Get Behind Me, Satan: Why Does Jesus Rebuke Peter?
In last Sunday’s Gospel, Jesus called Peter “the rock.” Today, He calls him “Satan.” What happened?
Gospel (Read Mt 16:21-27)
In the verses preceding today’s passage, Jesus and Peter had a remarkable exchange. Peter identified Jesus as the Christ, the Son of God; Jesus announced that God had revealed this truth to him. On that basis, Jesus changed his name and made him head of the Church He was to build. He made a promise to preserve that Church, giving us some confidence that He wasn’t making a terrible mistake. However, in today’s reading, that confidence gets tested.
We find that “Jesus began to show His disciples that He must go to Jerusalem and suffer greatly…be killed and…be raised.” Peter, the newly appointed Rock of the Church, is horrified. The English translation of the Greek doesn’t give the full force of Peter’s instant and violent reaction to Jesus’ prediction of the Cross. In Greek, the verb translated as “took aside” is better rendered “took possession.” The scene was likely one in which Peter pulled Jesus forcibly to himself, by His tunic, and literally stepped ahead of Him, blocking the road to Jerusalem. We have seen Peter’s impetuosity before in this Gospel, and we will see it again. These verses demonstrate it graphically. Peter listened to Jesus only long enough to hear “suffer greatly” and “be killed.” However, when Jesus spoke these words, they described actions that were leading up to something else: the Resurrection. Peter never got that far. The thought of Jesus undergoing that kind of cruelty was too much for him: “God forbid, Lord! No such thing shall ever happen to You!”
We all understand this reaction, because it is so human. Still, it disturbs us to see it in the man upon whom Jesus intends to build His Church. Is this guy reliable? If our confidence in him starts to wobble, Jesus’ next words might strike it to its foundation: “Get behind Me, Satan.” What’s going on here?
We must understand why Jesus harshly calls Peter by this dreaded name. Clearly, the intention of Peter here is radically different from the temptation of Jesus by Satan, God’s enemy. As we know from the forty days in the wilderness, Satan consciously and intentionally wanted to subvert God’s plan to save the world through the humility and obedience of His flesh-and-blood Son. Earlier in St. Matthew’s Gospel, we see Satan “taking Jesus” aside, first to the pinnacle of the Temple (Mt 4:5), then to “a very high mountain” (Mt 4:8). His goal was always to tempt Jesus to repudiate the path God had ordained for Him: in His human weakness, through His own self-denial, He would rise victorious over both death and the devil. After the third temptation, Jesus says to Satan, “Be gone!” (Mt 4:10), foreshadowing the final removal of his presence and power among men.
Notice the difference in Jesus’ response to Peter: “Get behind Me, Satan.” This is a difference that makes all the difference. Jesus here is referring to Peter as Satan in a metaphorical way, as an “adversary” (the literal meaning of “satan”) who, because he is thinking as a man does (we never believe suffering is God’s plan), temporarily becomes an obstacle to Jesus. The command to “get behind Me” suggests that Peter’s problem was that he wanted to get ahead of Jesus. Perhaps he thought that his appointment as head of the Church meant he could lead even Jesus! The sharp rebuke returns him to reality. Jesus leads; the disciples, even (and especially) Peter, follow. Does this lapse nullify Peter’s role in the Church? Not at all. If it had, surely Jesus would have issued a retraction. It does demonstrate, however, that Peter still had much to learn about thinking “as God does.” He and the other apostles would have to live through the Passion in order to understand how different God’s way is from the way of man. In order to prepare them, Jesus speaks about the mystery of God’s way.
