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From that time Jesus began to show to His disciples that He must go to Jerusalem, and suffer many things from the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and be raised the third day. Then Peter took Him aside and began to rebuke Him, saying, "Far be it from You, Lord; this shall not happen to You!" But He turned and said to Peter, "Get behind Me, Satan! You are an offense to Me, for you are not mindful of the things of God, but the things of men."
Then Jesus said to His disciples, "If anyone desires to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me. For whoever desires to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake will find it. For what profit is it to a man if he gains the whole world, and loses his own soul? Or what will a man give in exchange for his soul? For the Son of Man will come in the glory of His Father with His angels, and then He will reward each according to his works. Assuredly, I say to you, there are some standing here who shall not taste death till they see the Son of Man coming in His kingdom."
- Matthew 16:21-28
Yesterday, we read that when Jesus came into the region of Caesarea Philippi, He asked His disciples, saying, "Who do men say that I, the Son of Man, am?" So they said, "Some say John the Baptist, some Elijah, and others Jeremiah or one of the prophets." He said to them, "But who do you say that I am?" Simon Peter answered and said, "You are the Christ, the Son of the living God." Jesus answered and said to Him, "Blessed are you, Simon Bar-Jonah, for flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but My Father who is in heaven. And I also say to you that you are Peter, and on this rock I will build My church, and the gates of Hades shall not prevail against it. And I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven." Then He commanded His disciples that they should tell no one that He was Jesus the Christ.
From that time Jesus began to show to His disciples that He must go to Jerusalem, and suffer many things from the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and be raised the third day. Then Peter took Him aside and began to rebuke Him, saying, "Far be it from You, Lord; this shall not happen to You!" But He turned and said to Peter, "Get behind Me, Satan! You are an offense to Me, for you are not mindful of the things of God, but the things of men." My study bible tells us that "after Peter's confession, Jesus reveals the true nature of His messiahship, the mystery of the Passion. But Peter took Him aside, expecting Him to enter Jerusalem and establish the Kingdom immediately (as Peter understood it, an earthly, political kingdom), not to go to the Cross and death. Peter thought the Messiah would reign forever, not die. But Jesus was to be a suffering Messiah, a scandalous idea to the Jews." It adds that Christ didn't call Peter Satan in order to insult him, but to rebuke him for "unwittingly serving as a mouthpiece of the devil." The word offense here (in Jesus' words, You are an offense to Me) means "stumbling block" -- the Greek word is skandalon, from which we receive the verb to "scandalize."
Then Jesus said to His disciples, "If anyone desires to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me." My study bible says, "The cross, a dreaded instrument of Roman punishment, is also a symbol of suffering by Christians in imitation of Christ. Self-denial is for the sake of Christ and the gospel, for a better life; it is not a punitive end in itself."
"For whoever desires to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake will find it. For what profit is it to a man if he gains the whole world, and loses his own soul? Or what will a man give in exchange for his soul?" A note says, "Here Jesus states the central paradox of the Christian faith. In grasping the temporal, we lose the eternal; in sacrificing everything we can know, we gain unimaginable riches. In dying, we live."
"For the Son of Man will come in the glory of His Father with His angels, and then He will reward each according to his works. Assuredly, I say to you, there are some standing here who shall not taste death till they see the Son of Man coming in His kingdom." My study bible says that "when the Son of Man comes in glory to reward each according to his works, it will be shown that absolutely nothing exceeds the value of finding true life, the salvation of one's soul. . . . Seeing Jesus coming in His kingdom may refer to the Transfiguration, which occurs immediately after this."
Immediately after Peter's confession of faith, Jesus introduces the theme of what is to come: that He will be crucified and resurrected (He will suffer many things from the leadership, be killed and raised the third day). Peter, as he so often does, acts as a mouthpiece not just for the apostles as a whole but also for each of us. It's a very human reaction, and it also reflects the expectations of the time of what was to come from the Messiah, what the Messiah was to do and to be like. It is unthinkable to him that this should happen. But Jesus teaches us about devotion to the ways of God by calling Peter "Satan" and telling him that he's an offense, or a "stumbling block" (Gr. skandalon) to Him. This is, as my study bible says, a great paradox of Christianity, the great central paradox of our faith. And, as we note above, it is the first time this staggering conclusion to Jesus' earthly life has been introduced to these disciples. If they were prepared to serve Christ through their ministry as He has been teaching them, if they are now come to the faith (in yesterday's reading) that Jesus is indeed the awaited Messiah, then what did they think they were being prepared for? Surely, it was an expected notion of an earthly rule, a kingdom come into this world in which they would serve. But the notions of that Kingdom, of their mission and service, are going to have to take on an entirely different understanding as they go forward. How will they serve this King? What is to happen in the future? All of this lies before them. But in the radical nature of the "otherness" which characterizes God's ways (that are not our ways), human beings must take on new understandings of what God is and how holiness works. The Resurrection will give a new understanding of what this Kingdom is and how it will come into the world. It will confer upon the disciples a much greater responsibility than can be understood from serving a living human king, an unsurpassable grace, and an understanding of that which human nature is capable of achieving in the hands of the Spirit, than could have been considered under the old understanding. The radical break from the past, via this unthinkable Cross, is a declaration of the power and nature of holiness, that God will shake all of our foundations, and in the process, build up something that will expand us beyond our limits. In this paradox is the true power of God's grace, the holiness that empties us in order to be filled beyond measure. How can we receive His word when it may break apart all our understanding and conception? If we "follow Him" we are prepared to enter leaving everything behind, and to receive beyond anything we can calculate. The confession of faith, so recently given, is what makes all of it possible.
