Jesus asked his disciples, “Who do people say that the Son of Man is?” (Matthew 16:13). After they reported the various answers people were giving, Jesus asked them to speak for themselves. Peter jumped right up and declared his faith: “You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God” (16:16). Jesus responded with one of the strongest commendations in all the Bible: “Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah! For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father in heaven” (16:17).

Jesus then began to teach his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem to suffer and be killed there (16:21). Peter knew that had to be wrong, so he took Jesus aside to explain to him the way things were going to be: “we’re never going to let that happen to you” (16:22). Then Peter received about the most severe rebuke Jesus ever gave anybody: “Get behind me, Satan! You are a stumbling block: you are setting your mind not on divine things but on human things” (16:23). I think that’s got to be the record. Once or twice I’ve gone from “Blessed are you” to “Get behind me, Satan” in less than twenty verses, and pretty often I make that move in just a couple of chapters: but Simon Peter does it here in just six verses.

One of the things I love about Peter is the way he is always right up front. Identify Jesus as the Son of God? Yep, I’ll do that. Set Jesus straight, because he hasn’t understood our situation properly? Yep, I’ll do that. Right or wrong, Peter will step up and tell you what he thinks, even if it turns out to be embarrassingly wrong.

And he doesn’t quit. With a public rebuke like that, I think I’d melt. If I didn’t melt, I’d leave. I’d be too hurt, too humiliated, too mad to stay. But Peter blurted out what he was sure was right, turned out to be completely wrong, got seriously rebuked over it, felt ashamed or humiliated about it, and stuck around anyway. He’ll get more things wrong, before the story is over, and he’ll weep bitter tears over them. But even when he completely fails his Lord, he still knows the only answer is in Jesus. Where else could he go?

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Sometimes when we think we’ve got it right we get it so very wrong: often you are quite gentle as you set us straight, and yet sometimes you are stern and we are tempted to walk away from your rebuke. Yet where else can we go? Though we stumble and fall, Lord Jesus, we will follow you.