In Matthew 16, Jesus and his disciples enter the region of Caesarea Philippi— a city on the border between the Gentile world and Israel. Jesus uses the opportunity to ask a probing question: “Who do people say the Son of Man is?”(v13) There were all sorts of replies to that question, but Peter is one who dares to say what the other disciples only think. Peter says, "You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God.”(v16) Jesus confirms this heaven sent confession of Peter’s as revealed from his Heavenly Father. It’s on this confession that he will build his church. Jesus then describes how the Messiah’s Kingdom will come. “He must go to Jerusalem and suffer many things…and that he must be killed and on the third day be raised to life.”(v21) This was not what the disciples expected. They thought the Messiah was going to kick the Gentiles out, not die at their hands. Peter can’t bear the thought of a suffering and dying Messiah, and so he cries out, “never Lord!” Jesus rebukes Peter’s objection as the word of the accuser— the satan— who does not have in mind the things of heaven. Peter doesn’t realize that how the Kingdom comes, is what the Kingdom is.
We, like Peter, often struggle to imagine that any good can come through a suffering and dying Messiah. We want the Kingdom to come like all the other kingdoms and empires of the world. We want the upward path of success, power, and achievement.
In this season of Lent, we learn that whoever wants to be a disciple of Jesus must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow him in our own the way of suffering. This may sound like foolishness, but the promise of Jesus is that when we give up our lives, we find them.
