Death as a Pathway To Life

Pain stays pain until it becomes purpose.

Today is Thursday, which, for me, means the end of the work week. This also means my busiest day, finalizing sermons, grading papers for a class I’m helping with at my seminary, finishing up an assignment in Hebrew, and ensuring all our teams are ready for the weekend service. This morning, I decided to work from a local coffee shop. There’s something about being around all the people you hope to communicate to/on behalf of that gives all the “work” some perspective—it moves you from concept to tangibility.

This seemed like a great decision until I got on I-20 in Columbia, SC, and was caught in the chaos—I mean, blessing—of a traffic jam. I don’t know about you, but my most significant “thinking” comes when I have a moment of nothing. I’ve solved some of the world’s most pressing matters in the shower. However, driving provides extended moments of nothing that can, if seen correctly, offer life’s most transformative milestones.

One of those milestones happened today: While sitting in traffic, listening to a new audiobook I rented from our local library, I started to think about Peter (previously Simon). Simon was a pretty ordinary guy. He was a fisherman and seemed content selling his daily catch, which would have potentially been a lucrative business in the first century.

Yet one day, in the middle of a typical fishing trip, a man Simon had never met asks Simon to “follow [him].” This man, of course, was/is Jesus. The question I pondered this morning while trying to keep everyone from merging into my lane (don’t act like you’d let everyone over with a smile) was, why Simon? What about Simon caused Jesus to want Simon to follow him and ultimately become the leader of his new movement? He was just a fisherman.

As you flip through the pages of the gospels, you see Simon as one who constantly misunderstood what Jesus taught, was quick to react to things (usually wrongly), was scared, impatient, angry, and ultimately denied that he even knew Jesus. Jesus, at one point, calls him Satan, though it was more tongue-in-cheek than anything.

Yet, Jesus renamed him Peter, which means rock, and declared that he would build his church on this rock. Without getting too deep into all the possibilities Greek opens up for translating and understanding the “rock” he would build his church on, Peter was declared the leader of the church of Jesus Christ.

Again, I have to ask why Peter?

Maybe the better question is, why not Peter?

The part I couldn’t move on from—the so-called transformative milestone I talked about at the beginning—concentrated on Jesus's death and resurrection in the midst of what was happening in Peter.

Not only did Jesus choose Peter despite what he knew to be true about his future, but Jesus chose his own death, knowing he would rise again. Resurrection wasn’t a surprise to Jesus. John’s gospel says,

“For this reason the Father loves me, because I lay down my life in order to take it up again. No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord. I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it up again. I have received this command from my Father.”

John 10:17-18 NRSV

Jesus laid his life down SO THAT he could take it up again (resurrection). The very purpose of the cross was so that he could be raised. The very purpose of death was life.

While Peter denies ever knowing the man named Jesus, Jesus accepts his denial and gives him life in return.

This leads me to the point: Pain (death) remains pain until it becomes purpose (life).

God’s desire is not for us to simply go through pain. Jesus didn’t desire to die the death that awaited him. Before he was arrested, Jesus went to a garden to pray that the cup [of death] he was about to drink would pass from him. He wondered if there was any other way to accomplish life, eternal.

Yet, for the joy set before him, he endured the cross. He endured the pain because he knew that pain was the seed for the purpose set before him.

God doesn’t desire to send us through pain, but he does want the pain we inevitably experience in a world caught between the already/not yet to produce purpose.

So many of us get stuck in pain. We spend years holding seeds (pain) without knowing what to do with them. Jesus knows what to do with the seeds. Jesus longs to teach you how to plant the pain into the ground of your life-soil so that once the Holy Spirit tends it, it can grow into a harvest of purpose.

This brings me back to the question: Why not Peter? Peter is us. We doubt, get mad, jump to conclusions too soon, and even reject our connection to Christ when things get complicated. Jesus choosing Peter is a witness to his choice of us. He didn’t decide to build his church on the best of us, theologically. He chose to assemble his church on the least of us and cause the least of us to become the best of us.

Whatever pain you are carrying today, whatever the depth of that pain, don’t allow it to become a weight that holds you down; see that the pain has the purpose of making you who you could not be without the transformative power of resurrection life.

“In order to…” is a powerful group of words. I went through [blank] in order to make me [blank]. When you remove these connecting words, you’re left with a statement of pain from your past. When you allow Jesus to insert purpose, your past becomes the precursor of what awaits you.

Whatever happened to Peter? He became the leader of the church and was eventually martyred. According to church history, he was crucified in Rome but refused to be crucified the same way Jesus was. He believed he wasn’t worth the honor of dying the same way as his Savior. Therefore, according to tradition, he was crucified upside down. Peter, once a denier of Christ, ended his life for the sake of Christ. Pain became his purpose.

We know that all things work together for good for those who love God, who are called according to his purpose.

Romans 8:28 NRSV