Get Behind Me Satan

Sermon preached by John C. Hall on 12 March 2006

Text - Mark 8:27-33

When I read the lectionary to find out what gospel lesson we’d read today, I actually said to myself out loud, “Oh good — a juicy one.” Of course, my loving a particular lesson doesn’t insure you’re going to like what I have to say about it, but I suppose it’s a good start.

But first, John Shaw’s sermon last week set the stage nicely for this week, and I really liked what John had to say about the symbol of water – describing this season of Lent as crossing a ford of a river. For me, the most powerful line in his sermon was: “Is there a ford in your life today? Is there a near bank, and a far bank, with moving or deep water in between, the length and depth of which you do not know, into which — today — you hesitate to step?”

What spiritual danger zone are you about to enter or in the middle of already? With that, we turn to this week’s passage.

27 Jesus went on with his disciples to the villages of Caesarea Philippi; and on the way he asked his disciples, “Who do people say that I am?” 28 And they answered him, “John the Baptist; and others, Elijah; and still others, one of the prophets.” 29 He asked them, “But who do you say that I am?” Peter answered him, “You are the Messiah.”

Messiah is a Hebrew title. The Greek word is “Christ.” Both mean, “the anointed one.” And then comes a very mysterious reply.

30 And he [Jesus] sternly ordered them not to tell anyone about him.

Biblical scholars call this the “messianic secret.” Why did Jesus tell the disciples to keep his messiah-ship a secret? I’ve heard several plausible theories for this. One theory is based on the rest of this same passage, and this is the part I will focus on.

31 Then he began to teach them that the Son of Man must undergo great suffering, and be rejected by the elders, the chief priests, and the scribes, and be killed, and after three days rise again. 32 He said all this quite openly.

His tribulations were not a secret.

And Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him. 33 But turning and looking at his disciples, [Jesus] rebuked Peter and said, “Get behind me, Satan! For you are setting your mind not on divine things but on human things.”

Peter has just figured out who Jesus is. This is known as Peter’s great confession. And apparently, he feels pretty proud of himself. He got the right answer. In fact, he feels so proud of himself that he presumes to take Jesus aside to straighten him out. He’s going to improve Jesus. He’s going to make Jesus a more effective Messiah. Peter doesn’t like Jesus saying he needs to suffer, and be rejected, and get killed. Suffering, rejection, and getting killed aren’t part of what Peter considers the true Messiah profile.

In fact, for the Jews of Jesus’ time and for the Jews today I supposed, the main thing that disqualifies Jesus as a Messiah candidate is his suffering, rejection, and death, and, most important, he didn’t make things better for Israel. That’s the main thing a Messiah was supposed to do.

Peter wants a successful Messiah. And Peter is all set to be the Messiah’s right hand man, his campaign advisor, his chief of staff. I’m poking a little fun at Peter here, but you really can’t blame him for thinking this way. We’d like a successful Messiah, too.

Wouldn’t we like a Messiah who could make things better for us, keep us from suffering, keep us from being rejected, and keep us from getting killed? Doesn’t that sound better than one who’s going to suffer, be rejected, and get himself killed.

So right here, in these few verses, we find the most peculiar, counter-intuitive, and most interesting thing about the Christian faith — a suffering Messiah, a suffering God. This is extremely important to understand. It’s the heart and soul of Christianity.

Jesus refers to himself here as the Son of Man. This title the Son of Man has a two-way meaning. It points in two directions. It refers to Jesus as God’s representative on earth to humans. But it also refers to Jesus as humanity’s representative in heaven to God. Jesus represents God to humans, and represents humans to God.

But let’s focus first on what it means for Jesus to be our representative before God. How is he like us? How can he represent us, in any sense?

He tells his disciples, “The Son of Man must undergo great suffering …” The suffering isn’t some unfortunate accident. To undergo suffering is the heart of his purpose. Jesus can’t be our representative by skipping over suffering, or evading it. He can’t represent us by being a successful Messiah because we’re not a bunch of little successful Messiah’s running around. Jesus can only be our representative by going through what we go through —suffering, rejection, and getting killed — all the forms of human failure, all the things that go wrong in our lives. I know it’s bizarre to hear it this way, but Jesus actually came to be an unsuccessful Messiah. That’s the only kind we could actually relate to.

But what about Jesus’ role as God’s representative to us? Why should Jesus have to suffer in that role? Why should God, the supposedly all powerful One, have anything to do with human suffering. Why not just end it?

That’s a good question. I don’t know of any good answer. But that’s not the way God chose. We may not like it, we may not understand it, but apparently God preferred to enter human suffering and failure rather than avoid it or end it.

How does all of this apply to us? . What good does Jesus “necessary suffering” do for us?

We all want our lives to go well. We want to minimize our suffering. We want to maximize our blessings. So, we go to school, we work, we try hard. We’d like to keep our jobs and be appreciated. We try to stay positive. We try to get along with people and be accepted. We take care of ourselves. We try to eat right and drink plenty of fluids. We want to be happy in love. We want to see our kids grow up to be people we’re proud of. We want to have a comfortable retirement some day.

For the most part, we operate with the assumption that we have a lot of control over these things. Eat plenty of fiber, walk every day, do your job, follow the rules, don’t drink and drive, spend time with your family, and things will work out fine. This is how to be successful.

I’m poking a little fun at it right now, but this way of thinking has some merit. We do have some control over how our lives go. We have a fair amount of control. We call it responsibility, and accountability, and stewardship.

But being in control, and being successful, aren’t everything there is to life. There’s another, darker side that we also need to face , and this is what Jesus suffering, rejection, and death are trying to help us face.

Sometimes we’re not successful. We’re not always appreciated. We’re not always happy in love. We’re not always happy at work. We’re not always happy with our kids. Sometimes they’re rotten. We’re not always healthy. Forces more powerful than our control can take over. Life takes us through many raging rivers. We almost drown in some of them. Sooner or later, we will die in one of those rivers.

And then we’ll be just like Jesus. We’ll suffer, be rejected, and get killed, just like him. This is also part of being human. Jesus knows that, if he is going to be our representative, this is what he has to go through. But Peter doesn’t see this yet, so he rebukes Jesus. You’re being too gloomy. And Jesus’ rebuke back to Peter is very interesting. Get Behind Me, Satan!

I wonder in what tone Jesus said that? It sounds a little hot-headed. “Get behind me, Satan!” Was Jesus being a little touchy here? Think about it. Maybe the intensity of Jesus’ rebuke is a sign that Jesus himself is tempted by Peter’s idea — the idea that maybe suffering, rejection, and getting killed aren’t necessary after all. Maybe they can be avoided.

Maybe part of Jesus, like Peter, and like us, is attracted to this idea of being a successful Messiah. Maybe Jesus was more like us than we thought.

We hope our lives will go well. We put a lot of energy into trying to make them go well, and we should. But there’s also a lot of failure and wreckage along the way — for all of us.

And here’s where the light of the gospel shines out of the darkness of this passage. After the suffering, rejection, and getting killed, it also says that, after three days, the Son of Man will rise. In the wreckage is where God is most likely to appear and meet us.

We don’t want to suffer. Jesus didn’t want to suffer. But when we are suffering, being rejected, or getting killed, that’s when we’re closest to Jesus. That’s when we’re most like Jesus. I don’t know why this is, but we find God and hope most powerfully when we least expect to find God and hope.

In a second hour in February, on grief, Ginny Houghtaling told us that, a few months after her mother was in a very serious car accident out in Arizona, Ginny had to take her mother off life support. That’s suffering. That’s agony. But Ginny said, that’s when she understood the resurrection of the body. It just made sense to her. She couldn’t explain it. She just believed it.

I know that all of us here have many stories and examples of our own — how God has appeared to us and saved us when we felt as if we were being crucified. If we could gather all those stories and testimonies, and write them down, I think they would fill many large volumes.

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