He turned and said to Peter,
“Get behind me, Satan! You are an obstacle to me.
You are thinking not as God does, but as human beings do."
This rebuke of Peter is all the more startling when we consider what we heard just last Sunday which was in fact earlier in the same chapter of Matthew.
Jesus said to him in reply,
“Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah.
For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my heavenly Father.
We see in Peter how it is not enough to think as human beings do. We need to think as God does or we risk becoming an obstacle to Jesus. This is no unique depravity on the part of Peter. It is simply that the human mind unaided can't understand or respond to God's plan.
Jesus began to show his disciples
that he must go to Jerusalem and suffer greatly
from the elders, the chief priests, and the scribes,
and be killed and on the third day be raised.
From a human point of view, especially from the perspective of someone who genuinely loved Jesus, it would be natural to try to think of every other possible plan than one which involved his death. A human point of view would prefer a linear path from victory to victory for its messiah. Whether those victories were over the Romans in their day or over the suffering inherent in the circumstances of our own day we can't understand why there would be even a temporary setback let alone this apparent defeat Jesus describes. From this limited vantage point of ours suffering will always remain a mystery.
We know that God is all powerful, and yet he permits suffering that a greater good may be drawn from it. It's easy to say that. But then again, he doesn't permit all suffering and he does sometimes heal and even raise the dead. And so for any specific instance of suffering we can never just assume it is God's will and not try to alleviate it. We can guess how this or that illness might be used by God to bring something better. But we cannot see it from his vantage point. We cannot thereby ignore it.
Do not conform yourselves to this age
but be transformed by the renewal of your mind,
The only way for us to be open to God's will is to allow our minds to be renewed. This age will tell us that we must either heroically remove all suffering or ignore it entirely. In fact, what we are called to is the way of the cross. It is a way that can enter into suffering, that can experience it fully, and carry the burden of it for others, while still being open to the miraculous. To take up our cross means believing in providence. For the cross is no passive surrender. It takes the strength that comes from knowing that God has a deeper and yet unseen plan to persist unto Calvary.
Whoever wishes to come after me must deny himself,
take up his cross, and follow me.
We can't get out of this world alive. Nor can we bring anything with us. Wishing to save our lives is ultimately futile. What matters, then, is the purpose for which we live, for whose sake we embrace our own crosses.
but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.
We must live with the perspective that only renewed minds possess. This is how we can make of ourselves, our bodies, and our entire lives, by the mercies of God, a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God, our spiritual worship.
When we realize that Christianity is not only always positive feelings and emotions, not always immediate deliverance from pain, not always immediate healing of the circumstances, we might feel like Jeremiah.
You duped me, O LORD, and I let myself be duped;
you were too strong for me, and you triumphed.
But like him, the Word of God has come to us. Like him, there is more within us than these doubts. We must let what is planted in us burst forth.
I say to myself, I will not mention him,
I will speak in his name no more.
But then it becomes like fire burning in my heart,
imprisoned in my bones;
Peter might have felt duped when he heard that Jesus would have to die. But he already had the experience of his mind being renewed, of revelation by the Father of the identity of the Son. After he was rebuked he would still have that memory within him, ready to burst worth and overwhelm his doubts. We have the same renewal, the same fire within us. May we not keep it inside, but let it burst forth.
My soul is thirsting for you, O Lord my God.
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