CHANGE OF PLANS

In the gospel for Sunday, August 30, we see Jesus and his disciples on their way up to Jerusalem. The apostles are expecting that the journey will end with Jesus, the Messiah, being anointed as king.  

But Jesus did not come to fulfill human expectations or achieve worldly triumph.

"Get thee behind me, Satan!"

And He reveals what is actually going to happen to Him in Jerusalem. So Peter’s demand that Jesus avoid going up there to undergo such an unexpected and terrible fate is an obstacle on the way to the cross, the cross that Jesus knows He must accept. So Jesus turns and tells the disciples that they must let go of their dreams of Messianic grandeur, deny their ambitions, and prepare instead to carry their crosses. They must be willing, in fact, to give their very lives for his sake! 

They must exchange their own wills for the Father’s will just as He Himself will do in the garden of Gethsemane, and as He had taught them to pray “thy will be done.”

Paul will one day write to the Romans “offer your bodies as a living sacrifice,“ in imitation of Jesus, who was following God‘s will.
This is what Jesus continues to call his disciples to do today.

It seems that He had a pretty good idea of His Father’s will for Him. But you and I have to rely on the Holy Spirit to help us discern what is “good and pleasing to God.” (Romans, 12:1).
One good way to start our discernment might be to meditate on what happens to the apostles on the way to Jerusalem and notice how they have to begin to let go of their own plans and their own vision of the future in order to follow Jesus completely. So we ask ourselves what we may need to sacrifice in order to follow Jesus and “to do what is good and pleasing to God?”

I believe it was C.S. Lewis who once wrote something like, “If you want to see God laugh, tell him your plans.“

Because discernment is not an easy task, the Lord sends us the gift of the Spirit. The Spirit of Wisdom. Actually, I doubt that Jesus laughs at us. I picture him smiling gently as he watches us as we try to let go of our dearest hopes and plans so we can take up our cross and walk with him up to Calvary. He knows very well, of course, that once we share with Him the temporary suffering of Good Friday, we will go on to share with Him the eternal Victory of Easter in heaven.