Peter speaks

 

I can’t believe he said that to me … turning on me like that, his words as sharp as a slap in the face: “Get away from me SATAN!”   He spat it out furiously – his eyes glaring – his face set in a frightfully hostile stare.  

Satan?  Me?!  What had I done to deserve that?  One minute I was flying high with exhilaration, for it was I who finally put into words what we were all grasping at, but not daring to think or speak. Now it was out in the open, it felt so good and great, and, as the speaker, I felt released and emboldened.  But in that euphoric moment, it seems, I pushed too far.  I must have crossed a hidden line.  I toppled off the peak of my own making and plunged from the glorious heights.   For a moment, everything seemed so clear and focussed; then it all plunged into darkness and agonising bewilderment once again. 

But how?  Why?  How did this happen, whatever this is?  I don’t know!  I just don’t understand!   How could I have been so right one minute, and so wrong the next?  I know I have faced Jesus tongue lashing for not seeing and understanding before – but that was usually well founded. But this?  Satan?!  Him calling me Satan?!  I’m still stinging from the shame of it, and shocked by the injustice too.  If I did or said anything wrong, then I would happily accept it.  But I can’t see that I did!  Honestly, I just don’t get it – do you?

Well, at least the day started well, with us on our way up north, buoyed up by the healing of that blind man the day before. We talked a lot about it as we went, how Jesus had spat on his hands then touched the man’s eyes.  He wasn’t healed outright; at first, he said we looked like trees walking around. So, Jesus did it again and this time the man could see everything clearly.  “Couldn’t have people seeing us as thick as two short planks!” someone joked!

We walked most of the day, heading away from Galilee into the land now ruled over by Herod’s Son, Philip.  Jesus wanted, I think, to have some time to talk to us alone, and we could do that as we walked.  Clearly, he had some important questions he wanted to ask us away from the crowd.

As we wandered, we arrived in the area near to Philip’s capital – the town he recently renamed in honour of the Roman Emperor Augustus Caesar.  But, since several other towns have also been named ‘Caesarea’, this one has become known as Philip’s Caesarea, or Caesarea Philippi.  And how ironical that name is, come to think of it, in the light of what was said later. A town named after both a Roman and a Jewish King, as opposed to Jesus, the Messiah, God’s chosen King!

But, now, we are running on a bit – except it helps to explain why Jesus was so insistent we told no-one what we were talking about up there.  If word of what we were saying reached the Tetrarch (Philip), then there would have been little hope of escape, I should imagine.

Anyway, as far as I know, word didn’t get as far as the City, and we didn’t get far in our thinking initially, anyway.

First of all, Jesus wanted a survey result: ‘Who are people saying that I am?’ he asked. 

Well, we soon came up with a list; some stupid, some quite profound.  There were those who said he was John the Baptist – but that was ridiculous.  John was Jesus’ cousin, and we’d seen them together.  And besides, we knew all too well that John was dead. 

Others made the wild claim, just as they had done previously for John, saying that that he was Elijah come back.  Presumably that meant they thought he was the harbinger of the Messiah, promised long ago by the prophet Malachi.

Most, however, didn’t go that far – but they did say he is a prophet, or one of the prophets. 

What big claims they make for him!  They are grasping at straws all over the place but, clearly, they hold Jesus in high esteem… and they expect him to make a big difference: to challenge and change things in our world.  That’s what John the Baptist, Elijah and the Prophets did in their day, isn’t it?

And yet, I still didn’t feel their answers did him justice.  Something was stirring inside me that made me feel deeply dissatisfied with these answers. I was reaching higher, further … just like the rest of us… but as yet I was not able, or willing, to put it into words.

But Jesus pushed us for it, didn’t he?   He wasn’t going to let us leave it with what other people thought; he wanted us to tell him what we thought.  And in a flash of inspiration, I did.  I put it right out there in black and white, giving shape and form to what we were all thinking and feeling.  ‘You are the Messiah!’, I said.  God’s anointed King. The one who would clear away all the usurpers, such as Caesar and Philip, and let God’s Kingdom in.

Gosh!  Even though I had occasionally played around with that thought in my head, the fact that I had now said it left me stunned.  I soared for a moment, taking in the full implications of what I had given voice to, and revelling in the fact that I had been the one to say it.   In my euphoria, I didn’t hear Jesus say ‘Well done!’ and comment on how my words could only have come from God. I just knew he was pleased that we had at last seen and declared it.  Now the truth was out there, and we all believed!

But then, Jesus went all odd about it.  His command not to speak about it, as I have said, I can understand. (We didn’t want ‘you know who’ to get to know about this.  That could have been very dangerous.)  It was what he went on to start saying afterwards that I just could not fathom.  ‘The Son of Man must suffer… and be handed over… and rejected… and put to death’?!  The further he went on, the more the cry of ‘No!’ rang out in my soul. This was impossible!  He was talking nonsense! That was not the way it could be.  The Messiah does not suffer – he makes them suffer. He doesn’t get rejected – he unites the people in a common front against the oppressors.  Certainly, the Messiah does not die. How can anyone be the Messiah and die?

Emboldened by my earlier insight, I drew him aside and began to correct him.  And that is when it happened!  He cut me down, so savagely and cruelly. He called me names I never expected anyone to say of me.  As I said, he called me Satan!   Me… Satan?!  Me?!

I still can’t believe it!  And all this talk of him dying (and, weirdly, of him rising again three days later) just does not make any sense to me whatsoever.  I’m OK with what he told the crowd later, with him saying I must be prepared to forget myself and to face a cross if that’s what following him necessitates.  I will happily die for him!  I’ll sacrifice anything in the fight to make him king!  I also get what he was saying about how, if we hold onto our lives, then we in fact lose them.  I would rather die than be a coward, wouldn’t you?   But if he dies, then what is there worth fighting for?  I tell you, I just can’t take this nonsense about how he has to die, how it is God’s plan, how this is the way that the Messiah will come in to his kingdom.  That’s rubbish!  I just can’t, and I won’t, let that happen!

But why does he rebuke me so strongly for it?

Why does he call me ‘Satan’ and slap me down into my place?

Why does he say that he will be ashamed of anyone who is ashamed of his teaching when push comes to shove on that day?

I tell you, I am so confused.  I am convinced that Jesus is the Messiah … so why does he talk like this?

Lord, the story of Peter reminds us

Of the shocking truth

That it is often when we are most confident in our knowing

That we can have missed the point entirely.

Because we have seen something

We so easily think we have seen everything

But your truth eludes us more when if do.

So help us to come humbly before you

Whose thoughts are not our thoughts

And whose ways are so much higher than ours.

Even as we are inspired

And feel confident to declare our faith loudly and boldy,

Save us from filling the words that we speak

With our own limited ideas and expectations.

Instead, keep us open to your truth and your ways

Which challenge us to the core.

And if deeply held ideas and prejudices,

(Thoughts that do not come from God but form our human nature)

 have to die

so that we may follow you,

then let us not be afraid to die to ourselves,

and take up our crosses

and follow you daily.

And when the time of testing comes,

And the godless world asserts its power over us,

Let us not be ashamed of you and your teaching,

So, you have no need to be ashamed of us

When you come in the glory of your Father.

Amen.