In today’s Gospel Jesus teaches that, as the Messiah, He is the Son of Man who is destined to suffer and die. Peter, having been the first to profess openly that Jesus is the Christ, the promised Messiah who will liberate Israel, then seems to go and spoil it all by incuring Jesus’ reproof and even the accusation that he is taking the devil’s part. Yet all he had done, motivated by his love for Jesus and his desire to protect Him, had been to protest against the prediction of Jesus’ suffering and death. But He had made the wrong choice. If Jesus’ rebuke seems severe, the reason is found in the teaching that He then gives on the meaning of discipleship, namely that if we would be His disciples we must first renounce ourselves, take up the cross and follow Him. Renouncing oneself tends to go against the grain for most of us and no one is normally too well disposed towards suffering, but it is the way of the Lord and the way He took for love of us.
“Lord, You know everything; You know I love You.†May Peter’s words to the risen Christ be our words too.