Friday of the Twenty-fifth Week in Ordinary Time
I’ve often wondered why in today’s gospel passage (Luke 9:18-22) Jesus rebukes Peter for correctly answering his question, “But who do you say that I am?.” Well, today some footnotes in my bible shed a new light on Jesus’ response to that question. You may already know that in certain groups of Palestinian Jews at the time of Jesus the title of “Messiah” had political meaning. For them it referred to the expected royal leader from the line of David who would restore the kingdom to Israel. If I understand correctly, this was a “here and now” expectation of one in whom they could place their hope for an earthly, political savior. Really, who can blame them? How many of us have looked for political leaders to “save” us from any number of worldly problems and conflicts? And aren’t we disappointed when they don’t live up to our expectations?
With this new historical information, I wonder if Peter’s reply, identifying Jesus as the “Messiah” (or “Christ” in Greek), was revealing his hopes for that same kind of political savior. Luke’s gospel tells us that after rebuking Peter and directing his disciples “not to tell this to anyone,” Jesus went on to disclose that he would have to suffer greatly and be killed before being raised on the third day. Did this even make sense to them? Mark’s version of this gospel passage includes Peter rebuking Jesus in response to this revelation. It seems clear that Peter did not like the idea of his savior suffering and being killed, to which Jesus responds, “Get behind me Satan, You are thinking not as God does, but as human beings do.” (Mark 8: 33b) (There’s a lot of rebuking going on here!)
Again, I don’t blame Peter. He and the other disciples have been spending all of their time with Jesus, placing their hopes in him, walking away from their former lives for him. I imagine it was quite a shock to learn that Jesus was not only NOT the kind of Messiah that they had envisioned, but was also going to suffer greatly and be killed! It was too much to take in.
Thankfully, most of the disciples did stick with Jesus and eventually come to understand what he was all about. Not about a worldy, political savior, but the Son of God. One who doesn’t always meet our limited expectations when we think, “not as God does, but as human beings do.” Rather, one who is beyond our limited expectations. One who is Emmanuel, “God with us.” God with us in our own suffering, our own death, and who has made possible our own eventual rising from the dead.
Joining in today’s Responsorial Psalm, may we let go of our own expectations and “Hope in God; I will praise him, my savior and my God.”
~Eileen Miller