He must have known that it would come down to this. Rebels didn’t last long. To say that he had to walk through this dark gate would be a hard sell to those who had given their lives to this green, growing movement. Of course there would be pushback. Peter, trying to protect his friend, is redirected in less than gentle terms.* He knew Peter had the shoulders to handle it, and that it needed to be that clear. He was his rock. He would get it, but not right then. A sacred threshold had to be crossed.
They were asked to trust something that they had never known. They trusted him, but that hit the limits of the mind. To swim against the current of logic that gave rise to empire would require courage. To stand in the line of that fire, taking the dark steps into the greatest of paradoxes. A different way of understanding was called forth.
Jesus knew that the way did not appear bright—something that took time for him to accept. After his initiation, he adjusted to a light that came through him in a way that his eyes could not see. A window opened, showing him visions of what the kin-dom of belonging looked like, beyond the dualistic nature of the mind. Eastern traditions call it “the third eye.” It was from that place that he taught.
To trust the unseen hand, to hold the opposites, to open the heart and mind to a third way. Leaning into this unfolding, he would carry love across that sacred threshold and be carried by it. This, he told his friends, was worth dying for.
