Last week, in the Gospel reading, Jesus was baptized by John and a voice from heaven, the voice of God, declared that Jesus was "my Son, the Beloved''.
After this act of commitment and affirmation Jesus was driven by the Spirit into the wilderness to work out the implications of his revealed identity and how to live out that identity in accordance with God’s will.
Jesus deals with each of the temptations in turn and holds steadfastly to his commitment to do things God's way and not his own.
This week we see a similar pattern of events, this time involving the disciples of Jesus, especially Peter.
Peter has just made his memorable declaration that Jesus is the Messiah. His voice echoes the voice of God claiming Jesus as his Son, the Beloved.
Jesus now tries to teach the disciples what he understands the role of the Messiah to be: a painful understanding reached through hardship in …show more content…
And I reckon we can accept nothing less.
Jesus says, "If any want to become my followers let them deny themselves, take up their cross and follow me:'
Especially in Lent we perhaps tend to think that "denying ourselves" is something to do with giving up things we enjoy, be it wine, chocolates, music, dancing or television.
Or we might even think of it as some kind of punishment for our sins. But perhaps there's a different way of understanding it.
We don't know what form "Satan'' took when Jesus was in the wilderness, but it clearly was something Jesus recognized as being in opposition to God.
In our Gospel reading it's the voice of Peter that tries to pull Jesus away from his intended path.
Now Jesus is saying to those around him, and to us, that if we're serious about following him we are going to have to resist our own inner voice which tries to distract us.
And that won't be easy.
Our own inner demons know only too well where our particular weaknesses lie and they may have nothing to do with chocolate, wine or
After this act of commitment and affirmation Jesus was driven by the Spirit into the wilderness to work out the implications of his revealed identity and how to live out that identity in accordance with God’s will.
Jesus deals with each of the temptations in turn and holds steadfastly to his commitment to do things God's way and not his own.
This week we see a similar pattern of events, this time involving the disciples of Jesus, especially Peter.
Peter has just made his memorable declaration that Jesus is the Messiah. His voice echoes the voice of God claiming Jesus as his Son, the Beloved.
Jesus now tries to teach the disciples what he understands the role of the Messiah to be: a painful understanding reached through hardship in …show more content…
And I reckon we can accept nothing less.
Jesus says, "If any want to become my followers let them deny themselves, take up their cross and follow me:'
Especially in Lent we perhaps tend to think that "denying ourselves" is something to do with giving up things we enjoy, be it wine, chocolates, music, dancing or television.
Or we might even think of it as some kind of punishment for our sins. But perhaps there's a different way of understanding it.
We don't know what form "Satan'' took when Jesus was in the wilderness, but it clearly was something Jesus recognized as being in opposition to God.
In our Gospel reading it's the voice of Peter that tries to pull Jesus away from his intended path.
Now Jesus is saying to those around him, and to us, that if we're serious about following him we are going to have to resist our own inner voice which tries to distract us.
And that won't be easy.
Our own inner demons know only too well where our particular weaknesses lie and they may have nothing to do with chocolate, wine or