"Old" Peter and the Crucified King

One of the scripture readings for this coming Sunday is Matthew 16:21-28. It’s not the main one I’m preaching on, but the last line of it is one I still want to address this week…

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     The passage is the one in which Jesus rebukes Peter by saying, “Get behind me, Satan!” It’s always an “ouch” for me when I think about Jesus using “Satan” to refer to one of his disciples. Maybe it helps to know “Satan” means “adversary.” Jesus has just foretold his Passion – his suffering and death – and Peter doesn’t like the idea. Peter even says, “This won’t happen to you.” Peter is wrong of course, and Jesus lets him know in an extremely firm way.

     The passage continues with Jesus teaching his disciples that not only will he go to the cross, but his expectation is that those who follow him will also “take up their cross.” In laying down his life, Jesus offers us life; when we are willing to lay down our own lives, we truly find the fullness of life in Christ. Christianity isn’t about cheap and easy forgiveness without change or transformation! When we try to turn the way of Jesus into something like this, lacking in true power of transformation, that’s when the Holy Spirit needs to inspire a modern Peter to turn – not to Jesus but to us – and say, “God forbid! This won’t happen to you!”

     At the end of the passage, Jesus discloses that the way of the cross gives way to glory. At the end he says, “I assure you that some standing here won’t die before they see the Human One coming in his kingdom.” At that point I feel like the “old” Peter makes a reappearance in my psyche, and I find my critical mind awakening for debate and argument. “Hold on, Jesus, haven’t all those standing there back then died and gone? Where and when did they see you coming in your kingdom?”

     That’s the problem with “old” Peter, alive and well in our midst. He needs to die in order to see the kingdom of Christ. For that old voice always invites us to imagine God’s kingdom on our terms. Victory for us, proving us right, all glory without any change. All triumph with no sacrifice. 

     When that’s the case, we assume Jesus must have been “wrong” when he spoke those last words.

     Because we still fail to see the Kingdom that came when all those disciples were still alive to see it.

     They just weren’t there to see it.

     Because the crown was made of thorns, and the kingdom came when the King hung on a cross.

     And those disciples weren’t yet ready to follow Jesus to the point of taking up their cross… so when he hung on his, most of them were hiding out somewhere far away.

     Jesus said, “All who want to come after me must say no to themselves, take up their cross, and follow me. All who want to save their lives will lose them. But all who lose their lives because of me will find them. Why would people gain the whole world but lose their lives?”

     Why, indeed, Lord? God forbid, Lord! Let this not happen to us: gaining the world and losing our souls. Instead, let this happen to us: real Spirit-led transformation in which we lose things that need to get lost in exchange for Christ, the Crucified King.