In our gospel, Jesus is castigating Peter for tempting him to look at things from a human perspective rather than from God’s point of view, to save his life rather than to offer it in love for the redemption of the world. Peter is not the first, nor will he be the last, to want things to go his way, to try to maintain the status quo rather than risk the unknown. We don’t, we can’t, see the big picture, the “divine things,” so we hold on to the “human things” that we can grasp with our hands, with our heads, that we can control. But God always has something better in mind.

Just look at Sarah’s story. We have a brief glimpse of her in our reading from the Hebrew scriptures today. She was ninety years old (Gen.17:17). Scripture says, “Now Abraham and Sarah were old, advanced in age; it had ceased to be with Sarah after the manner of women.”(Gen.18:11) Clearly, she was barren. She had long given up on having children of her own, given up on God’s promise of an heir for Abraham. Sarah determined to make the best she could out of her barren situation, giving her Egyptian slave-girl to Abraham to bear a child that she could claim as her own, according to ancient custom. But God had something else in mind: Isaac, the son of the promise. Her barrenness was made fruitful; nothing is impossible with God!

Whenever I am feeling barren, I take heart from Sarah’s story. It doesn’t matter what life looks like from a human point of view. No matter how hopeless the situation seems, nor how despairing I feel, God can redeem it and make it exceedingly fruitful as he did for Abraham and Sarah, for Peter and the other disciples. The “divine things” God has in store for us cause the “human things” to pale in comparison, far beyond anything we can desire or imagine.

The task of Lent is to notice the “human things” in our lives that are distracting us from the “divine things” of God and to lay them at the foot of the cross, trusting in God’s redeeming, transforming love to bring us into the “divine things” he has prepared for us.