Mark and Matthew accompany the great insight of Peter’s declaration that Jesus is the Christ with his subsequent rejection of the notion that Jesus must also suffer and die. However, here in the Gospel of Luke we find that the Apostle Peter does not contradict the declaration by Jesus that he is destined to suffer grievously. What happens instead is that Luke moves quickly on to his account of the Transfiguration, something which occurred eight days later. Sometimes you can emphasise something by not mentioning it. I think that this is what is happening here. Jesus provokes the situation by asking his disciples who other people think he is and then more directly who they themselves actually think he is. It is then that Peter blurts out his declaration that Jesus is the Messiah. This is followed by Jesus informing them that he will have to suffer and die and rise again.
He then tells the disciples that if they want to be a follower of his they will have to take up their Cross daily. He says that those who want to save their life will lose it but those who lose it will save it for eternal life. Then after a few more phrases in the same vein the section ends and we jump forward after a break of over a week to the Transfiguration. Luke does not give the response of Peter or any of the other disciples to these very shocking statements by Jesus about his passion. There is no protest from any of them, just silence. But what a loud silence this is! Nothing is said but surely a great deal of thinking is going on. As we have seen Luke actually gives us a gap of eight days before the mysterious events of the Transfiguration which in any case were only for an inner group of disciples. But I think that this gap of eight days is very significant. The disciples are given eight days to think about these statements made by Jesus. They are given a good deal of time to mull over what he has said before the action moves forward. Of course some of the disciples might simply put these notions of suffering right out of their heads since they seem so alien to everything they have been doing for the last few years. They might blot them out and refuse to think about them at all.
Remember that everything that they observed Jesus do up to that point was life giving; his teaching was life giving and so were his healings and most of all the occasions on which he raised people from the dead. So here him talking about suffering and death would have sounded rather jarring and out of character and we realise that it would be easy for them to simply dismiss the thought altogether. However, during these eight days some others of the disciples might have realised that Jesus’ provocation of the Scribes and Pharisees had by this time already brought him some significant opposition and that these groups were wily enough to have him arrested and tried on trumped up charges. Maybe some disciples had these thoughts, but they don’t express them. Jesus seemingly says nothing during these days. There is a lull before the very significant events on Mount Tabor when he was Transfigured. The disciples are left with their thoughts, their musings on what Jesus meant by this prophecy. Maybe they put his words out of their heads, maybe they think about them, perhaps some talk to each other asking what Jesus actually meant; but whatever they do they say nothing. We Catholics regard this statement of Peter that Jesus is the Christ as most significant. For us it underlines Peter’s importance and builds on the statement of Jesus that Peter is the rock on which the Church would be built. Of course that particular text comes from Matthew and not Luke but our tendency is always to conflate the various Gospel accounts and in any case there is ample evidence in the Gospel of Luke of the central role that Jesus cast Peter in. This powerful testimony about the identity of Jesus invites us to ask ourselves the central question of Christianity namely who we think Christ is.
We could regard him as a good man who performed miracles and gave us inspirational teachings, but if we are to follow the example of Peter we have to say that he is the Christ, the Messiah, the one who was foretold. Of course, most of us go one stage further even and declare that he is our Saviour, that he is the Son of God and the Second Person of the Blessed Trinity. It is on this declaration of faith that the rest of our Christian beliefs hang. By professing this truth we therefore declare our belief in the authenticity of his teaching and accept that the code of morality he proposes is the only true basis for an authentic way of life. Logically this means that we also accept what Jesus says in today’s Gospel extract that the only way of saving our life is to lose it. We accept that we must embrace our death so that through it we might find eternal life. This message of renunciation is at the very heart of the Gospel and the demand of Christ that we ought to take up the Cross each day is a challenge for us all. It means that we ought to place sacrifice at the very centre of our lives and that we should be living not for ourselves but for others. The challenge for the disciples is that same challenge that faces us today. Those eight days of silence were surely very salutary days for the disciples as they thought quietly about the implications of being a follower of Jesus.
Only one of them would crack; only Judas would prove to weaken under the pressure of the expectations that Christ laid upon his close followers. The others all found it within themselves to keep faith with him and to embrace the consequences of their commitment to Christ. And this is what faces us. We might feel we need more than eight days to make up our minds. We might need eight years or perhaps even eighty years to decide to be a follower of Christ. But making up our minds is something that each one of us simply has to do; and not only to make up our minds but to live out the implications in the great and small things that we do each day. The challenge is laid before each one of us, but I firmly believe that our presence in this Church here today is the best indication that we have already accepted Christ’s teaching and want to do our very best to live up to the demands he places upon us.