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“An Absolutely Spectacular Week for Simon Peter” 

Matthew 16:21-28 

There is a dangerous moment that sometimes occurs when you successfully fix something around the house.  

Maybe the toilet keeps running, and you figured out how to fix it. Maybe a cabinet door has been hanging crooked for six months, and one Saturday morning you finally get out the screwdriver and straighten it.  

And for approximately fifteen minutes, you become insufferable. Because you start looking around the house thinking, You know, I’m pretty handy.  

That dripping faucet? I couple probably fix that. 

The garbage disposal? How complicated could it possibly be? 

That electrical outlet that’s been making a weird buzzing noise? I own a screwdriver. 

And this is how a person goes from tightening a loose cabinet hinge to standing in the basement three hours later, surrounded by tools, wondering why there is water coming from somewhere water has never come from before.  

There is something about getting one thing right that can make us wildly overestimate how much we understand. And nobody in the Bible demonstrates this quite as beautifully as Simon Peter.  

Last Sunday, Peter had an incredible day. Jesus asks the disciples, “Who do you say that I am?” And Peter answered: “You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God.” 

Exactly right. Jesus tells him he is blessed. And Jesus says on this rock (Peter) I will build my church. This is the moment when Peter successfully tightens the cabinet hinges. And apparently Peter walks away from that conversation thinking: You know, I think I’m getting pretty good at this Messiah business.  

Because six verses later, Jesus begins explaining what being the Messiah will actually mean. He will go to Jerusalem. He will suffer. He will be rejected. He will be killed. And Peter listens to Jesus explain all of this and apparently decides: Well, that’s not right.  

So Peter takes Jesus aside. And Matthew tells us that Peter rebukes him. Just appreciate that for a moment. Peter has known that Jesus is the Messiah for approximately six verses, and he is already explaining to Jesus how to do the job.  

Last week Jesus said Blessed are you, Simon, son of Jonah.  

This week Jesus says, Get behind me, Satan.  

It has been an absolutely spectacular week for Simon Peter.  

But underneath my humor is something deeply human. Peter’s problem isn’t that he doesn’t believe Jesus is the Messiah. Peter believes it completely. His problem is that he has already decided what being the Messiah is supposed to look like. Peter has the right answer. He just isn’t prepared for where the answer is going to lead.  

Now before we give Peter too hard a time for this, we should probably admit something. Peter’s reaction makes perfect sense. Because when Peter said, “You are the Messiah,” he wasn’t just using a religious title. He was naming a hope.  

Messiah meant God was going to do something. Messiah meant deliverance. Messiah meant victory. Messiah meant that after generations of waiting, God was finally going to set things right. And then Jesus says, “Yes, I am the Messiah.” 

But almost immediately, Jesus begins describing a future that sounds nothing like the future Peter has imagined. Jerusalem. Suffering. Rejection. Death. Peter isn’t listening to Jesus thinking, I don’t believe you’re the Messiah. Peter’s problem is that he got the answer right- and then assumed he already knew what the answer meant. 

Because Peter had expectations for the Messiah. And he wasn’t alone. The people of Israel had spent generations waiting for God to act. They lived under the power of Rome. They knew what it was to have someone else calling the shots. They knew the promises God had made to their ancestors, and they longed for the day when God would finally set things right.  

So when Peter says, You are the Messiah, he is saying something about the future he believes Jesus is going to bring. God is going to act. God is going to deliver. God is going to win.  

And then Jesus starts talking about suffering.  

Matthew tells us From that time on, Jesus began to show his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem and undergo great suffering at the hands of the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed.  

That is not how Peter thought the story was supposed to go. And frankly, can we blame him? If someone tells you that God is about to save the world, suffering and death are probably not the first things you imagine.  

Peter has left his home to follow Jesus. He has watched Jesus heal people no one else could heal. He has watched Jesus feed thousands of hungry people. He has watched Jesus walk across a stormy sea. He has watched Jesus do things Peter did not think were possible. Everything Peter has seen has convinced him that God’s power is at work in Jesus.  

And now Jesus is telling him that the road ahead leads to suffering and death?! 

No. That cannot be right. So Peter takes Jesus aside and rebukes him. I love that Matthew tells us Peter takes Jesus aside. There is something almost tender about it. Peter doesn’t stand up in front of everybody and announce that Jesus has lost his mind. He pulls him aside. He doesn’t want Jesus to suffer. He doesn’t want Jesus to die. He doesn’t want this beautiful thing he has given his life to end in Jerusalem. Peter wants Jesus to succeed.  

The problem is that Peter has already decided what success looks like. God’s presence looks like everything working out the way it is supposed to. Suffering looks like something has gone terribly wrong. And I suspect that is where Peter starts sounding a little less ridiculous and a little more like us. Because we have expectations about what God’s faithfulness is supposed to look like too. We pray for something, and we have a pretty good idea how God ought to answer. And when things don’t go that way, we begin asking questions. Where is God in this? Why would God allow this? How can anything good possibly come from this?  

Peter cannot yet imagine a Messiah whose faithfulness leads him through suffering rather than around it. And Jesus’ response is startling. Get behind me, Satan! 

Those are harsh words for the man Jesus called blessed only moments ago. But then Jesus tells us exactly what has gone wrong: You are setting your mind not on divine things but on human things. Peter wants Jesus to conform to his understanding of how God ought to work. Jesus is trying to teach Peter that discipleship works the other way around. We don’t follow Jesus because Jesus agrees to take us where we have already decided we want to go. We follow Jesus because we trust him enough to let him show us the way.  

And if Peter thought that was the end of the difficult conversation, Jesus has some unfortunate news for him.  

Jesus turns to all the disciples and says: If any of you wish to come after me, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. Suddenly this is a conversation about what kind of disciples the disciples will be. And suddenly Peter discovers that following Jesus means more than adjusting his expectations about what Jesus is going to do. Following Jesus is going to require Peter to reconsider what he is willing to do, too.  

Jesus says: If any of you wish to come after me, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. Now, Christians have used the phrase “my cross to bear” to describe just about every unpleasant thing that can happen to a person. A difficult coworker. A bad back. An irritating relative. The neighbor who never returns your hedge trimmer. Well I guess that’s just my cross to bear.  

But that isn’t really what Jesus is talking about. There may be times when following him costs us something. There may be times when faithfulness asks us to give up comfort, certainty, approval, control, or even the future we had imagined for ourselves. Because Jesus says those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will find it.  

That sounds backwards, and I think it is supposed to. Everything Peter understands about the world tells him to protect what he has. And Jesus says there is another way to live. A life spent desperately trying to protect ourselves from every loss is not necessarily the same thing as a life fully lived.  

That means there are moments when faithfulness requires us to loosen our grip. To forgive when holding onto resentment would be easier. To give generously when we would rather protect what is ours. To admit that something needs to change when keeping everything exactly the same would feel safer. And none of that means we stop caring about what happens to us. The cross is about what we are willing to risk for the sake of love.  

Because that is the road Jesus himself is walking. Jesus goes to Jerusalem not because he likes to suffer. He goes because he refuses to stop loving. To stop healing. To stop telling the truth. And he tells his disciples: Follow me. 

Which brings us back to Simon Peter. It really has been an absolutely spectacular week. Peter began by saying one of the truest things anyone will ever say about Jesus: You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God. Jesus called him blessed. Jesus called him the rock.  

And then, approximately six verses later, Peter tried to explain to Jesus how being the Messiah ought to work and got called Satan. That is quite a week. But maybe the most important thing about Peter isn’t that he got it right last week. And it isn’t that he gets it spectacularly wrong this week.  

The most important thing is that Peter keeps following. He doesn’t understand everything yet. He certainly isn’t ready for everything that lies ahead. There will be more mistakes. More misunderstandings. More moments when Peter is brave. More moments when Peter is afraid. Eventually there will even be a night when Peter insists three times that he does not know Jesus at all.  

And still, Jesus does not give up on Peter. Peter is learning what Jesus told him from the beginning: Follow me.  

Maybe that is good news for those of us who are still learning too. Because discipleship isn’t one spectacular moment when we finally understand everything. It isn’t getting every theological question right. It isn’t following Jesus perfectly. It is waking up again and again and choosing to follow.  

When the road makes sense. And when it doesn’t. When faithfulness costs us something. When we know exactly where Jesus is leading. And when all we know is who we are following.  

Last week Peter knew the right answer. You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God. This week Peter begins learning what that answer will ask of him. And so do we. Because sooner or later, every disciple discovers that following Jesus is a little more complicated than tightening the cabinet hinge. There will be moments when we realize we do not know nearly as much as we thought we did. There will be moments when the road Jesus chooses is not the road we would have chosen for ourselves. And in those moments, Jesus does not ask us to have everything figured out. He simply says: Follow me. 

Not because the road will always be easy. Not because we will always understand it. Not because we will never get it spectacularly wrong. But because the one walking ahead of us is still the Messiah, the Son of the living God.  

So we loosen our grip. We take the next faithful step. And we follow.  

Amen.