Dear Brothers and Sisters:
Last week Peter confessed his faith to Jesus by saying, “You are the Christ, the Anointed One, the Son of the Living God.” Jesus responded and said to him, “You are Peter and on this rock I will build my church.” However, this week we can see that Jesus is not the glorious Messiah that Peter was expecting but the suffering servant. Peter gets that Jesus is the Savior but does not get how it will be done. Peter will have none of the defeat and suffering announced by Christ. With the same authority that Jesus announced that Peter would have the keys of the Kingdom he now affirms that he must go to Jerusalem to suffer, die and rise.
So Peter took Jesus to himself pulling him by the cloth of his tunic, perhaps like the devil pulled him in the dessert, and said that this shall never happen. The creature always thinks he can do it better and more efficiently than the one who created the world. Christ calls him Satan, not Rock. He is the one who opposes, which is what Satan does: he opposes God’s intention to save man. Peter does not think the thoughts of God; he is not of God’s mind. Peter thinks he knows God’s plan better than Jesus Christ. Isn’t this the fundamental problem of discipleship and the spiritual life? We all secretly nurture the conviction that we know better. We easily forget that the Kingdom belongs to the childlike.
Jesus says to Peter, “Get behind me, Satan.” Satan means the one who opposes as he opposed God’s plan of saving the world. Jesus sets the standard in friendship also with this his response to Peter. Christian friendship is not something warm and fuzzy, easy going. A true friend supports the other one who moves ahead toward the Father. He would not allow a friend to do something against the Father’s will for salvation.
To the devil in the dessert Jesus says get away from me, Satan. Here he tells Peter to get behind him. He knows that Satan cannot change but Peter can. Peter is Satan metaphorically and temporarily but Satan is always Satan; he cannot be anything but Satan. This gives hope also; you can change.
Jesus says that Peter is a stumbling block, an obstacle, a scandal; you are no longer a building block or the rock of the Church. The cross is a stumbling block to Jews, St. Paul writes. Often we believe that it is a mistake. But in the Christian life either I embrace it in order to imitate Christ or it becomes a block for me and for the mission of Christ. Many years later in a letter to the churches Peter writes, “They stumble because they do not obey.” This is true today.
Peter gets out in front of Jesus and is told that anyone who wishes to come after me must follow me and not get ahead of me. The disciple cannot go ahead or in front of the Teacher. All leaders in the church must remember that they are called to be servants who wash the feet of the others. When you are behind Christ then you can take up your cross; it is not heavy.
To lose your life means to scatter it as Christ did. The verb to save means “to keep safe and whole,” to conserve. If you never allow yourself to be broken open then there is no life. Life that does not grow is no life. Jesus Christ gave his life like the bread broken and shared in the miracle of the multiplication of the loaves and fish.
Christ shows his wounds after the resurrection for the apostles, and us, to see the connection between suffering and glory. He is reassuring us that we will be transformed that the cross leads to resurrection and the birth of the Church. A disciple is called to do what the Master does, to be where he goes, and actually to allow Him to work in us, to transform us. Jesus never mentions death without its ultimate blossoming in glory. The story of Christ has only one purpose: to become our story. Don’t worry, brothers and sisters, the one who loses his life doesn’t taste death because the Son of Man holds us up, with his angels.