When I hinder Jesus' Work

          One of my favorite stories in the Gospel is where Jesus is talking to a crowd about where his path was about to lead him, the cross. Peter does not understand and tries to rebuke him quietly. But Jesus sees his disciples, turns to Peter and says, “Get behind me Satan! For you do not have in mind the things of God, but the things of men!”

Once again, we, and especially Peter, are left scratching our heads in confusion. 

What is he doing now? I do not understand why he said that. All Peter did was serve as a faithful adviser to a leader who just put his foot in his mouth. Jesus said something rash: that he had to be killed. Peter was left to do damage control. And Jesus treats him like this?  

What is even more interesting, just recently Jesus had told Peter that he would be the rock of the future Church. And then he addresses his rock by the name Satan…What?

But Jesus knew something no one else did. He knew that unless an uncreated seed fell to the ground, no pure and eternal flower could ever bloom. Spring would never come and winter would remain, bitter and dark and hopeless.

Jesus had just explained to his disciples and the crowd the entire reason he had come, to die. Within his un-germinated soul lay freedom for all mankind. Peter, a courageous and foolhardy man, swimming in the zeal of his master’s growing popularity, took him aside and criticized him for his controversial words.

            As Peter reasoned, quite naturally I would argue, why would the Messiah, the one who had finally arrived to deliver the Jews, speak of his unavoidable and necessary death? To Peter’s mind, this was no way to garner support for their cause. How would Israel be restored to their rightful glory; how would their revolution gain steam if their Messiah, their King, was foretelling his impending death?  

Oh Peter, my logical and stupid brother, I am fully in agreement with you. If Jesus continued to espouse such publicly, unwise words, our cause would be compromised. Jesus would destroy his own rebellion; the one Peter thought they had been building; the one where once erected, he would be the rock of the new Church. Peter, your words, your reasoning were insightful and true…and therefore, you were utterly wrong.

My friend, you were mistaken, as I was, as we all were…and all because you reasoned with such human, common sense.

            The Father, who asked his Son to come to earth so that we might be a family again, cared not in the slightest if his uncreated Son was gaining or forfeiting the public’s support. He knew his Son would fall into disgrace with the world, because he was not part of the world. The Father and the Son were of the Light, and the world was lost in darkness, even Peter. God knew that Jesus was to die. It had to be this way. For only by death and resurrection could the humble seed within Christ’ soul actually germinate into the new and powerful Kingdom his Father was growing. It was the Kingdom of people like Paul, the Kingdom of Children and of Light which drives out all darkness, darkness that thought it had won.

            Only within the humiliating death of his Son, could God once more pour out his love upon the stubborn and parched lips of his sons and daughters; the same ones who would hate him until that brand new dawn, the same ones who rebuked their master for a politically injudicious statement. For until the Son died and rose, we would not be able to see, as he saw. We could not understand truth, as he was Truth. We could not reason, as he did.

        And so Jesus responded to the man upon whose back he would erect his church with brandished passion. For Peter’s back was not yet prepared for the Church to rest upon it. It had not been split by the whips of rejection and suffered the wounds of misunderstood death. He still perceived the world through clouded lenses of Sin. He still reasoned in ignorance.

But once he died to his old self, once he followed his Lord into the Light with his burdening, incisive cross ripping into the flesh of his back, then he would receive Life and clear reason. But he had not died yet. Christ was not living in him yet.

            ‘Therefore, get behind me Satan! For you have in mind the things of men, not the things of God!’

I picture Jesus looking at Peter and though his words are soaked in hot zeal and anger, his wrath (as it was with my scars) is not directed toward Peter…but toward Evil, toward Death.

            “Peter, my dear, dear brother, get behind me; for Satan is still your Father, and you cannot yet understand my path. One day, my Father and I will dwell in you, and open your eyes, and you will see as we see. You will see and you will remember this moment, this rebuke, which is full of my Father’s grace for you…but right now, my beloved brother, get behind me, do not speak to me, for your thoughts are evil, and I must die, so that you may live.”

Father, forgive me when I hinder your work, because I cannot comprehend what it is you are doing. To you alone, forever and alone, be all the broken praise of my heart. There truly is no God like you. You stand mighty and alone because you are the only God who ever once kneeled to wash our feet. For you loved us more than we can ever hope to love you. My scarred lips offer you everything I have, everything you have given me, for you to use how you reason, not how I reason. I trust you Father. Get me behind your cross and shine your light. That all men may see your death, your empty tomb, your wetted rag as it reeks of our filth, and your gaping hands which absorbed it, and embrace you, the One who stands for eternity with arms open as the sun rises on that new and glorious dawn.