The world says, “When you were young you were dependent and could not go where you wanted, but when you grow old you will be able to make your own decisions, go your own way, and control your own destiny.”
But Jesus has a different version of maturity: It is the ability and willingness to be led where you would rather not go. Immediately after Peter has been commissioned to be a leader of his sheep, Jesus confronts him with the hard truth that the servant-leader is the leader who is being led to unknown, undesirable, and painful places.
The way of the Christian leader is not the way of upward mobility in which our world has invested so much, but the way of downward mobility ending on the cross. This might sound morbid and masochistic, but for those who have heard the voice of the first love and said, “yes” to it, the downward-moving way of Jesus is the way to the joy and the peace of God, a joy and peace that is not of this world.
--Henri Nouwen
Image source: Raphael, Christ’s Charge to Peter (1515), https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Restoration_of_Peter
Quotation source
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