"Who do people say that I am?"
Other people had opinions or ideas about who Jesus was or might be. Was Jesus in some way a prophetic figure? Yes, absolutely. But it was not the case that this was all that he was or that his entire identity could be summed up in this way.
If Jesus had been only a prophet it would have still been important how people responded to him. They could have demonstrated their fidelity to God by listening to the one sent by him. But Jesus was much more than a prophet. And who he was implied that the way one responded to him was correspondingly more critical. It was not enough to repeat the opinion of others about Jesus. The question of the identity of Jesus was something that each person could truly only answer for himself. An answer to this question could not be borrowed.
Peter said to him in reply,
"You are the Christ."
Then he warned them not to tell anyone about him.
Peter and the disciples had now unlocked a deeper understanding of the identity of Jesus than that of the crowds. In saying that he was the messiah they implied that he was the complete fulfillment of the hopes of Israel in a way that the crowds had not yet perceived or accepted. But, even though it was clear that the disciples attained true knowledge by supernatural revelation from the Father, it was also clear that their knowledge was as yet imperfect. Jesus was indeed the Christ. But the Christ was not who the imagined him to be. They must have imagined that the messiah would of necessity by consistently successful and ultimately victorious. How else could he fulfill the hopes of Israel?
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.
How could an ignominious death result in the fulfillment of the hopes of Israel? Why would the Son of Man need to suffer greatly in order to unleash the promises of God upon the world? Asking questions like this represented a very human way of thinking. But God had other ideas. Peter rebuked Jesus for saying this because he wanted Jesus to be a messiah who gave the world what it thought it desired rather than that which it truly needed. But that was because the world itself did not yet recognize its deepest needs. It was perhaps impossible to see just how vile was the sin that afflicted the earth until it sunk its claws into Jesus, the wholly innocent and perfect one. It was hard to imagine a greater prize than a perfected world, Romans gone, and bread aplenty, until the resurrection revealed that we were all meant for more than a merely prolonged life with the kinks smoothed out.
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."
In hindsight it is easy to criticize Peter for standing in the way of the plan of Jesus. He was basically offering the same temptation as Satan when he offered Jesus all of the Kingdoms of the world without a cross. The very fact that people wanted this so much made it necessary to be firm in rejecting it. But we err in the same archetype of Peter when criticize God for the ongoing presence of suffering in our lives. Jesus did not come to simply remove all suffering, but rather to transform it.
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.
Salvation to Jesus meant more than a mere removal of difficulties. It was a surgical healing that would ultimately destroy the selfish ego so that love might truly reign in every heart. We all hate to hear that this is basically unattainable without suffering. But it is not just any suffering that will serve. Only when we follow Jesus and unite our crosses to the one he first bore for us will our own suffering have merit. It should be obvious by now why other people's opinions are insufficient to enter into this mystery. But perhaps it sounds more dire than in reality it is meant to be. After all, we do not bear the yoke of discipleship alone, but together with Jesus. And when we do this, even while we are still growing, still in the process of being transformed, we can know the rest and the peace he promised.
So also faith of itself,
if it does not have works, is dead.
Faith must mean more than the possession of data about Jesus, even if that data is correct. It must motivate us, and have a connection to our hearts. If it does not achieve the work of transforming us it is deficient somehow. We know well enough that are faith doesn't always reach our hearts and motivate us as much as we would like. Hence we repeat the prayer of the father of the possessed boy, "Lord, I believe; help my unbelief!" (see Mark 9:24).
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