Jesus and his disciples went to the villages near the town of Caesarea Philippi. As they were walking along, he asked them, "What do people say about me?"
The disciples answered, "Some say you are John the Baptist or maybe Elijah. Others say you are one of the prophets."
Then Jesus asked them, "But who do you say I am?"
"You are the Messiah!" Peter replied.
Jesus warned the disciples not to tell anyone about him, and began telling his disciples what would happen to him. He said, "The nation's leaders, the chief priests, and the teachers of the Law of Moses will make the Son of Man suffer terribly. He will be rejected and killed, but three days later he will rise to life." Then Jesus explained clearly what he meant.
Peter took Jesus aside and told him to stop talking like that. But when Jesus turned and saw the disciples, he corrected Peter. He said to him, "Satan, get away from me! You are thinking like everyone else and not like God."
So when the time came, the chief priests and leaders took Jesus, and he went out, bearing his own cross, to the place called the place of a skull, which in Aramaic is called Golgotha. There they crucified him, and with him two others, one on either side, and Jesus between them.
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This strikes me as one of those posts that, while profoundly important, won't generate many comments.
It leads me to stop and wonder in how many ways I may be thinking like 'everyone else' (maybe even churchgoing 'everyone else', after all, you know, Peter was Christ's handpicked disciple), and not like God, but the only comment it stirs from me is "I'll have another."
Peter initially got it very right, then he got it very wrong...
This post reminded me of another Dan re-posted back in 2010 on Peter's "compassionate" reproof of Jesus:
http://teampyro.blogspot.com/2010/09/from-2006-when-compassion-is-satanic.html
I wonder if Peter thought about what Jesus said there, maybe if he thought, "How in the world would God think it righteous to put the Messiah to suffering? He sends Him just to die?" Maybe that's not too far from the truth, because when Jesus died, Peter was crushed - he thought it was all over. He knew it was coming, knew that Jesus would be rising again, had the promise that Jesus had prayed for him that the enemy wouldn't sift him like wheat, and that he'd fall and be restored - and none of that mattered to him when Jesus was crucified. When God wasn't glorified the way Peter imagined it, he was crushed.
I'm not too unlike Peter.
Before the resurrection the cross was invisible. Even though it was prophesied throughout the old testament and Jesus plainly told them, it was still invisible.
After the resurrection, it is impossible to not see it. "Every knee will bow and every tongue confess..."
Post-Resurrection Peter was very good at ferreting out Satan, and he spoke harshly to Satan’s secret agents when they were exposed. When he exposed Ananias, Peter asked him, “Why hath Satan filled thine heart to lie to the Holy Ghost?” (Acts 5:3) He told Simon: "Repent therefore of this thy wickedness, and pray God, if perhaps the thought of thine heart may be forgiven thee. For I perceive that thou art in the gall of bitterness, and in the bond of iniquity." (Acts 8:22-23)
It may be that Peter was so good at spotting Satan’s infiltration tactics because of his past experience with Satan trying to infiltrate the disciples through Peter himself.
"But he turned, and said unto Peter, Get thee behind me, Satan: thou art an offence unto me: for thou savourest not the things that be of God, but those that be of men." (Matthew 16:23)
"And the Lord said, Simon, Simon, behold, Satan hath desired to have you, that he may sift you as wheat: But I have prayed for thee, that thy faith fail not: and when thou art converted, strengthen thy brethren." (Luke 22:31-32)
I don't know about anybody else, but I have found myself in the same place Peter was. Just because we may not be saying Jesus didn't have to die doesn't mean that we aren't guilty of thinking like people and not like God.
How that highlighted verse helped me as I was walking into what felt like a death of a grad school exam -
Whatever my nation's leaders, chief priests and teachers try to do to me, it will never match what Jesus' national leaders did to Him.
What Jesus' national leaders, chief priests and teachers did to Him is what I deserved God to do to me. But Jesus permitted them to do it to Him instead.
Jesus accomplished the utter opposite of what Jesus's national leaders were attempting to do.
What Jesus accomplished could not and cannot be undone by his national leaders, or mine, or the very Prince of this world.
And because of what Jesus accomplished, no national leader, chief priest or teacher can ever take away what is yet to come for Him, and for me, and for all who love Him and long for His appearing.
For the record, Frank, God uses you to orient my thinking at Easter and Christmas in ways that few others I know, and who know me, are able to do. I'm always thankful.
"You are thinking like everyone else and not like God."
And that is the crux of every sociocultural issue that this country (or any country) has. We don't think like God thinks. Worse, we don't even simply think like humans think; rather, we try to say that God thinks like us. [Twitchingly eyes Rob Bell on the other side of the rainbow]
How many times in my own experience have I seen what appeared to be a negative development, after a period of time, shorter or longer, spring up, transform, as a blessing of grace. Peter convicts me; we both have mistrusted the Lord's hand, and His heart.
I think that in hindsight it is very easy to think - but of course, Jesus must die and then He will rise from the dead and ascend into heaven and someday return, and THEN He will establish His kingdom and reign.
Yet i am so sure that if i were walking with Jesus i would be just as dense and be unable to fathom (or maybe want to fathom) the road that lay ahead. I think that either way i would be crushed if Jesus rebuked me like that. I understand why He said that, but it would have been pretty hard to hear. Although Peter was pretty bold to be correcting his teacher.
Thank you for posting this. I am grateful for the hindsight and for being on this side of the cross.
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