Matthew 16:21-28

A Son of Man Who Would Suffer

Matthew 16:21-23       Jesus Foretells His Death and Resurrection

Peter’s references to Jesus as Messiah, and as Son of the living God, contained no hint of suffering.  They could be heard as triumphalist claims.  That may have explained Jesus’ reticence to use them about himself.  His preferred to speak of himself as Son of Man.  That title had a rich significance.  It could mean, simply, human being.  As used in this sense by Daniel, it referred to the persecuted Jewish people oppressed by Antiochus Epiphanes in the second century before Christ.  In addition, Daniel used the term to refer to these same persecuted people, eventually raised from death and judging the world at the end of the ages. (Their faithfulness to the will of God, expressed in the Torah, would be the criterion for determining right and wrong).

In this first of three predictions [17:22-23; 20:17-19 (and 26:1-2)], Jesus insisted that he would suffer much.  His persecutors, in this case, would be the Jewish Sanhedrin – the elders and chief priests and scribes.  He would be killed in Jerusalem.  And significantly, he would be raised on the third day.  (Jesus’ faithfulness to the will of God, expressed constantly throughout his life and especially in his death, would become the ultimate criterion to decide right from wrong.)

Jesus, obviously, believed in the resurrection of the just (as did many other Jews from the time of the Book of Daniel onwards, including Pharisees). 

Resurrection on the Third Day

The term, on the third day, may have been an instance of  reading back into the past the later faith of the Christian community in the actual resurrection of Jesus on the Sunday following his death and burial.  Jesus may not have known details of his future fate as precisely as that.  However, he could well have used the term in a generic sense, as the prophet Hosea had used it before him, in reference to the day of God’s eventual intervention:

Had Jesus known that he would be raised on the Sunday following his death on the Friday, his experience of his passion and death would have been considerably different.  The physical brutality, no doubt, would have been the same, but there would not have been the more terrible emotional and spiritual struggle as he coped with: 

• the thought of the failure of his mission and the defection of his disciples,
• the testing of his trust in his Father’s love and faithfulness, 
• the “learning to obey” (that the Letter to the Hebrews talked about [5:8]).

Peter’s confession of Jesus as Christ and Son of God, though made through the inspiration of God, expressed Peter’s one-sided view of both.  His insight was partial and in some ways reflected his triumphalist mindset.  He had not connected the meaning of the titles with the other sense of Jesus as the persecuted (though ultimately vindicated) suffering Son of Man.  While Jesus saw the writing on the wall in the light of the escalating hostility (and the precedents suffered by prophets before him), Peter preferred to think of God as the one who would intervene to save his beloved.  He had not yet grown enough to be able to come to terms with God as the one who would enable the beloved to grow strong and to choose authentically, whatever the cost.

So he reproved Jesus, probably not angrily, but hoping to help him change from what he regarded as a pessimistic stance towards the future.

Mark, in his Gospel, had shown Jesus responding sharply to Peter, reproving him in turn.  Matthew softened Jesus’ response, saying simply that he turned around and said.  Yet he left Jesus’ comment intact.  In calling Peter, Satan, Jesus was not necessarily identifying him with the devil.  The word Satan meant the tempter.  Apparently, Jesus felt Peter’s invitation to avoid suffering as a genuine temptation.  Perhaps it interpreted the graphic temptation recounted by Matthew, where Jesus had been challenged by the devil to throw himself down from the corner of the temple into the crowded courtyard below – the temptation to win the admiration and allegiance of the people by side-stepping the summons to repentance, and thus to avoid the people’s resistance and opposition which that call would stir up.  Normal people do not take on suffering willingly.

Not long before, Jesus had called Peter the foundation rock of his new community.  Now the rock had become a stone to trip me. The same Peter, who had previously opened his heart to the inspiration of the Father, now turned his back on that inspiration and set his mind on human things.

By accepting Mark’s connection of the two incidents, Matthew deliberately chose to balance Peter’s privileged role within the community with his continuing human weakness and his human need to grow towards spiritual maturity.

Peter’s mistake reflected the consistent human tendency:

• to confuse partial insight with full vision,
• to give in to the attraction of triumphalism,
• to avoid suffering,
• and to fail to recognise the constant need to grow towards deeper spiritual maturity.

The incident serves to remind Christians of every age that leadership and authority in the Church do not of themselves guarantee either personal integrity or gifted discernment.  The Church needs its authority structures, and, to be effective, such structures call for obedience.  Adult obedience can require, at times, a respectful call for dialogue and search for consensus – since life-giving authority and obedience aim, not simply for conformity, but for genuine unity of mind and heart.

A Suffering Community

Matthew 16:24-28     The Cross and Self-Denial

Precisely to underline the fact that Peter’s response, and Jesus’ temptation, would all too easily reflect the spontaneous human option, Jesus went on to emphasise that the way of integrity in a sin-scarred world would inevitably be at the price of suffering.

Jesus had not yet revealed that he would, in fact, die by crucifixion.  Matthew assumed that his readers knew the story.  Within the culture, cross was not understood symbolically.  Crucifixion was the fate of those who undermined the imperial system of Rome.  Matthew’s readers would know that Peter’s fate, like that of the Jesus he followed, had been death on a cross.  To be Christian in the totalitarian society of the Empire was to bring its whole value system into question.  Christianity was a counter-culture in a world that did not tolerate dissent.  Though persecution was not widespread throughout the Empire at the time Matthew wrote his Gospel, its possibility was always in the air.

Most modern followers in the Western world hear Jesus’ comment about losing life metaphorically.  Matthew’s community faced the real prospect of losing their lives.  Nevertheless, the metaphorical meaning still has its bite.  Genuine growth in the kind of spirit that motivated Jesus calls for a veritable death to self-interest and the promptings of the “ego”.  Yet, it is the only way to become humanly perfect – and to love as Jesus loved.

Jesus drew on the breadth of meaning contained in the title Son of Man.  As well as indicating the weakness of the human condition and the experience of unjust persecution for righteousness’ sake,

in line with the vision of Daniel, the Son of Man would be the cosmic judge as well.

The comment fitted comfortably with Matthew’s mindset.  For Matthew, action – personal conduct – would always be the true test of the human heart.  Jesus’ faithfulness to the Father, even in face of the cruellest suffering, would always be the criterion for repaying the stance adopted by every human heart to the mystery of life.  The giving back would not be some extrinsic reward or punishment, but the conscious and eternal experience of either love-filled integrity and sharing in the life of the risen Christ, or, alternatively, of lonely isolation along with hatred of self, of others and of God.

As Matthew would recount the crucifixion of Jesus and its immediate aftermath, he interpreted the moment of Jesus’ death as the Son of Man coming in his power as king – a coming witnessed even by the henchmen of the high priest, who were present to view the crucifixion.  They had heard Jesus’ claim, made during his interrogation before the Sanhedrin [26:64], that they would witness, even if unknowingly, the triumphant coming of the Son of Man.

Matthew would choose, too, to present the concluding appearance of the Risen Christ to the disciples on the mountain in Galilee as that of the one already given all authority in heaven and on earth – the one who had already come in his kingdom.  

Next >> Matthew 17:1-13