him as the Messiah, could not bear the implication of his confession of faith because of what it meant for him:  If Jesus were to suffer, then so too must he; if Jesus were to face temptation, then so too must he; if Jesus was going to the cross, then so too, was he. Peter liked being a “boomer with zip.” Who wouldn’t choose that over the cross?

More frightening, though, was that Jesus did not hide the cross from those who would follow him.  This was not part of the so-called messianic secret of St. Mark’s Gospel.  We learn in Mark 8:34 that he called the crowd together, with his disciples to proclaim this.  It was proclaimed for all to hear.  If we are going to follow Jesus, then he is going to tell us where he is taking us.  To follow Jesus is to cast away all illusion, and Satan is the author of illusion.  To follow Jesus is to embrace the suffering of this life and this world and journey through it; not to escape from it, or deny it, but to face it squarely. That is why Jesus rebuked Peter as if Satan had possessed him.  Illusion is perhaps the most destructive force we can face.  It is one of our antidotes to despair, and it is in insidious antidote.  It allows us to pretend that illness, disappointment, discouragement, and death do not threaten us.  Illusion does not make these things go away; it only hides them for a time.  This is how Satan tempts us!

It is not God’s way, though.  God’s way is the way of reality not illusion.  God’s way is the way of authenticity.  Jesus himself knows that for Satan to finally be cast down, he must go to the heart of the matter and confront death face-to-face himself, this is why the Apostles’ Creed proclaims “he descended into hell.”  That wonderful icon of the Resurrection is actually an Icon of the Harrowing of Hell.  Christ tramples down the gates and they fall in the shape of a cross.  As he stands victoriously upon the fallen gates and defeated Satan, he raises up Adam and Eve from their captivity.  For humanity to be restored to his image and likeness, God himself must first walk the path that we could not walk alone.  He must go into the darkest place and cast his glorious light on all that tempts us and all that is illusory, that these things should be revealed as the powerless lies they are.  For truth to be revealed, God himself must cut through the illusion that draws us from truth and from our true divine nature.  It is only in this powerful act of God, in Jesus taking up his cross, in his walking the path of pain, in his hanging on the rood of death, and his going down into the very depths of our darkest places, that we can bear the reality of such suffering.

Peter could not bear that thought at the moment he identified Jesus as the Messiah for the glory of the triumph of God had not yet been revealed to him.  He had not yet caught a glimpse of it on the mountain of the Transfiguration, much less had he met the Risen Christ in all his glory; but Christ and his Resurrection have been revealed to us.  We know the passion of Christ crucified and the power of Jesus raised from the dead. We have met the Christ who has shed his light of truth into the darkest corners of all that we hide from each other, from ourselves, and from God. The Resurrection of Jesus cuts through the illusion of a painless life.  The Resurrection cuts through the illusion of a life without disappointment, temptation, or despair.  All these things are real and we all experience them. They were real for Jesus, and they are real for us.  What makes them bearable, though, is the deeper reality that all suffering is transformed in the hope of the Resurrection. We hope, not without struggle, not without pain.  Yes, as the old funeral prayer says, we may sorrow, but not as a people without hope, because he is with us, and he was not defeated by the powers that attempted to destroy him. Nor shall they destroy us. The hope of Christ crucified and risen becomes our hope. Thus, as St. Paul says, we shall be challenged in every way, but not overcome, tempted but not defeated, dying yet we are alive.  What does it mean to be alive and find healing and wholeness in the midst of a life in which pain, disappointment, and brokenness constantly tempt us away from hope?  What does it mean know the healing grace of God that tramples down fear and casts away illusion and despair?  It to these things that we shall turn next.

...THE MINISTRY OF HEALING AND THE GOSPEL OF HOPE CONTINUES TOMORROW…