The gospel selection we have just heard is the
continuation of last Sunday’s passage. We are still at Caesarea Philippi, where
Simon had recognized Jesus as the Messiah—“You are the Christ, the Son of the
living God”—and Jesus had conferred on Simon the primacy over the Church—“You
are Peter, and upon this rock I will build my Church.”
It could seem a success for Jesus: finally, his
disciples have acknowledged his messiahship; he could consider himself
satisfied and make the most of this opportunity for further achievements. But
Jesus has not come into the world to have a run of successes; rather, he has
come to do the will of the Father, which is the salvation of humankind. So,
immediately after Peter’s confession, Jesus makes the first prediction of his
passion. He makes a surprising combination: he associates the figure of the
Messiah with another old testament figure, which had nothing to do with the
Messiah—the suffering Servant of the Lord, that we encounter in the book of the
prophet Isaiah. No one before Jesus had ever connected these two figures,
because they are so different: the Messiah had to be a king, descendant of
David, who should free the Jews from the yoke of the Roman Empire and
re-establish the kingdom of Israel; in the suffering Servant of the Lord,
instead, the Jews usually saw themselves oppressed by other peoples. Well,
Jesus joins the two figures and applies them to himself, reinterpreting the
role of the Messiah in the light of the mission of the Servant of God. In other
words, Jesus tells his disciples that he will be a suffering Messiah.
But this was inconceivable for a Jew. Saying
“suffering Messiah” is a contradiction in terms: the Messiah cannot suffer; he
should be successful by definition. Once again, Peter steps forward to express the
mind of the disciples: “God forbid, Lord! No such thing shall ever happen to
you.” Probably Peter, after the words Jesus had said to him, has got a swollen
head; maybe he thinks he has become the personal advisor of Jesus, and so, he
feels bound to tell him what is better to do. But Jesus immediately reminds
Peter of his place: “Get behind me, Satan! You are an obstacle to me.” Usually,
we are struck by the epithet Jesus addresses Simon with: just few minutes
before he had declared, “You are Peter, and upon this rock I will build my
Church;” and now he calls him “Satan.” But let us fix for a while our attention
on what Jesus says to Peter: “Get behind me (vade post me) … You are an obstacle to me.” Peter,
trying to deflect Jesus from his mission, has put himself in front of Jesus, as
if he were the master; and in doing so, he has become an obstacle for Jesus, like
a stone to make Jesus stumble. That is why Jesus invites Peter to know his
place, which is the place of a disciples. And disciples should stay behind their
master and follow in his footsteps.
Peter had recognized Jesus as the Messiah
because of a special revelation by God: “Flesh and blood has not revealed this
to you, but my heavenly Father.” But this revelation from on high has not
eliminated flesh and blood: Peter continues to think not as God does, but as
human beings do. But that is not only a problem for Peter; that is a problem
for each one of us. For this reason, Paul says to us in the second reading: “Do
not conform yourselves to this age but be transformed by the renewal of your
mind, that you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and pleasing
and perfect.” And Jesus tells us what is God’s will for us: “Whoever wishes to
come after me must deny himself, take up his cross, and follow me.” Like the
apostles, we would like success in this life; on the contrary, Jesus presents
to us the cross. Not because he likes to see us suffer; but because the cross
is the only way to salvation. Just as passion led Jesus to resurrection, so we
should never forget that “it is necessary for us to undergo many hardships to
enter the kingdom of God” (Acts 14:22). As Our Lady said to Bernadette at
Lourdes, “I do not promise you happiness in this world, but in the next.”
Q
