March 8th, 2026
Saturday, March 7
From that time Jesus began to explain to his disciples that it would be necessary that he go to Jerusalem and suffer much from the elders and chief priests and the scribes and be killed and on the third day be raised. And Peter, taking him aside, began to rebuke him saying, “God have mercy, Lord! May this never happen to you!” But turning to Peter, he said, “Get behind me, Satan! You are a stumbling block to me, since you are not thinking things of God but of human things.” Then Jesus said to his disciples, “If anyone wishes to get behind me, let that person disregard themselves and take up their cross and follow me.”
~Matthew 16:21-24
From that time Jesus began to explain to his disciples that it would be necessary that he go to Jerusalem and suffer much from the elders and chief priests and the scribes and be killed and on the third day be raised. And Peter, taking him aside, began to rebuke him saying, “God have mercy, Lord! May this never happen to you!” But turning to Peter, he said, “Get behind me, Satan! You are a stumbling block to me, since you are not thinking things of God but of human things.” Then Jesus said to his disciples, “If anyone wishes to get behind me, let that person disregard themselves and take up their cross and follow me.”
~Matthew 16:21-24
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We all want the hero Jesus. It’s baked into our cultural DNA. It was the same for Jesus’ disciples. They had no framework for any other idea of what Jesus could be. When Jesus announces he will suffer and die, it clashes with their foundational beliefs about who God is and what they wanted Jesus to be.
Jesus begins by saying that it is necessary for him to suffer and die. Jesus’ suffering and death are not just unfortunate events that are overcome by resurrection. They are necessary parts of the storyline. The way of God cannot not include human suffering and death. Jesus made it so. The hero god of glory and triumph is unnecessary. And this suffering is not merely what Jesus the human did for our sins. It’s more.
As Christians, we confess that God is a Trinity – Father, Son, and Spirit, one identity, mind, and purpose. And if Jesus is the one “in whom the fullness of God was pleased to dwell” (Colossians 1:19), then Jesus’ necessary suffering and death is also the necessary revealing of who God is. Jesus reveals a God who vulnerably identifies with our human suffering. He does not stand away, detached from it.
Jesus is passive. Everything Jesus says are things that will happen to him. He will suffer from others, be killed, and be raised. It’s hard to imagine Jesus as passive. He does not act. He does not retaliate. We live in a retaliation culture. So did Jesus. His passivity was foolish. It is now. We don’t like that, especially in a John Wayne Jesus culture. We even sometimes try to cover it up by saying how strong and brave Jesus was. Maybe he was. But it’s interesting that the gospel writers never point this out. And that’s certainly not how it looked. It looked like Jesus was the weak, passive, shameful recipient of the power of the Roman state. As Isaiah says, “He did not open his mouth” (Isaiah 53:7). Human violence and evil are visited upon Christ. And he receives it. In this passivity (which is related to the word passion), Jesus absorbed human violence and evil into the abyss of his love, where it would drown into nothing. It is necessary. This is how God works. God is not the God of displays of power and violence, but the God whose love absorbs human power and violence.
For Jesus, the way of the cross – of humility, suffering, and death – is necessary. We don’t get to God by any other route. As it was with Peter, we get in the way when we try to think otherwise.
This is genuinely good news. We live in a world of heroism and retaliation. We don’t have to always be the hero. In fact, to not look the part of the hero might actually make us look more like Jesus. And to retaliate is not like Jesus at all. It's only to look like the violence of the world, taking justice into our own sinful hands. There’s another way, if we’re willing. Only in this way will we truly know Jesus.
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For reflection:
Prayer:
God of suffering, we often want to worship a God of power. By your Spirit, open our eyes to the way Jesus who suffers reveals who God truly is, so that we might also become like you. Amen.
We all want the hero Jesus. It’s baked into our cultural DNA. It was the same for Jesus’ disciples. They had no framework for any other idea of what Jesus could be. When Jesus announces he will suffer and die, it clashes with their foundational beliefs about who God is and what they wanted Jesus to be.
Jesus begins by saying that it is necessary for him to suffer and die. Jesus’ suffering and death are not just unfortunate events that are overcome by resurrection. They are necessary parts of the storyline. The way of God cannot not include human suffering and death. Jesus made it so. The hero god of glory and triumph is unnecessary. And this suffering is not merely what Jesus the human did for our sins. It’s more.
As Christians, we confess that God is a Trinity – Father, Son, and Spirit, one identity, mind, and purpose. And if Jesus is the one “in whom the fullness of God was pleased to dwell” (Colossians 1:19), then Jesus’ necessary suffering and death is also the necessary revealing of who God is. Jesus reveals a God who vulnerably identifies with our human suffering. He does not stand away, detached from it.
Jesus is passive. Everything Jesus says are things that will happen to him. He will suffer from others, be killed, and be raised. It’s hard to imagine Jesus as passive. He does not act. He does not retaliate. We live in a retaliation culture. So did Jesus. His passivity was foolish. It is now. We don’t like that, especially in a John Wayne Jesus culture. We even sometimes try to cover it up by saying how strong and brave Jesus was. Maybe he was. But it’s interesting that the gospel writers never point this out. And that’s certainly not how it looked. It looked like Jesus was the weak, passive, shameful recipient of the power of the Roman state. As Isaiah says, “He did not open his mouth” (Isaiah 53:7). Human violence and evil are visited upon Christ. And he receives it. In this passivity (which is related to the word passion), Jesus absorbed human violence and evil into the abyss of his love, where it would drown into nothing. It is necessary. This is how God works. God is not the God of displays of power and violence, but the God whose love absorbs human power and violence.
For Jesus, the way of the cross – of humility, suffering, and death – is necessary. We don’t get to God by any other route. As it was with Peter, we get in the way when we try to think otherwise.
This is genuinely good news. We live in a world of heroism and retaliation. We don’t have to always be the hero. In fact, to not look the part of the hero might actually make us look more like Jesus. And to retaliate is not like Jesus at all. It's only to look like the violence of the world, taking justice into our own sinful hands. There’s another way, if we’re willing. Only in this way will we truly know Jesus.
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For reflection:
- Read Isaiah 53:1-12.
- What ideas of Jesus do you have that don’t include suffering? When you think of Jesus do you object to the idea that he was passive? Why?
- For those with kids: What do you think it means to suffer? It means to go through hard things that are not pleasant. How do you think Jesus makes us more like Him when we have to go through hard, unpleasant things? Even though we don’t like them, we have to rely more on Him to get through them.
Prayer:
God of suffering, we often want to worship a God of power. By your Spirit, open our eyes to the way Jesus who suffers reveals who God truly is, so that we might also become like you. Amen.
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