LIFE IS A JOURNEY , and it seems we may never know how many steps it takes to get where we are going. The beginning of it produces anxiety, for we don’t know the outcome—and we want to. Nevertheless, we must start, for, as an ancient philosopher said, *“A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.” A more modern one cautions, however, that **“The first step we make in this world, is the one on which depends the rest of your days.” In our youth, we struggle to get started on our journey; in our old age, we often ruminate on our mis-steps. In between, during our ‘mature’ hurried pace through life, we seldom pause to reflect on either the beginning, or the end.
Jesus had known his mission, likely not in full, from age 12, when he is last seen to us in his youth. His parents, missing him from the caravan returning home from Passover in Jerusalem, went back and found him in dialogue with priests in the temple. “Didn’t you know I had to be in my Father’s house?” (Luke 2:49) Certainly, he knew in full by the time, as a mature man, he walked down the banks of the Jordan for a heaven-filled power engagement with John the Baptist. “When all the people were being baptized, Jesus was baptized too. And as he was praying, heaven was opened and the Holy Spirit descended on him in bodily form like a dove. And a voice came from heaven: ‘You are my Son, whom I love; with you I am well pleased.’” (Luke 3:21-22) From then on, every footstep was dedicated to the looming summons to the Via Dolorosa, Golgotha, and the cross.
Jesus knew that his disciples would need to be prepared for a shocking outcome of his mission, his crucifixion. They were taking these same steps with him towards this crisis. So he “began to explain to his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem and suffer many things and that he must be killed and on the third day be raised to life. Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him. ‘Never, Lord!’ he said. ‘This shall never happen to you!’ Jesus turned and said to Peter, ‘Get behind me, Satan! You are a stumbling block to me; you do not have in mind the things of God, but the things of men.’” (Matt. 16:23)
Peter had, in his characteristic bumbling but well-meant manner, inserted himself between Jesus and his mission, and Jesus severely rebuked hi., ‘Get behind me, Satan!’ Jesus didn’t walk around Peter, he walked over him. Nothing is recorded about Peter’s reaction, but he must have been deeply stung; he was one of Jesus’ earliest followers, a champion for his every cause, a leader in the movement, and he loved Jesus. All he was trying to do was protect him. This is a private encounter, and Peter has not lost face with his peers, but it must have keenly hurt. We picture him moving away from Jesus, but not far; the relationship is too commanding for him. Perhaps he moves to the outer fringe of Jesus’ traveling retinue, there to try to emotionally heal. It would only be the natural thing to do.
How often we have all misunderstood the mission, and similarly been rebuked, “because the Lord disciplines those he loves, and he punishes everyone he accepts as a son.” (Heb. 12:6) There is benefit in this for us: “No discipline seems pleasant at the time, but painful. Later on, however, it produces a harvest of righteousness and peace for those who have been trained by it.” (Heb. 12:11) Becoming Christ-followers summons us to our own Via Dolorosa and the not-to-be-avoided subsequent cross. “Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. For whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me will find it.” (Matt. 16:24-25)
As we encounter our trials, God is in the process of transforming our minds (cf. Rom. 12:2), and we are moving from the temperament of the natural man to the disposition of the spiritual man. Through painful and challenging circumstances, we are developing “the mind of Christ” (1 Cor. 2:16b), and in the process, we no longer see or judge things in the same way—that’s just not possible any longer, for we have walked with Jesus. “The person with the Spirit makes judgments about all things.” (2 Cor. 15) And because we understand life differently now, “we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day. For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. So, we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.” (2 Cor. 4 16-18)
Our day-to-day walk happens in the midst of a lifetime of steps, each one of which has the potential to radically alter our destination. Yet another philosopher says,
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