This past Sunday we had to cheer a little bit for Peter.  Peter finally understood  and professed in faith who Jesus truly is, the Son of God and the Messiah.  Peter threw a touchdown, he kicked a last minute field goal, he won the game, he earned himself, not a game ball, but a set of keys, keys to the Kingdom of heaven.  For a minute Peter was a hero in faith.  However, like so often happens, one can be the hero one moment and the goat the next.  On the very next play from scrimmage, Peter fumbles the ball in a big way.  He’s not quite ready for prime time yet.  Peter knows something about Jesus, something that no one else has been able to see or understand, that Jesus is intimately related to God as God’s Son.  Really it was just a matter of doing the math, adding up things and paying attention to what Jesus was doing, healing, preaching, driving out demons, and raising the dead.  Obviously there was more to Jesus than meets the eye.  Peter makes a good call and gets the job as the starting quarterback for the Church.  However, we see today that Peter does not yet know the game plan.  He’s thinking one way and God, the offensive coordinator, is thinking another way.  Jesus chides Peter, “You are thinking not as God does, but as human beings do.”  Peter doesn’t yet see the big picture.  Peter knows something about Jesus, something pretty important, but he doesn’t yet know everything.  He is still a rookie that can make rookie mistakes.

     We can’t fault Peter too much.  The cross is not an easy play to understand.  The whole world shies away from personal suffering.  Suffering is something to be avoided at all costs.  Chiara Lubich sympathizes with Peter, “And perhaps the mistake lies in the fact that love is not understood in this world.  Love is the finest of words, but it is also the most misused and debased.  It is the essence of God, the life itself of the children of God, the breath of the Christian.  Yet this word has been taken over by the world.  It is on the lips of those who have no right to it.  But the love that is not understood is Love itself – the fact that God who made us, who came on earth as a man among men and women, lived with us and allowed himself to be nailed to a cross in order to save us.  This love is too high and beautiful, too divine and too far above our human loves, too blood-stained and painful to be understood by us.”  The cross is for Christians a symbol of love and life and the victory of love and life over sin and death.  It is on the cross  that we see Love revealed, a love unto the end, an eternal love, a divine love, a love that is Jesus.  It is in the cross that we see the new tree of life revealed for the world and Life itself is the fruit of this tree that gives eternal life to those who are willing to eat of it.

     Peter recognizes and professes Jesus as the Son of God and the Messiah but he must also come to know Jesus as Love, as Life, as Truth, as the Way and as the Resurrection.  Love is perfected in our laying down our lives for others.  What does it profit someone to gain the whole world, to be successful in the eyes of the world, if he loses his life in the process, if he ultimately fails to win the big game?  The game plan of Christian discipleship is the cross.  If one wishes to follow Jesus then one must be willing to take up the cross and accept the sufferings of this life.  The world tries to avoid suffering by running away from the cross and fleeing into the world’s pleasures, fame, power, and recognition.  But the cross always stands at the center of human life and only in embracing this cross will one find true peace, blessing and fulfillment in life and glory in the life to come.  The cross doesn’t seem like a winning proposition, suffering doesn’t seem to be a way to salvation, and so one must trust in God and in His will and abandon themselves to the suffering of the cross each and every day.

     Peter eventually will learn the value of taking one for the team and will find his way to the cross.  He will lay down his life in love for the Lord and will win the prize of eternal life.  Are we ready and prepared to follow in his footsteps and accept the crosses that the Lord lays at our feet?  Only in this way will we be prepared to receive the reward of eternal life that Jesus will one day present to the victors in the game of life.  Only by carrying the cross across the final goal line of life will we ultimately secure the victory we seek.