Mark 8:31-33 (NIV): He then began to teach them that the Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders, chief priests and teachers of the law, and that he must be killed and after three days rise again. He spoke plainly about this, and Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him.
But when Jesus turned and looked at his disciples, he rebuked Peter. “Get behind me, Satan!” he said. “You do not have in mind the things of God, but the things of men.”
The preconceived notions of who and what the Messiah was to be ran deep in the hearts of God’s people, even among the inner circle of Jesus’ twelve disciples. After Peter’s confession that Jesus was indeed the Messiah, Jesus began to share with them all that that actually meant.
Jesus saw very clearly, and had known for some time, where His path would lead. He knew that he would be rejected by the elders, chief priests, and teachers of the law, the very ones who were most eagerly awaiting His arrival. He didn’t even have to be omniscient to know that this was true, because many of them had already rejected Him as the Messiah because He didn’t fit what they had been taught that He should be and do. But Jesus knew that an even deeper rejection was just over the horizon – one that would result in those leaders condemning Him to death.
Jesus knew that He must be killed by those very leaders whom He had come to save, and that the death He had to die would be inconceivable to anyone else. Not only would it be gruesome, shameful, and excruciating from a physical standpoint, it would also include all of the suffering for all of the sins of mankind. It would even include having the Father withdraw His presence from Him, something that Jesus had never experienced from all eternity past.
But Jesus could clearly see beyond the suffering and shame, and even beyond the separation from his Father that He would have to endure. He understood that all of that would last only a few hours, and would then be followed by a glorious resurrection. He would be restored to the glory that He had with the Father before the world began (cf. John 17:5).
But Peter never even heard the part about the resurrection. He was appalled at Jesus’ prediction of rejection and suffering, and when Jesus spoke about being killed, he simply stopped listening and began to move toward Jesus, to pull Him aside, and to convince Him that this was not the path that He should follow. After all, there were a sizable number of people who adored Him, enough to make up a small army. Surely there were more than enough of them to prevent even the whole Sanhedrin from taking Jesus away and killing Him.
But Jesus immediately recognized the spirit behind those words. In them He heard an echo from His time in the Judean wilderness. Three times satan had tried to get Him to turn aside for God’s plan, to follow the “easier” and “safer” path of self-satisfaction, self-aggrandizement, and self-preservation. Satan had promised that if Jesus would only turn aside to HIS path, all of His goals could be met without any pain or suffering. But all of that was a lie then, and it was a lie now. God’s ways are not ways that make sense to the enemy, or even to most human beings. Tainted by self-interest, most people shy away from the path of self-sacrifice that God lays out before them. But, just as in the wilderness, one sharp rebuke put an end to this temptation, and provided an opportunity for the disciples to really hear what Jesus was trying to tell them.
Father, we do tend to shy away from the hard paths, the hard choices, even when we know that those paths and choices are the ways that You have laid out before us. How much time have we wasted trying to explain to You that our way is better? How many opportunities have we missed while wavering and second guessing Your clear commands? Forgive us, Lord, and help us to yield ourselves more fully to Your complete will for our lives. Amen.