Fr. Michael Williams

The advertising industry is one of the biggest industries in Britain today. Companies advertise their products by making them appear attractive to the public. Millions of pounds is spent every year on advertising, to try and enhance the image of someone or some product. Image is very important in today’s society; and that is why advertisers put so much effort into putting across the best image possible. Advertisers normally say, that if you buy their product, everything will be wonderful.

In today’s gospel Jesus advertises His Way ‘to the people and his disciples’. The values of Christ and the values of the advertising world are not the same however. No advertising company would promote what Christ promotes. Christ does not say, ‘If you believe in me and what I am saying everything will be wonderful for you’. Rather, Christ says, ‘If anyone wants to be a follower of mine, let him renounce himself and take up his cross and follow me”. Following Christ’s Way, in an authentic manner, will involve great effort and commitment. At times it will involve suffering. Think of the Christians who suffer for being Christian in countries such as Sudan, Pakistan, Indonesia. And in our own country, if you speak up for Christian values, you will be attacked by the forces of political correctness.

Jesus, as our leader and guide, suffered when He walked in this world. He knew that was inevitable, because His values and the values of the world, are at odds with each other. That’s why He could confidently say, ‘the Son of Man was destined to suffer grievously…and to be put to death’.

The way that Jesus walked was the way He expected His followers to walk. At various times during His life on earth, the very proficient advertising expert known as Satan, tries to persuade Jesus to follow his way, which is the way of the world. Remember in the desert Satan offers Jesus many attractive temptations, but Jesus sees through their hollowness. In today’s gospel, Satan speaking through Peter, tries to dissuade Jesus from walking the way of the cross. But Jesus rebukes this temptation, ‘because the way you think is not God’s way, but man’s way’. And when Jesus is dying on the cross the final temptation from Satan comes along, through the voices of the chief priests, ‘Let the Christ come down from the cross, that we may see and believe’. Again Jesus rejects this scheme of the devil.

Christ’s ways and the world’s ways, are very different. The Lord, speaking through the prophet Isaiah says, ‘For my thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways my ways, says the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts’ (Is 55.8-9).

Peter struggled to accept Jesus’ teaching on suffering, as we all do at times. Nevertheless, it was a lesson Peter would eventually learn, as he suffered a painful death on the Vatican Hill in Rome. Being a Christian is to learn to accept the cross in our lives, whatever form it takes, knowing that God is with us.

And God will lead us through the cross, into eternal life. As Jesus says, “For anyone who wants to save his life will lose it; but anyone who loses his life for my sake, and for the sake of the gospel, will save it’.