Matthew
16.21-end: (NRSV)
Jesus Foretells
His Death and Resurrection:
21 From
that time on, Jesus began to show his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem
and undergo great suffering at the hands of the elders and chief priests and
scribes, and be killed, and on the third day be raised. 22And Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him,
saying, ‘God forbid it, Lord! This must never happen to you.’ 23But he turned and said to Peter, ‘Get behind me,
Satan! You are a stumbling-block to me; for you are setting your mind not on
divine things but on human things.’
The Cross and
Self-Denial
24 Then
Jesus told his disciples, ‘If any want to become my followers, let them deny
themselves and take up their cross and follow me. 25For those who want to save their life will lose it,
and those who lose their life for my sake will find it. 26For what will it profit them if they gain the whole
world but forfeit their life? Or what will they give in return for their life? 27 ‘For the Son of Man is to come with his angels
in the glory of his Father, and then he will repay everyone for what has been
done. 28Truly I tell you, there are
some standing here who will not taste death before they see the Son of Man
coming in his kingdom.’
Some ideas from J C Fenton ...
In the earlier verses of this chapter, we have the record of
the time when Jesus revealed his identity as God’s Messiah to the disciples.
This next utterance would then have been difficult for them to grasp, because
their understanding of the Messiah would not have included any form of
suffering. If fact this would be true for all Jews at the time. The concept of
a suffering Messiah only came much later when Christians came to understand the
significance of the death and Resurrection of Jesus and came to see it all as
being part of God’s plan of salvation.
This is the first explicit prediction of the Passion. It is
believed that Matthew used Mark as his source and it would also appear that
Mark had compiled his version from imprecise sayings, but even the most
sceptical of scholars do not deny that this sort of prediction was part of
Jesus’ message to his disciples.
Jesus used stark words of condemnation to Peter, using the
title Satan, because Peter was
opposing the will of God. The ignorance of Peter is not just of the future of
the disciples but also the future of Jesus: Jesus makes it clear that there is
cost involved in following him. Jesus therefore begins to teach his disciples
(pupils) that if they wish to come after him, and enter the glory of the age to
come, they must follow him by being obedient to the will of God and this will
mean suffering. They must not try to follow the secure way in this world,
because this would mean losing their lives in the age to come.
Even though it seemed as though the disciples had understood
the fact that Jesus was the long-awaited Messiah, they still did not get what
this meant: they were still thinking of a conqueror, a warrior king, who would
deliver them from their political oppressors. If the disciples had gone out and
preached these ideas to the people, the result would have been rebellion.
Before they could preach that Jesus was the Messiah, they had to learn what the
true message was.
Central to the message was going to be the Cross and would
entail a great deal of suffering. This was anathema to Peter who had been
raised with the idea of a conquering Messiah and the idea of suffering seemed
incredible, so he said that this must never happen. This is followed by the
great rebuke ‘Get behind me Satan!’
Barclay suggests that we need to understand the following if
we hope to make sense of this passage:
Jesus reacted in the way he did, because he was probably
reminded of his great temptation in the wilderness at the beginning of his
ministry: he had been tempted to take the path of power, meeting material needs
and compromise with the ways of the world. Peter was confronting him again with
the same temptations. Again and again, throughout Jesus’ ministry he confronted
these temptations: no one would want a cross, a degrading and painful death.
Barclay writes: ‘The sharpness and poignancy of Jesus’ answer is due to the
fact that Peter was urging upon him the very things which the tempter was always
whispering to him, the very things against which he had to steel himself ...’
That is why Peter was Satan; that is why Peter’s ideas were man’s and not
God’s. Satan is any influence which seeks to turn us away from the ways of God.
O that we might always be able to resist the ways of Satan
...
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