Better would be shocked when he had time to consider what he had done. He had actually dared to rebuke his Master, and had even laid hands on Him as on a fellow fisherman that he thought was out of his mind.
An awed and deeply impressed group listened as Jesus for the first time clearly unfolded the law of the kingdom of heaven. Here is the real point of what it means to follow Him:
"Then Jesus said to His disciples, 'If anyone desires to come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me. For whoever desires to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it." (Matthew 16:24, 25)
It was as if He said, in effect: You are astonished that I, the Son of God, must go to my cross and die. Not only so, but you yourselves, if you will follow me, must each one surrender to die upon his cross with Me. We in this together, and the law of the cross is binding upon us all!
That "whoever" is all-inclusive
Neither God is excepted, nor man. In the distant ages of eternity before sin began, Father and Son clasped hands in a solemn agreement that if man should sin, the Father was to give His Son, and the Son to give Himself, that the universe might be saved from the ruin of self-seeking.
Further, in the end God would share His throne with all who would choose to share Christ's cross. For Him there must be a risking of everything in a dramatic expression of love, revealing depths and heights as yet undreamed of by sinless beings. God has His cross!
Whoever you are, if you follow Jesus, you have your cross. You need not be a priest, a monk, a clergyman, a missionary, or even a church officer or religious leader, in order to be included in the "whoever" who otherwise must lose his "life". The seed that would save its life will lose it; the seed that will die in the ground alone will bear much "fruit". Here, says Jesus, is the genius of principle on which my kingdom is founded.
It is no surprise that when sin challenged the government of God, it zeroed in to attack this principle of self-surrender at the cross. In the war that followed, divine love could find no other way to conquer than the way of the cross. Love chose it instinctively because it is its perfect expression. No other course could the Son of God have taken than to surrender to the cross.
Whenever genuine love (agape) meets the problem of sin, a cross is erected on which self is crucified. No other decision could the Father have made than to give His only-begotten Son, because He "so loved the world". In those dimly understood ages of eternity, the solemn agreement was entered into by the eternally pre-existent Christ that He should become the Lamb of God. Because His heart was the infinite reservoir of love itself, He chose that way. Thus He was "slain from the foundation of the world." (Revelation 13:8)
In whatever heart it enters today, divine love chooses alike when it meets the problem of sin. The principle of victory is the same whether it is the Creator wrestling with the problem, or you and me.
How the boy Jesus discovered the cross
The truth of the cross is beautifully illustrated in the experience of Jesus when He came to earth. Although He was fully man, "in all points tempted like as we are", yet His heart was without sin, and therefore pure. It thus remained-wonder of wonders!-the reservoir of love (agape). In that respect He differed from all other human beings who have been born into the world. He alone knew no sin, no surrender to egoism in any form although the temptation to se1f-indulgence was as real for Him as for us.
Yet we cannot suppose that any conscious memory of His pre-existence remained with Him in His earthly childhood. As a babe in His mother's arms in the stable at Bethlehem, He had no conscious intelligence beyond that of other human babies at birth. He could not acknowledge the adoration of the shepherds or the wise men from the I' last. As a child in Nazareth, did He entertain Joseph and Mary with tales of the glories of heaven which He knew in His pre-existence there? Like a fortunate child who has been to the "big city", did He tell his playmates in the rustic mountain village of His exploits as the Commander of the heavenly angels?
No; as a child, Jesus learned wisdom as we must learn. "The Child grew" and "increased in wisdom and stature" (Luke 2:40, 52). The wonder of Christ is the wonder of His birth, God in human flesh, subject to the laws of mental and physical growth as we are all subject to them, yet "without sin". Certainly He was not born with any miraculous memory of His divine pre-existence. All these divine advantages He laid aside.
The importance of the age of twelve
By the time a child reaches that age, very deep thoughts can course through his/her mind. Patterns of choice are being formed that determine the whole of afterlife.
Jesus was twelve when He first visited the national festival of His people known as the Passover. For the first time He looked upon the famed temple and watched the white-robed priests lay a bleeding sacrificial victim upon the altar. Alert and reverently inquisitive, His young mind sought the meaning of the strange symbolism of this offering of an innocent lamb. No one could tell Him what it meant, not even the priests themselves. The latter mouthed phrases and performed rituals the meaning of which they could not grasp. For four thousand years God's servants had offered the blood of beasts as an atonement for sin. To the Youth's inquiring "Why?" no one could give an answer, nor could anyone explain the mystery of blood sacrifice. Is it possible, wondered Jesus, for the "blood of bulls and goats" to take away sin?
A prayer offered in heaven is offered again on earth
Even as a child, Jesus must walk alone. He turned away from the idle chatter and frivolous play of His companions. Not even His earthly parents could help Him. Silent and alone, He pondered the sight of shed blood that had impressed Him so deeply. Paul tells us what happened in His mind as He came to realize that the blood of goats, calves, or lambs, could never atone for human sin. Not only in heaven before He came, but also as a youth on His knees, He gained an insight and formed the same heart commitment He had made in heaven:
"For this reason, when Christ was about to come into the world, He said to God: You do not want sacrifices and offerings, but you have prepared a body for me. You are not pleased with animals burned whole on the altar or with sacrifices to take away sins. Then I said: "Here I am, to do your will, O God." (Hebrews 10:5-7)
It was as if He prayed: Father, You have no need of all these rivers of beasts' blood! You have no delight in them because they cannot avail to wash away sin from even one human heart. But you have made me what I am-I have a body that I can give! I have blood that I can shed. Here I am, Father-let me be the Lamb of God! I will die for the sins of the world. My blood will be the atonement! I will be that "suffering servant" of Isaiah on whom the Lord has laid the iniquity of all. Let me be wounded for man's transgressions, bruised for his iniquities, that with my stripes he may be healed. Lo, I come-to do your will, O God!
Paul adds that Jesus took away the Old Testament typical offerings, and established instead the antitypical offering of Him:
"So God does away with all the old sacrifices and puts the sacrifice of Christ in their place. Because Jesus Christ did what God wanted Him to do, we are all purified from sin by the offering that He made of His own body once and for all." (Hebrews 10:9, 10)
A boy's love (agape) becomes profound
No memory of His pre-existence could interpret for Jesus the solemn meaning of that mysterious Passover service. He could not recall the fateful agreement with the eternal Father before the world was, when "the counsel of peace" was "between them both" (Zechariah 6:13), and the Son gave Himself to be the Lamb of God that takes away the sin of the world. His own pure mind, undefiled with sin, gradually discerned the import of what He saw.
It dawned upon Him that these lambs and sacrifices "cannot make him who performed the service perfect in regard to the conscience" (Hebrews 9:9), and that "the law, having a shadow of the good things to come, and not the very image of the things, can never with these same sacrifices, which they offer continually year by year, make those who approach perfect." (Hebrews 10:1).
This is all a type, He reasoned. Someone innocent, sinless, holy, and undefiled, must die as a Lamb of God if lost human hearts will ever be reached! The whole vain round of types and shadows must be dramatically brought to an end in the offering up of some divine sacrifice.
This was a conclusion that the wise men and priests of Israel in the course of millenniums had not discerned. But now, seeing for the first time what others had witnessed countless times "not discerning the Lord's body", this Boy of twelve understands. Through His youthful soul there surges the unresisted power of a mighty resolve. These poor souls, looking vainly to human efforts for salvation, must not be left mercilessly to what will prove at last only hopeless despair. He will sacrifice Himself. The Boy of twelve "saw it, and it displeased Him that there was no justice. He saw that there was no man, and wondered that there was no intercessor; therefore His own arm brought salvation for Him; and His own righteousness, it sustained Him" (Isaiah 59:15, 16). "Christ ... through the eternal Spirit offered Himself without spot to God." (Hebrews 9:14)
Behold the amazing work of love! He tabernacles in human flesh, a Boy of tender years, with the mysterious past all unknown to Him except by faith in the Written Word. He makes the same decision which as Commander of the heavenly hosts He made in the councils of heaven. He chooses to go to the cross.
The only way our "life" can be saved
When the love of God (agape) is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Spirit given to us, we choose the way of the cross as readily as the Son of God chose it in the heavenly council ages and again as a Boy of twelve in the Jerusalem temple. In each instance, whether in the heart of the Son of God or in the heart of a believing sinner, the results lead to resurrection-which is as much a part of the principle as is the cross. There is Good News: "He who hates his life in this world will keep it for life eternal." (John 12:25)
There are two crosses: the cross of Christ, and the cross for you and me on which we die with Christ as did the penitent thief.
There was a third cross at Calvary, but there was no redemption for the impenitent thief who died on it. He was caught in a suffering and death to which he never surrendered. Rebellious, he cursed his fate and God unto the bitter end, and perished.
Shall we rebel against the principle of the cross and follow him to eternal darkness?
Bearing our cross is made easy through seeing that other cross on which our divine Example died. "My yoke is easy", the crucified One lolls us. Through understanding His cross, we can discern our own and find strength to bear it gladly.
When I survey the wondrous cross
On which the Prince of glory died,
My richest gain I count but loss,
And pour contempt on all my pride.
Were the whole realms of nature mine,
That were a tribute far too small;
Love so amazing, so divine,
Demands my life, my soul, my all.
Isaac Watts