The Saturday after the Fifth Sunday after Trinity Sunday
Posted on July 26, 2025 by under
Scripture: St. Luke 9:18-26 (NKJV)
9:18 And it happened, as He was alone praying, that His disciples joined Him, and He asked them, saying, “Who do the crowds say that I am?”
19 So they answered and said, “John the Baptist, but some say Elijah; and others say that one of the old prophets has risen again.”
20 He said to them, “But who do you say that I am?”
Peter answered and said, “The Christ of God.”
21 And He strictly warned and commanded them to tell this to no one, 22 saying, “The Son of Man must suffer many things, and be rejected by the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and be raised the third day.”
23 Then He said to them all, “If anyone desires to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow Me. 24 For whoever desires to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake will save it. 25 For what profit is it to a man if he gains the whole world, and is himself destroyed or lost? 26 For whoever is ashamed of Me and My words, of him the Son of Man will be ashamed when He comes in His own glory, and in His Father’s, and of the holy angels.”
Devotion
Immediately upon Peter’s confession, Jesus both begins to elaborate upon what it means that He is the Christ, and upon what confessing Him will entail. Luke’s presentation of these realities is stark, featuring those parts of the conversation that can set up hour upon hour of pondering when viewed in conjunction with this week’s Collect. One must understand from Scripture (and contrary to what many of those in Israel were wrongly expecting) “the Christ of God” must suffer many things, and only after His being killed and being raised the third day will He come in glory. That glory will be both His own and His Father’s, because that glory is one, even as the Father and the Son are coequal and coeternal persons of the same divine essence (Athanasian Creed, ASBH, p. 39).
The Son’s words are what distinguish those who confess rightly from those who do not. We bear our crosses after Him by confessing His promises. Our conduct in sacrificially serving each other bears witness that our heart’s only treasure is Christ and what He earned and gives.
Collect: O God, Who hast prepared for them that love Thee such good things as pass man’s understanding: Pour into our hearts such love toward Thee, that we, loving Thee above all things, may obtain Thy promises, which exceed all that we can desire; through Jesus Christ, Thy Son, our Lord, Who liveth and reigneth with Thee and the Holy Ghost, ever One God, world without end. Amen.
Scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
