Commentary on Matthew 16:21-28

What a difference a week makes. It was exactly one week ago today that our reading included Peter’s amazing and prophetic confession while answering Jesus’s poignant question, “Who do you [my disciples] say that I am?” Simon Peter declared confidently the messianic identity of Jesus by saying, “Thou art the Christ, Son of the living God.” Immediately, Christ affirms his Messiahship and, depending on your tradition, may commend Peter as the head of the church or give him the keys to the kingdom. Then, in an even more interesting gesture, Jesus sternly commands them not to tell anyone that he is the Messiah. 

I was not there; however, I imagine that the scene was emotionally charged. Can’t you see? Most of the disciples were not surprised at all by the boldness of Peter’s confession. After all, all of them knew that Peter was audacious and spirited, almost to the point of being reckless. They are also unlikely to have been taken aback by what Peter said, as they had probably discussed the possibility of Jesus being the Messiah on a routine basis. 

But for Jesus to affirm the confession and finally admit that what they had seen, the lessons they had learned, and the very person whom they had followed and were with was the very fulfillment of prophecy—Jesus was the Messiah? That was a lot. This is where the emotion and excitement creep in, maybe only allowing them to half-heartedly hear Jesus warning them not to tell anyone. 

However, that was last week, and although our passage this week is a continuation of the same chapter, it begins a new pericope and undergoes a powerful shift in tone. Jesus, armed with Peter’s confession, begins from that point, the text says, to predict his own death. Jesus, who had just asked, “Who do people say that I am?,” is now sharing that it is necessary for him to go to Jerusalem and suffer at the hands of the elders, the leading priests, and the religious leaders. He tells them that he will be killed, but on the third day he will be raised from the dead. 

Talk about being a killjoy or a Debbie Downer. This is in no way what they expected. I mean, he had just admitted to being the Messiah, the Christ. They knew the prophecy. The Messiah was to come and rescue them from oppression. They had learned about Jewish history in school and were familiar with former messiah-like figures. They knew the story of the Maccabean Resistance, initiated by Matthias, against Antiochus IV, as well as the movements of both Judas the Galilean and Zadok the Pharisee. They were looking for someone to lead them in the fight, not someone who was ready to die. 

Have you ever been there? In a situation or circumstance in which you have an expectation of what God will and should do and be in your life, and the Lord decides, in an act of divine sovereignty, to do something totally different? You are primed to celebrate God’s expected next move in your life, yet it plays out differently than you anticipated. Peter confessed the messianic identity of Jesus. Jesus confirmed Peter’s confession. The disciples must have been anticipating and forecasting how their status would change for the better, being connected to the one and only Christ, but now Jesus is talking about dying. The tension and disappointment in the text, as well as in our own lives, is enough to make you want to go contrary to what God has said. 

In fact, Peter, as Peter always does, speaks up and renounces the idea of the impending death of Christ. In fact, Peter becomes indignant at the thought and tells Jesus that it would never happen as long as he was around. Jesus’s response is one of the most recognized, powerful, profound, and confusing lines in the Bible. Jesus looks at Peter after hearing his thoughts of protecting him and says, “Get behind me, Satan, for you are not setting your mind on the things of God but on human things.” This rebuke has baffled many because of the starkness of what Jesus said and to whom he said it. 

If we demystify the word “Satan,” it was not to insinuate that Peter dressed in red, had horns, or sported a pointy tail. However, in this context, it means being an adversary to God’s will. Jesus had just proclaimed God’s will and purpose for his life, and Peter’s interjection went against that, so Jesus rebuked him starkly. Still, the fact that it was Peter who received such pointed words is very interesting. For it was Peter who, because of his confession, was given the keys to the kingdom. 

Perhaps this speaks to Christ’s depth of commitment to God’s will, as well as to the high cost of being Christ’s disciple. I’ve heard it said that salvation is free, but it will cost you everything. Jesus alludes to this in the following verses. Jesus shares that to be his disciple, one must deny oneself. Western Christianity—which is built in many cases on the pillars of capitalism, white supremacy, patriarchy, and heteronormativity—has a difficult task in grasping the idea of self-denial, especially when Jesus says, “If you try to hang on to your life, you will lose it, but if you give it to us, you will gain it.” That simple truth of what discipleship truly is, in many ways, acts as a mirror that reveals the grotesque anti-Christian image of what the church has become. But Christ doesn’t let up; he asks with power and profundity, “What do you gain if you have the whole world but lose your soul?” 

Maybe this is what needs to be asked in the halls of power in all nations. In places where oligarchical mindsets and missions are unfairly pillaging the world’s economies, closely aligned with those who claim Christ as Lord—not the self-sacrificing Christ who predicts his death, but a John Wayne or John Wick Christ that shoots his way to sovereignty. No, Jesus offers the challenge of true discipleship. It seems Bonhoeffer was onto something when he said, “When Christ calls you, he bids you to come and die.” Amen and Ase’.