“Are you out of your mind?  Why would that happen to you?  That’s failure not victory. That’s disaster, not success.  That’s not what I  have signed up for!  That’s not the way it is supposed to be! You’re not a winner or a strong leader. You’re dying as a criminal.  That’s insane!”

Last Sunday Peter proclaimed Jesus as the Christ, the Son of the Living God. Jesus said how blessed Peter was and he was given the keys of the Kingdom.  Now, Peter’s being called Satan and thinking the same way as Satan.  That is some turnaround and reprimand! What’s going on here?  Peter hasn’t really been taking on board, listening or watching what Jesus was actually saying and doing and how he was redirecting Israel and the way they thought and had decided God worked and revealed himself in the world.  This is our reminder and a constant wake-up call. 

Knowing what God wants.  Knowing what God is doing in the world is not something we can take for granted. Jesus disrupted time.  Jesus turned and keeps turning everything upside down and inside out.  What Peter, the disciples and the people of Israel thought, declared, was God’s way, turned out to be nothing like it.  Jesus saved us by dying on the cross, by being killed as a criminal. He continues to be killed on the cross every time we refuse to hear him, see him, listen to the new and different ways he is present and working in our world, the world of 21^st Century. 

How is Jesus leading us today?  Where is Jesus leading us?  What are the new paths, roads he is guiding us up to bring about the Kingdom here on earth!

Let us dare to lose our lives in order to find them on the road he is taking us.