We see it all the time in movies: someone is about to die. We know death approaches. The character knows it to.
He (or she) says to those gathered around, “I’m dying.” And his loved ones protest. “No. You’ll be okay. Everything will be okay…”
They are words of love. Of hope. Of desperation.
But the one dying only has a few breaths left. So he smiles weakly, grateful to have people around who care so much. He says a few final words.
And then it is over.
In our Bible passage from Matthew, Jesus is very much alive, but death is coming. Jesus is walking toward death. He knows that this is true, he knows what’s coming, and he says so. And Peter responds, much like one would expect a dear friend to respond:
“No, you won’t die. God forbid that you die! Everything will be okay.” It’s very heartfelt.
But then Jesus responds, and his response here always catches me off guard. It’s never what I expect, no matter how many times I read this scripture.
Jesus doesn’t smile. His heart is not warmly touched by Peter’s sentiment. He certainly doesn’t show any gratitude for kind words from a dear friend.
Instead, he lashes out at Peter! He looks at Peter with the same glaring eyes that, before, he reserved only for demons he was casting out.
And he casts out Peter - or at least this one aspect of Peter - and shouts: “Get behind me, Satan! You are a stone” - Peter means stone, or rock; “You are a stone which will make me stumble!”
What? Because Peter simply and lovingly expressed his desire that Jesus would live? Calm down, Jesus!
But then I remember: there is a lot that is implied in Peter’s statement; there is a lot more there than just the words that we hear. There is a background that gives context to what he says.
So let’s back up a bit, and see what’s really going on.
Just before this little episode, Jesus had asked Peter and the other disciples who they thought he was. And Peter responded, “You are the messiah, the son of the living God.” And Jesus praised and commended Peter for that answer.
“You are the messiah, the son of the living God.”
But what did it mean to be the messiah? The word messiah is a Hebrew word; in Greek, the word is Christ; and it means “the anointed one.” In this case, the one anointed by God.
And one thing that all who follow Jesus agree upon is that Jesus is the anointed one. He is the messiah. He is the Christ.
Here at Bixby Knolls Christian Church, that’s the one thing we all agree on. We have many different opinions, but we all agree that Jesus is the messiah. The Christ. The anointed one.
However, people have different ideas of what that means. Many in Jesus’ time believed that the messiah would be one who was anointed by God to once and for all overthrow the Roman Empire and establish a new kingdom in its place.
And, of course, the only way to overthrow the Roman Empire would be by force. An army would have to be gathered, a revolution would have to be declared, and the Promised Land would be taken out of Roman hands and placed into the hands of a leader who would follow the ways of God.
Many of the disciples shared this point of view. They had their swords ready. Later, when the authorities came to arrest Jesus, Peter drew a sword and began to attack those who came for Jesus. He believed it was time to fight! But Jesus immediately stopped Peter.
Violence was not his way. Armed revolution was not his way…
Now, you may have noticed that when Jesus told the disciples that he was going to die, he was very specific about how he was going to die. It wasn’t going to be a death by an accident or by an illness. The authorities were going to come for him. He would be arrested, tortured, and killed.
But for the disciples, whose minds were set on revolution and on overthrowing the authorities and defeating Rome, this just made no sense. They believed that Jesus was going to be their new ruler, in place of Caesar. Jesus couldn’t die. Jesus had to live.
So when Peter protested and said, “God forbid it! This isn’t going to happen!”, he was exposing his firm belief in a violent revolution, a revolution led by Jesus.
“They’re not going to kill you Jesus; God forbid it! You’re going to fight - we’re all going to fight - and we will kill them!”
That’s what Peter was saying. Revolution, by any means necessary! ‘Tis better to kill, than it is to be killed.
But Jesus would not give in to that temptation.
When Jesus taught his disciples to pray, “lead us not into temptation,” he was thinking specifically of the temptation to do violence. The temptation to use swords. The temptation to beat the crap out of the bad guys.
Violence is the greatest of all temptations. How many times, do you think, did Jesus pray about this? How many times do you think he himself prayed to God, “lead me not into temptation; deliver me from this evil”?
It would be so easy to use violence. He certainly had the power to overcome Rome by force, right? All the angels of God - and God himself - would come to his rescue and defend him if he but asked.
But violence was not his way.
So when Peter responded the way he did, it’s no wonder Jesus lashed out at him. Violence is the greatest of all temptations, and Peter was presenting that possibility, that temptation, to Jesus on a platter. “God forbid that you should die this way. God forbid it! We’ll fight! We can win!”
Oh, how tempting that is!
Being fully human, Jesus did desire this. But being fully God, he knew this was not his way. Fighting was not his way. He had to resist this temptation.
Violence is the easy answer in a sinful world. We can’t stay away from violence for very long. The history of humanity is a history of one war after another.
We even like violence in our entertainment. When the Superman movie Man of Steel came out, a lot of people commented on how it presented Superman as a sort of messianic, Christ-like figure, who is sent to earth from a far-off place to save humanity. The messianic imagery in the movie was put there on purpose by the filmmakers.
At one point in the movie, Superman turns himself in, and says, “I'm not surrendering myself to Zod. I'm surrendering myself to mankind.” That does sound very messiah-like.
But then Superman goes on to use his superpowers to conquer evil; and those powers enable him to do some incredibly violent things.
In other words, Superman gives in to the temptation to act violently - and at that point, the similarities between Superman and Jesus disappear.
He goes into battle against his enemy, General Zod. The battle devastates Metropolis as the two knock each other back and forth. Entire buildings collapse, huge skyscrapers, leaving untold thousands of people dead. Worse yet, those deaths are never mourned or reckoned with. It’s so violent that one critic even called the film, “disaster porn.”
Jackson Cuidon, writing in Christianity Today, said: “Superman … is there mostly to satiate that part of the American psyche that wants their messiahs to punch things, too.”
Peter wanted a messiah who could punch things. That is the type of messiah that Peter was looking for.
And it’s the messiah that many people today are looking for. A messiah who can punch things. And it’s become quite common for people to present Jesus as that messiah, the messiah who can punch things, the messiah who uses violence to accomplish his will, the messiah who carries a sword, the messiah who rides a warhorse, the messiah who casts evil people into hell.
But when you read the gospels, you see that that is so clearly NOT the messiah that Jesus is.
Which means those who say this is the type of messiah he is have not only given in to the temptation of violence, they also are guilty of breaking one of the ten commandments, the one about bearing false witness against another. And the person against whom they are bearing false witness is Jesus himself. They say all these things about Jesus that are just not true.
Read the Bible. Read the gospels. Jesus was a messiah who preached good news to the poor, sight to the blind, release to the captives and freedom to the oppressed. His way was the way of love. The way of kindness. The way of compassion.
After Jesus rebuked Peter, he said to his disciples: “All who want to come after me must say no to themselves, take up their cross, and follow me. All who want to save their lives will lose them. All who hold on to life, and use violence to protect life, will lose life. But all who follow in my way, and who lose their lives because of me will find new life.”
In other words, if you want to follow the way of Jesus, you have to be willing to let go.
You have to be willing to let go of your life for something greater.
You have to be willing to let go of the temptation to use violence to overcome or destroy your enemy.
Evil will not be destroyed by more evil. Violence will not be destroyed by violence. You can’t end death and destruction by killing and destroying!
Let go of all that, and give yourself to the way of love.
I can think of some movies with better messiah-figures than Man of Steel. Perhaps you can, too.
During Vacation Bible School, when I was helping the children to understand these things, I mentioned to the kids three different movies that came to my mind.
The Harry Potter movies end with a big battle at Hogwarts, yet Harry knows that the only way to end all the fighting and end evil in his world is to walk straight toward Voldemort, without fighting or resisting, knowing that Voldemort will kill him. It’s an act of sacrificial love that saves his friends, which makes Harry Potter a better messiah figure than Superman.
In Kubo and the Two Strings (you know I love that movie!), Kubo spends most of the movie searching for three things: the Sword Unbreakable, the Armor Impenetrable and the Helmet Invulnerable. He believes that these three things will help him fight and defeat the Moon King. But when he does meet the Moon King, he realizes he needs to toss those three things to the side, so that he can face his adversary unarmed, with no violence in his heart - only love.
In Moana, the title character does pretty much the same thing as Kubo. Moana sails across the ocean and encounters a terrible lava monster… then walks toward the lava monster willingly, purposefully, with no weapons - only love.
These three movies present much better messiah figures than Man of Steel does.
They demonstrate what Jesus means when he says that those who want to follow him must say no to themselves, must deny themselves, and take up their cross. It means we walk toward the cross, we walk toward whatever evil there is in our lives threatening us, our loved ones, our neighbors, and we do so without weapons of any kind. We don’t even bring with us harsh words or thoughts. All weapons, all violence, we leave behind.
The only thing we carry as we walk that walk is love.
Love is often the harder way. Violence is the easy way.
We can act violently. We can speak violently. We can tear people apart online with one simple tweet - it’s so easy! We can gossip about someone, we can incite others to think negatively of them.
All that is the way of violence. And it is easy.
The way of love is much more difficult. It can be dangerous. The way of love means casting your armor and weapons to the side. The way of love means walking toward the lava monster unarmed. The way of love means walking toward the cross unarmed.
It takes great courage to love.
THAT is what Jesus demands of us. Love. Courageous love. Love that is bold and daring. Love that does what is right, even when it is dangerous.
Love like that is powerful. Love like that can change the world.
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