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?

 

 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 informs us that, after St. Peter's confession (see yesterday's reading, above), Jesus reveals the true nature of His messiahship:  the mystery of His Passion.   It was expected that the Messiah would reign forever, so the idea that Christ would die was perplexing to St. Peter and remained scandalous to the Jews even after the Resurrection (1 Corinthians 1:23).  Here St. Peter unwittingly speaks for Satan, for the devil did not want Christ to fulfill His mission and save humankind through suffering and death.  

 

 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."  According to my study Bible, the cross, a dreaded instrument of Roman punishment, is also a symbol of suffering by Christians in imitation of Christ.  It says that we practice self-denial for the sake of the love of God and the gospel.  To accept this suffering is not a punishment, and neither is it an end in itself.  This is, in fact, a means by which to overcome the fallen world for the sake of the Kingdom and to crucify the flesh with its passions and desires (Galatians 5:24).  

 

"For whoever desires to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake will find it."  My study Bible calls this the central paradox of Christian living: in grasping for temporal things, we lose the eternal -- but in sacrificing everything in this world, we gain eternal riches that are unimaginable (1 Corinthians 2:9).

 

 "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."  Jesus asks, "What will a man give in exchange for his soul?"  My study Bible comments that this question emphasizes the utter foolishness of accumulating worldly wealth or power, as none of these things can redeem a fallen soul, nor will it benefit a person in the life to come.  

 

"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 tells us that this is a reference to something that occurs in the reading to follow; it refers to those who would witness the Transfiguration (Matthew 17:1-9), and also those in every generation who will experience the presence of God's Kingdom.

 

Jesus speaks in a powerful way about exchange.   Jesus says, "If anyone desires to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me."  If we look closely at today's reading, Jesus is addressing this problem of St. Peter insisting that Jesus should not die, should not go to His death on the Cross, His Passion, and therefore all that follows.  While each of us can understand St. Peter's perhaps horrified response to this news that Jesus will be put to death in this horrific and scandalous way, it is nonetheless that St. Peter is responding in the voice of Satan.  That is, there is a taught contradiction between how God will work in the world to bring all to the possibility of salvation and eternal life, and the purely human, secular perspective about what is good and what should not happen.  St. Peter wants to preserve the life of Jesus, his Lord, at all costs.  But Jesus is, in fact, Lord, and Christ teaches what will happen and must happen, as hard as it might be to bear, to hear, to accept.  And St. Peter, like all the rest of us, must be prepared to make that exchange between his personal human point of view, and the one that God, the Lord, is showing to him.  That is a leap of faith that would be tremendously difficult for any of us to make in the same circumstances, I would dare to say.  But nevertheless, we know who Christ is, and that He speaks with the voice of God and teaches the reality of God in the world.  ("He who has seen Me has seen the Father" - John 14:9.  So, in some sense to deny what Christ is teaching them about what must come is not simply speaking with the voice (or desire) of Satan, but also blasphemy against the Spirit.  And here, further, through St. Peter, as happens in so many instances (but most notably after his denial of Christ outside the home of the high priest in Matthew 26:69-75), we find that even a kind of blasphemy of the Spirit is forgivable through repentance, for we know that St. Peter repents of his words to Christ here.  And this is the remarkable thing about the Gospels and about St. Peter, for simply imagine enduring such a rebuke from Christ, in front of his fellow disciples, as to be called "Satan" by the Lord.  While St. Peter's impulsiveness and even enthusiasm seem to occasionally get him into trouble (such as his changeable response to Christ washing his feet at the Last Supper; see John 13:5-10), the one constant we do see is his devotion to Christ, and in particular, his capacity for humility -- in both enduring the rebuke in today's reading and continuing as apostle, and in his return to all of them and to Christ following his humiliating failure in his three-time denial of Christ while Jesus was on trial inside the home of the high priest.  It is St. Peter who teaches us so much about the continuing journey of our faith in Christ, to return in repentance and continue with Christ.  Eventually, we know that St. Peter accepts the unacceptable, even asking to be crucified himself upside down so as not to be considered equal to his Master.  St. Peter comes to embody the principle of Christ's teaching in today's reading.  He willingly, through his life and the living of his faith, finds his life by losing it for Christ's sake -- and this happens not only literally in St. Peter's death, but also figuratively in so many ways throughout his life.  In today's reading, Jesus says, "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? "  St. Peter answers Christ's questions for us with a depth of affirmation that there is nothing more precious in the whole world than the value of the soul, and the life to be found in Christ.