When Peter saw him, he said to Jesus, “Lord, what about him?”
What happens to us when we learn that we are going to have to face a challenge, or discover that the specific way in which Jesus will call us to carry our own cross? Often we start to compare ourselves with others who appear to have it easier, and seem to have been given a path we would prefer to the path prepared for us.
Parents may look longingly at the peace and quiet of the cloister. Those in the cloister may long for the more intimate relationships of family life. Priests might wish they didn't have a business and the expectations of so many different people to manage. Couples might wish that had more freedom to do what they wanted as individuals without always living in compromise with their partners. All of us tend to see the grass as greener somewhere else at times. All of us occasionally ask, "Lord, what about him, or her, or them?"
Jesus said to him, “What if I want him to remain until I come?
Even if John would not have to walk the martyr's path as did Peter nevertheless he would not escape the need to grow in the same holiness, to carry his cross and die to self. Perhaps he had already progressed further, being present as he was at the cross of Christ. But one thing is certain, he too needed the holiness without which no one can see God (see Hebrews 12:14). He died with Christ in baptism and was not exempted from the need to allow that reality to be manifest in and transform his life.
Everyone faces challenges that are specially designed for them as individuals. But the point for Peter was not so much to take solace in the fact that John wasn't getting off the hook. Peter was not going to be able to look at the path Jesus had planned for John and understand how it was fair. He needed to trust that what Jesus wanted was best and keep his gaze forward, fixed on the mission.
What concern is it of yours?
You follow me.
Jesus says this same thing to us when we start asking about the paths of others we would prefer, the lives we would rather live, the vocations that seem preferable to our own. He tells us that all such comparisons are only going to confuse and upset us, and most consequentially, distract us from embracing the path he has planned for us. When we are tempted to look back, to look to the left or the right, we need to hear Jesus telling us, "Eyes forward. Follow me."
looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith (see Hebrews 12:2).
Jesus himself embraced a path harder than any we will be called to walk, bearing as he did the sins of all the world. Because we are united to him, and because he shares our own yoke, we can walk any path without fear if only we learn to trust him and to rely on his help. This trust was why Paul would not stop speaking his message, no matter the consequences that he knew were all too likely.
This is the reason, then, I have requested to see you
and to speak with you, for it is on account of the hope of Israel
that I wear these chains.”
We too share the hope of Israel, the promise of the Kingdom of God in which we already live by faith, under the Lordship of the messiah and king, Jesus Christ himself. It is to this hope in our king that we should look when we temptations draw us away from the call to follow him.
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