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. There have been a couple of times when I’ve gone from “Blessed are you” to “Get behind me, Satan” in the equivalent of about twenty verses, and I often make that move in the span of a few 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. Explain to Jesus how things are, when he doesn’t have his facts straight? 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, and then got seriously rebuked over it when he turned out to be completely wrong: and he sticks around. 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? And so “Get behind me, Satan” turns out not to be the last word about Peter.

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Sometimes when we think we’ve got it right we get it so very wrong: and though you are often gentle as you set us straight, 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.

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