Jesus Speaks about His Sufferings and Death. ( Matthew 16:21-28)

"I must go to Jerusalem and suffer much from the elders, the chief priests and the teachers of the Law. I will be put to death, but three days later I will be raised to life."

Jerusalem, was the center of worship for the Jewish people. In the majestic Temple of Jerusalem, different sacrifices were offered to God, of which the Passover sacrifice was the main one.

"On the day you present the offering of grain, also sacrifice as burnt offering a one-year-old male lamb that has no defeats". (Leviticus 23:12)

"Take your son," God said to Abraham, "your only son, Isaac, whom you love so much, and go to the land of Moriah. There on the mountain that I will show you, offer as a sacrifice to me." (Genesis 22:2)

He obeyed every words of the Lord, and prepared for the sacrifice of his son, Isaac, but the angel of the Lord held his knife back. Instead a ram, which was caught by its horns, became the victim of the sacrifice. Even though Isaac, was spared, yet God, through Abraham's obedience, accept the ram, as though it was Isaac himself. This sacrifice was offered for the sins of Isaac and all his ancestors.

Jesus came into this world to perfect the sacrifice the Jewish people had all those while offered to God. He was the fulfillment of all the past sacrifices. God was never truly pleased with the offering of animals or foods, but good only before the coming of Jesus Christ, the unblemished Lamb of God. Jesus Christ took the place, of all the sinners of the world and especially the Chosen Jewish people. Sinners, deserved to be condemned to death, for daringly offend, the Almighty God, through self-proclaimed independent from God. Man wanted to live a life apart from God. Stole and destroy what God had created. This sin enslaved them to live a life of falsehood and man chose God's creation and gift as their god. Some even went to the extend of blindly, embracing the Devil as their god.

This sin was so great, God was greatly hurt and angered. God punished the world, by sending flood as great as, what happened during Noah's time, to cleanse the world of sin and the spiritually death were destroyed.

When the time came, for God to be incarnated, in the holy womb of Blessed Virgin Mary, God took flesh, through the Holy Spirit.

God then journeyed with Man, in Jesus Christ. Yet Jesus Christ was only a human being. He had to learn through all His human sufferings and trials, to be obedience and fully trust in God.

After attending perfection, He became the 'unblemished, one year old lamb', ready for the sacrifice, in order to atone for the sins of the whole world.

All this had to happen, in Jerusalem.

Jesus foretold this terrifying events in order to prepare the future Head of the Apostle, Peter, so that when this happened he may believed and not shaken. A proof that, Jesus charted His own life and destiny.

Jesus assured Peter, that they must not be discouraged and despaired, because He would rise again on the third day.

Peter took Him aside and began to rebuke Him. 'God forbid it, Lord!' he said. 'That must never happen to you!'

Peter, like the rest of Jesus' disciples, had a vision of Jesus as political hero, to restore the pride and sovereignty of the land and people of Israel.

This to them, had not even started, yet Jesus decided to end His life, too soon, in Jerusalem.

Surely to Peter, God stood for His Chosen People, and if Jesus was the Messiah, and Anointed One of God, He must not take His life, before the Jewish hope was accomplished.

Jesus turned around and said to Peter, "Get away from Me, Satan! You are an obstacle in my way, because these thoughts of yours don't come from God, but from man."

Did Jesus really mean that Peter, had Satan dwelling inside of him?

We are all tainted with impurity and sin, whether that comes from our human nature as descendents of our sinful parents, Adam and Eve, or our personal sins.

Sins were work of the Devil, which involved our freedom, of which we yield to the Devil, instead of God. That is Satan, within us. The words that came out of Peter, were indeed, out of his ignorant and fruits of deceit of Satan. If Peter, was under the influence of the Holy Spirit, through his submission, he would have known the plan and will of God, in Jesus Christ.

Peter was blinded, by reason of his physical sight, witnessing all those human sufferings and slavery, under the rule of foreigners, the Roman. Peter, together with the other disciples of Jesus and as a whole the Jewish people wanted freedom from the Roman rule. They could not understand and accept that Jesus comes to save the souls and emphasizes on spiritual deliverance from Satan and Sin.

Let's bring this to our present scenario! We witness, plenty of human injustice, enslavement, discrimination, physical, spiritual and mental torments and hardship. Unending wars, natural and man-made disasters, man manipulation of God's gift of wisdom of mind, in order to act and play god, by going overboard, their responsibility and step into the boundary of God. They meddle, with lives and all that are sacred, which only God has its right In search of peace, love and joy, apart from God. As a whole Man tried to claim the rented earth as their own, revoked its leasehold agreement. Tried to implement its own set of laws and rules for man-made righteous living. Peace, without God is absurd and outright impossible. For the source of all Goodness comes from God alone, of which human beings, untainted nature that is still alive, work toward achieving, the will of God.

If human concept of peace is successful, there bound to be pride and later, injustice, of which the one who succeeded would claim supremacy, thus caused domination, in future decision making.

The words that we utter, can be the words of God, Satan or the tainted words of worldly wisdom, knowledge and understanding.

Whereas the words of Peter, were words of human impurity.

Then Jesus said to His disciples, "If anyone wants to come with me, he must forget himself, carry his cross, and follow me. For whoever wants to save his own lives will lose it; but whoever loses his own life for my sake will find it.

True followers of Jesus must put all material needs, aside and seek for spiritual riches, in heaven.

This is not an easy task, of which Jesus knew it through and through. He was not angered, by the words of Peter, but He expected him to say thus.

Forgetting oneself and remembering, only of God and His will, is very harsh, towards our human sinful nature.

We would have to yield to God the Father, and allow His Divine Providence to take effect in our lives. After experiencing His generous Providence, we would gain greater faith, to surge further, trusting and obeying His Words and working towards fulfilling His will. If we are blessed, and on the journey to experience all these, we indeed, are on the pathway toward sainthood, even in this physical world. What a privilege! What a blessing!

'Carry his cross!' We are sinners and in our sinful nature, we are bound to face obstruction to God's perfect goodness of health, body and soul, etc.

Therefore we need to accept the outcome of our personal and Original sins. Embracing suffering, for our personal redemption and for the salvation of others, whom we prayed for, etc.

'Whoever wants to save his own lives would lose it!'

Fearing of sacrificing our time, energy and wealth, for the service of God, would find themselves spiritually poor in the Kingdom of God. For through our detachment and surrendering of what we had, especially excessiveness, would amount to our purchase of heavenly wealth.

Reluctant and fear to put ourselves in those poor people's feet, would deemed as truly poor in the next world.

Reluctant and fear to suffer and sacrifice for those in need, would bring us to eternal suffering in the spiritual world.

Reluctant to clothe the naked, would number us as one of the spiritual naked.

Reluctant to visit the prisoner and those in bondage, God would count us unworthy to be set free from the devil's bondage.

Reluctant to give drink to the thirsty, would find oneself, spiritual thirsty, yet no thirst quencher, would be given.

Reluctant to give food to the hungry, would later find ourselves spiritual hungry, yet no spiritual food would be given.

'Whoever loses his own life for my sake will find it!'

For the sake of God, whatever we had sacrificed, would be paid in full and much more.

If we had to be martyrs, for God, we would gain the fullness of life in the next world.

Will a person gain anything if he wins the whole world but loses his life?

Of course not! There is nothing he can give to regain his life.

The final verdict, would happened, even during Particular Judgement, when a person had to return the temporary wealth, which was the culprit for our own destruction, back to the earth. None, we can take to the next world. They were useless trash, like valueless assets. When a country was captured and defeated, into the hand of another, the original currency of the defeated country was replaced with the Victor's currency. How much a person owns, would still be valueless.

When we leave for the next world, none of which we acquired, is of benefit, to us, accept what is of spiritual value.

So, if we struggle through, until death, in gaining worldly riches and completely neglect the cry of the souls for essential food and drink, we would had done great injustice to our very lives, which by itself its a gift from God. Therefore it is useless to talk about other justice and struggle.

For the Son of Man is about to come in the glory of His Father with His angels, and then He will reward each one according to his deeds.

I assure you that there are some here who will not die until they have seen the Son of Man come as King.

Jesus foretold His death, resurrection and His Second Coming. He even assured them that some of the disciples would even be able to live to see His Second Coming.

Why didn't Jesus fulfill His words, that He would come, before all the disciples were death?

Didn't Jesus know the day and hour of His coming?

Why was He delaying His own return once again?

Jesus said, "Go throughout the whole world and preach the gospel to all mankind". (Mark 16:15)

Jesus told them, the time of His coming was determined by the Father, yet the sign of His imminent coming was that the gospel would have to be spread, through the whole world, but the Apostles had not succeeded, to fulfil that demand.

Did Jesus as God, who had access to the supreme knowledge of God knew when?

Is this the way, Jesus purposely made it a mystery?

We will never know, but we were absolutely sure, that the promise of the descend of the Holy Spirit was fulfilled.

In the time of the Apostles, till today and time to come, the Holy Spirit, is Jesus together with the Father, claiming sovereignty over the world, until the end of time.

We would not have to be over anxious to see His Second Coming, as the end of time for all individual, was the moment, we experience the reality of Jesus true presence in our very midst, at our death, if we had lived a life pleasing to God.

Praise the Lord. Amen

All who obstruct the plans of God by not allowing our loved ones to serve or sacrifice for God is nothing less but the work of Satan.

Peter of course had a great vision of physical deliverance. The Jews were oppressed under the rule of foreign power. They waited for the Messiah who would be like King David, very powerful with God given strength and blessings, they were talking about freedom from physical oppressions. During King David's time God allowed this to happen to show His love for them.

But when Jesus came, God wanted to bring the people to the final phase of deliverance. Once they emphasized in the physical things but now God is going to bring them to the highest of all, the Spirit in each one of us. He wants to be our souls' intimate companion and mate. He wants to remove all other forms of spirit that enslave and capture our souls into bondage. He wants to free us from the different oppressions of all other spirits.

'If anyone wants to be my disciples, he must deny himself, carry his cross and follow me.'

This is not an easy task but the greatest yet to be conquered. Christ had conquered and His Spirit is victorious and when we invite His victorious Spirit to come to us, He helps us to conquer as well, but we have hardened our hearts to allow God's Spirit freedom to move and mold us. The greatest obstacle is our deceived freewill which is blinded by the deceits of the devil, who uses the values of this world to take us away from God.

Denying ourselves means putting God first above all things. Visible and tangible treasures that are easily gained are tempting us away from God. We seek for pleasure, wealth, power, prestige, domination etc which we easily get from the world if we worship it.

During the temptations of Jesus, Satan said that if Jesus would bow down and worship him, the whole world would be His because the world is being leased to Satan temporarily. Those who yield to this temptation worship the devil who gives them temporary power, property etc but they have sold their souls to Satan and have no power to set themselves free. Satan enchains or enslaves them and molds them to their image and likeness. Images of rebellion, pride, anger, lust, envy, laziness, greed and fill them with all forms of anxiety, condemnation, accusation, etc. They caused humankind to be restless, despaired and hopelessness sipped in. These people would appeared quite lifeless, depressed, weak and unexplained psychological sickness, poor appetite, emotionally unstable, etc.

No one is spared from the waiting of Jesus' return, not even the disciples. It was about two thousand years ago and we are still waiting for His Second Coming.

Indeed Jesus had come when the Holy Spirit descended on all believers and especially His Apostles. The Holy Spirit is molding, purifying, sanctifying and giving us faith, hope and love, to shape us into the people of Heaven. He is right here in our midst, inside each and every one's heart. Do not let flesh enslave the Spirit of God in us. Do not feed our precious soul with useless trash but with the Holy Spirit. Let Him who is Jesus Christ and the Father lead, guide and transform us to God's image and likeness.

Where our heart is there our soul and mind shall be.

When we are in this world set our hearts on God alone, even when we have not experienced God. So when we die we will be able to see Him and graciously journey towards Heaven. There will be remorse, regret, pain and suffering to think how much we offended and hurt God, how we had not appreciated His love for us, our spiritual sight will be completely open and we shall have the vision of God.

Those who let the Holy Spirit control their lives on earth would have experienced in different way, this wonderful, awesome phenomenon on earth. We are just waiting to see the Lord God in His full glory and waiting for God to allow us into His house. We have experienced His wonderful power and love. Whatever impurities still remain will be washed clean by the Blood of Christ, like taking the final bath before entering the Kingdom of Heaven.

Praise the Lord. Amen.

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