For most people walking the Christian path there comes a time when we get disappointed or angry, maybe even say to God or someone we associate with God, like a clergyperson, “Hey, this is not what I signed on for.” It can happen when someone we love dies, or a relationship ends, or trust is broken, or we become ill or vulnerable in some way. Sometimes we even take a hike away from everything we connect with God. Those hikes can last days or decades.
For Peter that point came when he heard Jesus talk about the suffering ahead for him:
Then he began to teach them that the Son of Man must undergo great suffering, and be rejected by the elders, the chief priests, and the scribes, and be killed, and after three days rise again. He said all this quite openly. And Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him. (Here is Sunday's gospel)
“This will never happen to you!” Peter says. “How could it? You’re the most powerful person we’ve ever seen. I’ve just said that I believe you are the Son of God, the Messiah himself! How could the Son of God be killed?”
Though insubordinate, Peter’s rebuke is incredibly faithful. Our disappointment when we feel God has let us down is a measure of our faith; if we didn’t believe in God’s power and love, we wouldn’t be disappointed, right? Yet these letdowns offer an invitation to grow in our faith, to separate out the promises we think God made from the ones God really has made. My friend Peter calls these the “contracts” we think we have with God – such as, “I will serve you, and nobody I love will get hurt.” Only God never signed those contracts.
So what promises of God can we count on in this life? I count at least three P’s - Peace, Presence, Power.
Peace: “My peace I leave you, my peace I give you,” Jesus said to his followers. Paul reminds us, “Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, make your requests known to God, and the peace of Christ, which defies understanding, will guard your mind and your thoughts in Christ Jesus.” (That's from memory, but it’s pretty close.) God never promised to change our circumstances but gives us peace within them…and sometimes that’s enough to change them.
Presence: “Lo, I am with you always,” Jesus said before ascending into heaven. “Even unto the end of the ages.” Hebrews quotes him as saying, “I will never leave you or forsake you.” That’s a promise we can live on, as his presence is not only with us but in us through his Holy Spirit, that living water that wells up within us to eternal life.
Power: “I have given you authority to… overcome all the power of the enemy,” Jesus said as he sent out 72 followers to proclaim the Good News and heal the sick. Paul reminded the Corinthians that, “My message and my preaching were not with wise and persuasive words, but with a demonstration of the Spirit’s power, so that your faith might not rest on human wisdom, but on God’s power.”
Human wisdom and human strength and human vision will only get us so far. We have been given the gift of divine wisdom, divine strength, the eyes of God to see a reality that to the world does not appear to exist. We live already that eternal Life that transcends life. As we learn to rely more and more on these promises of God, we can find disappointment transformed to hope we did not dream possible.
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