Peter said to him in reply,
“You are the Christ.”
Jesus praised Peter, confirming that this response was not only true, but a direct revelation to his heart by the Father in heaven. Israel had been waiting so long for the coming of the Messiah, and now he had finally arrived. The fullness of time had come. Naturally the minds and hearts of the disciples began to rejoice, and, rejoicing, to make plans. Now that this revelation had been given, how could they be silent? How could they not rejoice in the fulfillment of the hope of the ages?
Then he warned them not to tell anyone about him.
Jesus wanted them to receive the revelation of who he was as something supernatural, something around which all his plans would revolve, upon which his holy Church would be built. He did not want to diminish the truth of it in the slightest. Yet before they could speak of it they would need to understand what it meant. And before that they would need to realize that their current understanding was much too simple.
He began to teach them
that the Son of Man must suffer greatly
and be rejected by the elders, the chief priests, and the scribes,
and be killed, and rise after three days.
Peter and the others had just heard that the fulfillment of their hope had come. But now this! They simply couldn't square the consolation of the revelation given with the rest of the plan as Jesus described it.
Then Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him.
Peter was so intoxicated by the consolation of the knowledge of Jesus as Messiah that he felt qualified to dictate to Jesus how the Messiah ought to conduct his mission. To be fair, he took him aside to do so, rather than openly contradicting him. He wasn't trying to usurp the place of Jesus, just insist that he must be wrong about this particular teaching. He probably didn't even realize the hubris of what he was doing. He was still riding so high on the initial revelation that he now succumbed to the temptation to believe that his own subsequent thoughts were also inspired by God.
At this he turned around and, looking at his disciples,
rebuked Peter and said, “Get behind me, Satan.
You are thinking not as God does, but as human beings do.”
The initial revelation, Jesus as the Messiah, was not something Peter attained by thinking as human beings do. Thinking in a merely human way resulted in the knowledge of the crowd, that he was John the Baptist, Elijah, or one of the prophets. Thinking as human beings do is acceptable for thinking about human things, but not about heavenly things.
If I have told you earthly things and you do not believe, how can you believe if I tell you heavenly things? (see John 3:12).
If we insist on thinking as human beings do rather than responding in faith to the teaching of Jesus our misunderstandings become something worse and more problematic than simple mistakes.
Who is the liar? Whoever denies that Jesus is the Christ. Whoever denies the Father and the Son, this is the antichrist (see First John 2:22).
All of this is a cautionary tale about the need to listen not just once, but rather to listen and keep listening to Jesus. We must avoid the temptation to detour into our own supposedly better ideas about the implications of who he is. We need revelation, not only that he is the Messiah, but also about what that means for us and our lives. Without that revelation we may well become obstacles to him. He has given us the teaching, but we must pray to the Father to reveal it to our hearts. Flesh and blood is not enough.
“Whoever wishes to come after me must deny himself,
take up his cross, and follow me.
For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it,
but whoever loses his life for my sake
and that of the gospel will save it.”
The Father wants to reveal that Jesus is in fact the fulfillment of our hopes, not as we expected, but in a greater, more terrible, and more wonderful way. That he is Messiah is not meant to be merely sentimental. It has profound consequences because it means he is the one who reveals what love really means, and himself demonstrates the path that love must follow. When we receive this revelation from God we can set our minds and keep them set in such a way that the way of the Cross does not shake our confidence, disturb us, or make us turn back.
The Lord GOD opens my ear that I may hear;
and I have not rebelled,
have not turned back.
I gave my back to those who beat me,
my cheeks to those who plucked my beard;
my face I did not shield
from buffets and spitting.
The revelation we receive is more than that we ought to grit our teeth and bear with trials, although that is a part of it. It is a revelation that God is our ever greater help, present in the darkest of times, bringing us through to something greater than we could ever ask or imagine.
The Lord GOD is my help,
therefore I am not disgraced;
I have set my face like flint,
knowing that I shall not be put to shame.
Let us set our minds on Christ, and our faces toward the path he shows us. We do this, not out of masochism, but precisely for the joy set before us (see Hebrews 12:2). It isn't as simple of a picture of the Messiah and his plans as we or Peter might have wished. But it is ultimately greater in a way for which we will be eternally grateful. It reveals the fullness of the love of Jesus, and does not leave any part of our own being untouched. It is not something that can be merely observed as passive spectators. It is rather a revelation that must transform us, and not we it. It is precisely from this inner transformation, from this gift of grace, that we are able to show our faith in works of love and service.
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