Last updated on October 23, 2024
Things are about to take a major turn for Jesus’ followers. One day it’s just Jesus and the disciples. There’s no crowd of people clamoring for his attention. It’s just Jesus and these closest companions.
So he decides that now is the time to help them understand why he does puzzling things like leaving when the crowds are at their largest or telling people not to talk about the miracles that he’s been performing.
He asks the question, “Who do people say that I am?” They list a few of the top answers. Then he says, more directly, “Who do you say that I am?” Peter speaks up. He says, “You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God.” Jesus is pleased with this answer, and he knows it’s time to let them in on what is going to happen.
From that time on Jesus began to explain to his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem and suffer many things at the hands of the elders, the chief priests and the teachers of the law, and that he must be killed and on the third day be raised to life.
Matthew 16:21
To his friends, this was such a curve ball. And it wasn’t simply a curve ball. To Peter it was wrong, and he wasn’t about to stand by and allow it to happen. He says to Jesus, “Never Lord. This shall never happen to you.”
And then Jesus calls him Satan.
Well ok then.
Here are Jesus’ words…”Get behind me, Satan! You are a stumbling block to me; you do not have in mind the concerns of God, but merely human concerns.”
I totally get where Peter is. He still has in mind what a revolution looks like. And it’s not the Messiah dying. But he doesn’t see all that he needs to see.
From this point on Jesus will talk often about what is to come. Things are not going to end the way his friends first though, and slowly but surely they will come to accept this. For some the surrender will not happen until Jesus is gone.