Are You Sure?

A little boy was about to visit the dentist for the first time. He wasn’t too sure he was going to like this adventure. For several days before “D-Day,” his mother tried to reassure him and to explain the procedure as much as possible. The day finally arrived. After a nervous wait in the reception room, the child was escorted to the large chair. The dentist reached for his instruments and told the little boy that he was about to clean his teeth. The child, bearing up bravely, asked in a trembling voice, “Are you sure you know what you’re doing? That doesn’t look like a toothbrush to me.

The little boy’s reaction to the dentist is not unlike Peter’s reaction to Jesus in today’s Gospel Lesson. Jesus tells Peter it is time to go to Jerusalem where the ordeal of His Passion will shortly begin. He announces that He will “suffer greatly there at the hands of the leaders, the chief priests and…