I want to adress the meaning of the cross
After Christ told His disciples that He must suffer and be killed, to which Peter replied
>22Peter took Him aside and began to rebuke Him. “Far be it from You, Lord!” he said. “This shall never happen to You!”>23But Jesus turned and said to Peter, “Get behind Me, Satan! You are a stumbling block to Me. For you do not have in mind the things of God, but the things of men.” Peters love for Christ led Him astray, desiring that Christ does not accept His fate, does not fulfill the prophecies and does not redeem mankind, because he did not want Christ to suffer. In doing so Peter became a satan, a stumbling block tempting Christ to not fulfill the Fathers will, hence the harsh rebuke by Christ.
And right after we here about the cross
>24Then Jesus told His disciples, “If anyone wants to come after Me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow Me. 25For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake will find it. The cross was quite literally Christs fate, where He suffered to safe us.
We see how troubled Christ was over His fate
>39 Going a little farther, He fell facedown and prayed, “My Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from Me. Yet not as I will, but as You will.” But yet He readily accepted, the good with the bad. He denied Himself for oursake, and in the very same sense we should deny our own will, fueled by carnality and temptation, to accept not only the good from our Father, but also the bad, the discipline.
>>21442755right back at you buddy.
