Getting Behind Him: 22nd Sunday OT

Last week we heard a foundational text from Matthew 16, one of those that every Christian should know. Peter has his greatest moment in the Gospels: his confession that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the Living God. Christ praises this faith and exclaims, “blessed are you, Simon, for flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my heavenly Father!” And he names him Peter, the Rock, entrusts him with the keys of the kingdom, and promises that the Church built on this Rock will never fail.

This week we’re simply continuing the same passage, and it’s important to know that context. Because in the next breath after his great triumph, Peter hears his Lord say this to him: “Get behind me, Satan; you are thinking not as God does but as men do.” How did Peter earn this startling rebuke?


Last week Jesus raised the subject of Who He Is, asking what people say about Him, and finally, “Who do you say that I am?” And that’s the question that Peter got right. In these following verses, Jesus has continued that teaching and turned to the subject of what He has come to do. He begins to prepare them for the Cross. And that’s what Peter gets wrong.

We deal with exactly that transition, and exactly that difficulty. It’s one thing to kneel down in worship with all the delight of today’s Psalm, “So I gaze on you in the sanctuary, to see your strength and your glory; your love is better than life, my lips will speak your praise.” Many of us will get all that right, like Peter. To worship the God who is Love brings a profound happiness. To be in relationship with Him is joy. I saw some study this week claiming that church incense appears to act as a sort of anti-depressant. I don’t know how that science will pan out, but it wouldn’t surprise me at all. Everything about worship is anti-depressant!

To claim Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior, to praise His name, that joins us to the Rock! But that’s not where this conversation ends for Peter, or for us. No sooner have we settled into a happy worshipful rest in a cloud of incense, than Jesus turns the conversation somewhere we aren’t ready for: the Cross.

The Cross is where He’s going. To love that totally, to give Himself away that completely, is Who He Is. That’s who Jesus is. So are we going to follow a comfortable god, a Christ-without-the-Cross that we made up ourselves, or are we going to follow the real Jesus, the one who suffers, dies, and rises again?

It’s easy enough to find ourselves in the same position as Peter, wanting to take Jesus off to the side and tell Him about our better idea. That’s not a good position to be in. That’s not where a disciple belongs. And maybe that’s what Jesus really meant when he rebuked Peter right back and told him, “get behind me.” His harsh words were to startle Peter into realizing the absurdity of his position; the one who stands in front of Jesus trying to turn him away from the Cross is Satan! The one who follows is a disciple. “Be a disciple, Peter. Get behind me.”

There’s a story, a legend, about Peter’s last few days. I don’t know if it’s true; we’ll have to ask Peter when we meet him. The story goes that things were heating up in Rome and that Peter, as earthly head of the Church, was convinced he’d better beat it out of town. As he walked down the road to escape danger, he saw a fellow traveler coming who seemed familiar. As they grew closer, Peter was astonished to recognize Jesus coming the other way, towards Rome. “Lord, what are you doing here?” And Jesus answered him, “I am going to be crucified again, in your place, because you are running away.” Convicted, Peter turned around and embraced his own Cross.

However it happened, we do know that Peter died in Nero’s Circus for his faith in Jesus Christ. He got behind him.

When Jesus asked last week, “Who do you say that I am,” that question is for you, and to answer like Peter answered is to profess Christian faith. When He says this week, “if anyone wants to be my disciple, let him take up his Cross and follow me,” we have to take that just as personally. To answer that question like Peter did is to live Christian faith. To call Him Lord and Savior is to profess faith. To take up your Cross is to live it.

This isn’t about suffering for suffering’s sake. That’s masochism and has nothing in common with the Cross. The Cross is about suffering for love’s sake. This is one of those secrets that can only be seen from the inside, but anybody who’s ever really loved has been on the inside and can see it: that the suffering we bear for love, however brutal, leads us to Resurrection. 

Christians don’t set out to suffer. We set out to love like Christ. That will bring you a Cross. There is no other way because there is no other Jesus, except the comfortable fake one we made up in our head. The real Jesus is always standing there, carrying the Cross of all human hurting and need and brokenness, asking us if we’ll follow.


Last week we faced the question, “Who do you say that I am?” This week brings the crucial follow-up. “You know where I’m going. You know what happens on Friday. Most importantly, you know what happens on Sunday.  This is what it means to be my disciple. Will you get behind me?”

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