daily java

Daily Java:

From then on Jesus began to tell his disciples plainly that it was necessary for him to go to Jerusalem, and that he would suffer many terrible things at the hands of the elders, the leading priests, and the teachers of religious law. He would be killed, but on the third day he would be raised from the dead. But Peter took him aside and began to reprimand him[i] for saying such things. “Heaven forbid, Lord,” he said. “This will never happen to you!” Jesus turned to Peter and said, “Get away from me, Satan! You are a dangerous trap to me. You are seeing things merely from a human point of view, not from God’s.”  (Matthew 16:21-23)

Peter was only trying to help. Jesus began to talk about the fact that he was going to have to die. And before he died, he would suffer.

Peter, who had grown to love Jesus, tried to get him to quit. He told him that he really didn’t need to do all this. He told him here and other places that he himself would stop people who were coming to hurt Jesus.

The problem was, Jesus was human. And the human side didn’t want to go through all this. You can see that in the Garden of Gethsemane. At that point, he asks God rather plaintively if there is any other way he could do all this. But as he said there, your will, not mine.

He knew that no matter how bad it would be, it was part of the eternal plan. It was, after all, why he came in the first place. He didn’t come to heal, or to preach, or to do miracles. He came to bring the lost back to God. And to do that he had to make the ultimate sacrifice. He had to die.

But Peter suggesting he could help Jesus get out of something he didn’t want to do was too much for Jesus. It was the same as the devil in the desert who tried to get him to make bread out of stones because he was hungry.

Those kind of suggestions he didn’t need because the human side began to consider them.

So he told Peter something that hurt Peter pretty badly: Get away from me, Satan!

You can imagine Peter recoiling in surprise. Satan? Me? All I was trying to do was help. And he was just trying to help. But his help would have subverted the whole plan and Jesus just didn’t need it nor want it.

Peter only saw things from a human point of view. And that was natural. Jesus needed someone to realize what he was here for.

Peter tried two more times to help Jesus. He told him that even though everybody would turn, he would never turn. And he pulled out a sword to help fight when Jesus was arrested. At that time Jesus took the wind right out of his sails by stopping him. That was the last straw for Peter and he ran away.

How often he must have thought about these things when he was older and had more perspective on it all.