The Letdown

Matthew 16:21-23, 24-28

Peter’s Letdown

Identity and Letdown

Then Jesus went to work on his disciples.  “Anyone who intends to come with me has to let me lead.  You’re not in the driver’s seat; I am.  Don’t run from suffering; embrace it. Follow me and I’ll show you how. Self-help is no help at all. Self-sacrifice is the way, my way, to finding yourself, your true self.”  (The Message)

“The cross is laid on every Christian.  The first Christ-suffering which every man must experience is the call to abandon the attachments of this world.  It is that dying of the old man which is the result of his encounter with Christ.  As we embark upon discipleship, we surrender ourselves to Christ in union with His death—we give over our lives to death.  Thus it begins; the cross is not the terrible end to an otherwise god-fearing and happy life, but it meets us at the beginning of our communion with Christ.  When Christ calls a man, He bids him come and die.  It may be a death like that of the first disciples who had to leave home and work to follow Him, or it may be a death like Luther’s, who had to leave the monastery and go out into the world.  But it is the same death every time—death in Jesus Christ, the death of the old man at his call.”  — Dietrich Bonhoeffer