Jeremiah 20:7-9; Romans 12:1-2; St. Matthew 16:21-27
“Get behind me, Satan”.
We see quite a big contrast in Peter and Jesus’ relationship – Peter has just proclaimed that Jesus is the Messiah, that Jesus was the Christ, the Son of the Living God, with Jesus in return telling him that His heavenly Father had revealed that to him - and that Peter was the rock. Peter was onto something big, Peter had expressed a great truth;
but now fast forward to today and we see something very different – the Peter in the Gospel today tries to dissuade Jesus from facing His death and passion in Jerusalem, and Jesus's response is harsh – “get behind me Satan” - Peter has now become an obstacle in Jesus's path.
In many ways I can empathise with Peter – it must've been very frightening and disconcerting for your leader to say that he must suffer and die. So perhaps understandably Peter wants to rebuke Jesus.
Peter is perhaps trying to protect Jesus from suffering - but Peter hasn't fully understood that Jesus must suffer and die, and therefore Peter becomes an obstacle.
Peter wants a Messiah, but he doesn't want that type of Messiah – maybe Peter is falling into the trap which others have fallen into –
imagining that a Messiah must be the stereotypical strong leader who apparently doesn't suffer. And Peter may feel a duty to protect Jesus from that suffering and death.
But Jesus’s suffering was fundamental to His mission. And so when Peter rebukes Him, we can see why Jesus calls him Satan, and tells Peter that he's a hindrance –
Jesus already knows His mission, that He must suffer and die, and Peter is trying to stop Him from fulfilling His mission - even if perhaps it's coming from a good place.
Peter was also perhaps falling into the trap of wanting a particular type of Jesus. Peter wanted Jesus, but Peter didn’t want the cross.
And perhaps we can all do the same – we want an ‘à la carte Jesus’ – we want a Jesus who is on our terms, we want a Jesus who isn't too uncomfortable for us;
a lot of us can quite happily confess that Jesus is Lord, but on an unconscious level perhaps we also want a Jesus who tells us what we want to hear, who protects us from suffering, who doesn't ask too much from us, who gives us a successful life, who makes us comfortable.
Peter does love Jesus - he isn't guilty of not loving Jesus - but perhaps he hasn't yet discovered what Jesus's divine love actually looks like - Jesus's divine love for the world.
Jesus then goes on to tell his disciples – “take up your cross and follow me” - that very famous phrase.
Sometimes perhaps this is something that we can misunderstand – sometimes there's perhaps a danger that we hear ‘take up your cross’ as meaning that life is hard so just put up with it;
or sometimes we can think that it means we have to try and actively seek out suffering. But what Jesus is implying is that the cross is the consequence of being faithful to God's way of love.
There can be different types of suffering which happen to us throughout life – suffering for which there's no explanation, suffering caused by our own actions, suffering imposed on us unjustly by other people, and finally the suffering which comes because we refuse to abandon love, truth, and faithfulness.
And being a Christian doesn't necessarily mean that we have to actively seek suffering; but perhaps it can mean that we don't make avoiding suffering the main principle of our life - which can be a challenge.
And tells us that “anyone who wants to save his life will lose it, but anyone who loses his life for my sake will find it”.
He's not necessarily talking about biological life, but about our soul.
Humans can have a natural desire to want to somehow optimise our lives wherever we can – we want to maximise our income, our career, our appearance, our status, and our comfort.
Perhaps that’s understandable, it’s our nature, our self preservation. But Jesus asks us what's actually a very uncomfortable question – what if we're trying to succeed at the wrong thing?
At the extreme we could end up being the type of people who gain the whole world in a material sense – wealth, status, admiration from others - but end up losing ourselves. And in many ways this links to Romans – “do not be
conformed to this world, but be transformed”.
Our Christian faith asks us not to think about what we want in life, but rather it asks us the question - what kind of person am I becoming? It can perhaps be a good question for us to meditate on every day – what kind of person am
I becoming?
Being a Christian isn't about looking at Jesus from a distance and simply admiring Him – admiring His beauty and His truth like we would perhaps do with a piece of art in a gallery, or with a piece of music;
but being a Christian is about entering into God; being a Christian is about following the pattern of Christ, taking up our cross and following Him, wherever that may lead.
And every time we come to the Mass we re-enter that pattern – Christ's Body and Blood is present on the altar, we enter into the sacrifice, the death, the resurrection.
At the Mass - and in the Christian life - Christ gives Himself to us in love, and we're gradually formed into people who can in turn give ourselves in love to others. And we see this echoed in our second reading from Romans –
“present your bodies as a living sacrifice”.
At the Mass we receive a gift, there is self-giving from God, and transformation for us.
As we come to church, as we enter into the mystery of God, as we accept our cross - we become transformed more and more into the type of people God wants us to be.
The cross is an invitation to stop making comfort, security, and self preservation our highest goals.
Peter has recognised Jesus as the Messiah, but he still wants to decide what being the Messiah should mean. And perhaps we do something similar. We believe in Christ, we love Christ, we come here on Sunday –
and yet there can still be parts of our lives where we want Christ to fit around the life we have already decided we want.
Jesus says, as He says to Peter, “get behind me” – not because Peter is no longer His friend, not because Jesus has rejected him – but the opposite – Jesus is calling Peter back to being a disciple – behind Christ, following Him
rather than trying to lead Him.
And today we are called to do the same; not searching for suffering, not rejecting the good things that God has given us, but allowing Christ to teach us what our life is actually for - what does Christ want to make of my life?
The paradox can be that we do not find our life by holding onto it more tightly, but we find it by giving it into the hands of Christ; Christ is calling us to follow Him closely enough that our lives begin to take the shape of His.
The life that Christ gives us is greater than the life we could have ever made for ourselves –
“those who lose their life for my sake will find it.”