Experienced Belief

Matthew 16:21-28

Peter had just answered Jesus correctly, in the previous scripture, about who He is, “Messiah, the son of the living God.”  Jesus told him he would be the rock the church would be built on and that the keys to heaven were in his hand.  He must have felt pretty good about himself, even if Jesus said it was knowledge from the Living God, His Father.  So when Peter heard Jesus say he most suffer and die, he felt confident enough to rebuke him.  Honestly can we blame Peter.  First of all, if you are in a class and a teacher says something wrong a good teacher commends someone that corrects them.  Peter knew Jesus was the Messiah, but he was still stuck on the idea that the Messiah would free the people from Rome.  Peter was not unique, the Messiah was to bring back the Kingdom of God, but they believed it as an earthly kingdom.  They looked back to the days of David as their hope of the future.

Peter heard Jesus say he would rise again, but to the Jews of the first century it was a given that everyone would rise on the last day.  Peter was terrified of the idea of Jesus, his teacher, his friend suffering to death, let alone, believing that would be the end of the movement.  Honestly, I understand Peter’s fear, and I know the resurrection.  I still tremble on Good Friday, I still cry when I truly ponder the cross.  It is horrific.  It was necessary as Jesus states in this scripture but it is awful, sad, and horrific. 

Paul picks up on this pun of Jesus’, that Peter is the rock and also the stumbling stone in 1 Corinthians 1:23:  “A stumbling-block to Jews and foolishness to gentiles…”  Peter was getting in the way of Jesus’ inevitable journey to the cross, because like other Jews it is absolutely a scandal the great Messiah would be killed.  And for those not looking for a Messiah, it was just absurd.  Yet Jesus had to save us via those means.  See the cross was part of our human justice system.  True it was the ultimate punishment for a crime and a sign to others, but it is also true that humans have used violence for justice (and continue) and often it is one person or one group of others that are blamed to bring peace to the people.  Thus the system of justice of the cross was both the literal justice system and the greater overarching system we use called scapegoating.  Both are violent, horrific and sad.

So why does Jesus have to go to the cross.  It is not something answered in one sermon, but essentially Jesus takes on our system with out guilt or sin to save us from our sins, especially our own violent idea of earthly justice.  As Mark Heim pens,

God's justice machine.  God volunteered to get into ours.  God used our own sin to save us.

This is why Jesus told Peter to get out of way of the cross.  It may be the earthly justice system, but it will be a heavenly verdict when Jesus is resurrected.  Just as the angels remind us, in Mathew 28:6 “He is not hear; for he has been raise, as he said…”  Our belief, not unlike Peter’s, is because we experienced the resurrection.  Peter saw him in the unlocked room and according to John on the beach where he asked him three times “Do you love me?"  The flesh and blood resurrected opens us to believe that the earthly way are archaic and violent, and we choose to follow the man that took them on so that we all can be saved from sin.

 

 

 

 

S. Mark Heim. Saved from Sacrifice: A Theology of the Cross (Kindle Location 52). Kindle Edition.