2026-08-30 Pentecost 14
Grace, mercy, and peace be to you from God our Father and our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen!
If you recall last Sunday, St. Peter was doing really well. Jesus had given the disciples a pop quiz: ““But who do you say that I am?” 16 Simon Peter replied, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God!” (MT 16:15-16). Peter passed that test with flying colours! His rock-solid confession of who Jesus is echoes throughout the centuries. Jesus builds His church on this confession. The promise of the Gospel and the victory that the Messiah wins for His people over sin, death and the devil is founded on these very words. Well done, Pete! Well done. But that was last Sunday. It’s a bit different this Sunday to say the least!
“From that time Jesus began to show his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem and suffer many things from the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and on the third day be raised” (MT 16:21). Wait a second … did Jesus not just boldly tell everyone about how the gates of hell will never prevail against the church and how His amazing victory would be proclaimed and applied to the world through the Office of the Keys?? This seems to be a rather abrupt about-face in the messaging. Everybody knows that the Messiah, the Christ, doesn’t suffer at the hands of His enemies. Everybody knows that He is the conquering King. He will be the one to whom every knee shall bow. He will certainly not be beaten and trodden down like a common criminal at the hands of the faithless Jews and pagan Romans! Nobody is ever going to believe in a Messiah like that! It’s completely illogical! It goes against all common sense! It betrays the power, riches, wisdom and strength, honour, blessing and glory that are His! Never will this happen!
“And Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him, saying,”Far be it from you, Lord! This shall never happen to you!““ (MT 16:22). Uh oh. Peter’s great confession from last Sunday showed that he understood who Jesus was. They understood His person, but they failed to understand His work. Jesus had come to fulfill the very mission for which He was anointed. He hadn’t come to fulfill Israel’s earthly views of a Schwarzenegger Saviour, raising an army, kicking the door down and going Rambo on the Romans once and for all. Jesus couldn’t be the Saviour they wanted and still be the Messiah they needed.
It was in this very same pagan location of Caesarea Philippi where Jesus told the disciples about His suffering and crucifixion for the first time. This is what St. Peter is up in arms against. He told them again at His Transfiguration and again at the dawn of His passion in Holy Week. The way of suffering and crucifixion is the path the Messiah must walk. There was no other option. Turning His divinely human face towards Peter, Jesus says, “Get behind me, Satan! You are a hindrance to me. For you are not setting your mind on the things of God, but on the things of man.” Wow! From last Sunday’s rock solid to serpentine slitherin’ this Sunday, what a dramatic contrast! Peter, you are the devil to me! You are a hinderance, a skandalon in Greek. No doubt this is another word play on Peter’s name also from last Sunday. ‘Peter’ from the Greek Petra for rock. Now we see this solid rock of his confession has become a rock rising up through the earth, which trips up the traveler, a stumbling stone. A veritable scandal of Satan.
The devil does not want Christ to fulfill His mission and save humanity through suffering and death. What Peter proposes here without knowing it is nothing shy of denying God’s plan of salvation! His words present nothing but a stumbling block to Jesus and His mission. And so, Jesus has to lay the smack down on Peter. “You are not setting your mind on the things of God, but on the things of man” (23). Godly things. Heavenly things. Spiritual things. Peter’s mind is not set here. Rather, he’s stuck in the rut of earthly things. This single verse slaps us all upside the head as the like minded sinners that we are. We all instinctively think that life should be a bowl of cherries all the time if we are Christians. In fact, a lot TV preachers publicly proclaim this kind of prosperity Gospel all the time. Positive thinking, personal success, giving money to a ministry will unlock exponential monetary returns from God. This kind of prosperity teaching claims that ongoing sickness or poverty indicates a lack of faith, unconfessed sin, or failure to properly apply spiritual laws. In effect though, this is exactly what Jesus rebukes St. Peter for doing. “You will never suffer at the hands of sinners! You will never be killed like a common criminal!” You’ve just got to name it and claim it, Jesus! And how does the Lord of life respond to the prosperity Gospel? Get behind me Satan.
Our Lord Jesus would readily embrace the suffering and the shame of the cross for the joy that was set before Him (Heb 12:2). The joy of the outcome of the struggle and strife of the cross was greater than the pain suffering. And what is this joy? It’s you! It’s all the baptized believers who trust in Christ our Messiah and have abundant life in His name. It’s all the discples and followers of Jesus who readily pick up their own crosses and follow. It’s the people who realize that a prosperity gospel bowl of cherries is nothing but a lie from Satan. Suffering and hardship in this fallen world are transformed by God’s grace as tools for spiritual growth and sanctification. They are all abundant lessons in trusting in God no matter what our circumstances are.
There was a National Geographic about a crazy adventure trekker named Andrew Skurka. He circumnavigated Alaska on a trip that was 4,680 miles long and took 176 days to complete. 1315 miles of skiing, 2100 miles of trekking and 1270 miles of rafting. It was an insane trip that involved unbelievable sacrifice and self-denial. The snow was irregularly wet and warm while he was crossing it and it soaked his boots every day. Over night they froze solid. He had to force himself to put his warm, dry feet into those frozen cold boots every morning. What keeps a person going for 176 days through the most rugged off-trail country on the planet? The amazing reward at the end of the journey. The utter accomplishment and victory that a person attains by enduring such an amazing feat. He conquered the very worst that nature could throw at him. And then came the ultimate joy: a hot bath. A home cooked meal. A good long rest in the lap of luxury. It made all the difficulties of the struggle of such a crazy journey worth it.
We can liken this to our Lord’s words to us today. “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. 25 For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it” (MT 16:24-25). Disciples and followers of Jesus. We are but pilgrims and wanderers here on earth. It’s a rough trek with many ups and downs, many obstacles, much suffering and tears. But as we walk this road, we musn’t get side tracked and tripped up by the bumps. There is a heavenly reward waiting for us at the end of this journey that Christ our Lord has made accessible to us by faith.
Let us not be tripped up by the stumbling stones of this world—the false promises of an easy life, the prosperity lies that deny the cross, or the natural human impulse to spare ourselves (and our Lord) the path of suffering. Peter’s rock-solid confession last Sunday is still true: Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the living God. But this Sunday we learn the full shape of that confession: the Christ must suffer, die, and rise again. And those who would follow Him must do the same in faithfulness—denying self, taking up the cross, and walking the pilgrim road. The reward is not a hot bath or a home-cooked meal, as wonderful as those may be after an Alaskan trek. The reward is far greater: the joy set before our Lord becomes our joy. Resurrection. Eternal life with Him. The forgiveness of sins. The victory over death. The open gates of heaven that no power of hell can shut. Christ has already walked this road for us. He has already carried the ultimate cross. By His wounds we are healed; by His resurrection we are raised; by faith in Him the journey’s end is secure. So take heart. When the boots of this life feel frozen solid, when the trail is rough and the tears fall, keep your eyes fixed on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of our faith. He is both the Rock on which the Church is built and the One who removes every stumbling block. Follow Him. Trust Him. And at the last you will find that every hardship was worth it—because the One who called you is faithful, and He will bring you safely home. In His name, amen.
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