Peter

“Get behind me, Satan!”

Jesus said those words to Peter.  Think about that:  Jesus.  Said those words.  To Peter, the man he’d identified as the one to lead the gathering of believers after the Resurrection.  Imagine hearing those words spoken to you, from Jesus himself.  

I mean this:  stop and imagine it.

Albert Einstein’s best work great out of what he called thought experiments; he would sit and think of situations that came alive in his own imagination—a spaceship moving through space at the speed of light, for example.  We may not have Einstein’s brains but we can use his technique:  sit back in your chair, close your eyes and imagine being among the disciples, with Jesus.

He looks at them…at us…at you…and says that he’s going to Jerusalem and there he will be killed.  And after that he’s going to rise from the dead.

When we read this, it’s easy to skip over the part about being killed, about becoming dead.  But to be there, to live it, even as a thought experiment, is unsettling.  We are terrified by death.

If you really do this as a thought experiment, watch Peter.  I suggest reading the passage in the Gospel of Mark first; it will bring detail to your imagination.  Peter has just done what he so often does, stepping forward to say what the other disciples wouldn’t or couldn’t—he’s just declared his faith that Jesus is the Christ.  Then immediately after, Jesus tells his followers about his impending death and resurrection.  Peter draws Jesus aside and begins to rebuke him…

Imagine this!  Peter…rebukes Jesus!  Why, how, could Peter do this?  Peter had been with Jesus from the beginning; Jesus walked alone into a crowd of people who had come to hear John the Baptist preach; Peter, his brother Andrew and several other future disciples were there.  Now Jesus had vast crowds following him, and Peter was disturbed by the future Jesus had just laid out.  What did Peter think?  “This won’t sell?”  How could Peter presume to tell the man he’d just identified as the Christ—the Messiah, the Savior of Israel—that he was out of line?

It seems he didn’t really hear the part about rising from the dead.

No one knew.   No one except Jesus.

-Randall