Part of following Christ is coming to a greater understanding of who He is. Just as a married couple spends a lifetime learning about one another, so we should spend a lifetime learning more about Christ. That was certainly the case for those who followed Jesus day after day during His earthly ministry, and it should continue to be the case for His disciples 2,000 years later.
When Peter makes his confession, proclaiming who he believes Jesus to be, he uses a word that we haven't seen since the very first verse of Mark's gospel- Christ. The Messiah, the Anointed One, Peter seems to have rounded a corner with his ability to correctly identify who Jesus is. The significance of Peter's confession is found not just in what he says, but in where he says it. Caesarea Phillippi was named after two men, Augustus Caesar and Herod the Great's son Philip. Before it was named Caesarea Philippi, the town was called Paneas, in honor of the pagan god Pan. It was also home to a shrine for the cult of the emperor, and at one point was a site where the god Baal had been worshiped. In a town named for Augustus- a man who claimed to be god, and yet was now dead- Jesus is first identified publicly as the Messiah. In a city with a history of worshiping false gods, Jesus is revealed to be the Anointed One of the one true God.
I had a government teacher who, when lecturing us on the ins and outs of the political process, was fond of saying "the devil's in the details." That maxim takes on new meaning when we see that Peter's proclamation was correct, but his understanding of what that proclamation meant was quite the opposite. Jesus begins to hint at the fact that the part of the Messiah won't be the triumphant role that His disciples have envisioned. In what becomes a theme, Jesus' refers to Himself indirectly as the Son of Man, and tells of the suffering that the Son of Man must undergo. Jesus uses this title for Himself each of the three times that He foretells of His passion, or suffering. Much of what Jesus' will endure is revealed in Isaiah 53, in one of the sections that deals with the "Suffering Servant" who is to come. When speaking of this Suffering Servant, the prophet states that "surely he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows; yet we esteemed him stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted. But he was wounded for our transgressions; he was crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with his stripes we are healed...Therefore I will divide him a portion with the many, and he shall divide the spoil with the strong, because he poured out his soul to death and was numbered with the transgressors; yet he bore the sin of many, and makes intercession for the transgressors." (Isaiah 53:4-5, 12) Peter is rebuked because in essence he is trying to alter the Messiah's mission. Just a few chapters after the Suffering Servant section, Isaiah writes "my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways declares the Lord." (Isaiah 55:8). Peter sees, but only partially, just as the man who was cured of his blindness just a short time before saw only partially at first. Peter rejects Jesus' suffering because that's all he sees, suffering. He doesn't see redemption, and he isn't yet at a point where he can see the empty tomb. For Peter, at least for the time being, the cross looms so large as to obscure his view of anything but the death that suffering will bring. Peter will benefit from hindsight, when after Jesus' resurrection he looks back and sees how God can bring eternal salvation from death on a cross, seeming to snatch life and victory from the jaws of death and defeat.
Being the master teacher, Jesus takes this opportunity to not only reveal His own path, but to also teach His disciples what their path will be like as well. By calling the crowd over for this teaching, Jesus' is showing that the cost of discipleship is not to be born by only the "super-Christian", that the cross isn't just for the apostle, minister, or prophet. The expectation of suffering for Jesus' disciples is universal. The commentator William Lane would say "Jesus stipulated that those who wish to follow him must be prepared to shift the center of gravity in their lives from a concern for self to reckless abandon to the will of God...the central thought in self-denial is a disowning of any claim that may be urged by the self, a sustained willingness to say 'No' to oneself in order to be able to say 'Yes' to God." If we wish to get in on Christ's resurrection, then we have to also endure His suffering. When writing to the Roman church, Paul would put it this way: "the Spirit Himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, then heirs- heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, provided we suffer with him in order that we may also be glorified with him." (Romans 8:16-17) Lest the Romans become discouraged by the task ahead, Paul reminds them, and us, that the way of Jesus is not a road that we travel alone. "Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness. For we do not know what to pray as we ought, but the Spirit Himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words." (Romans 8:26)
In your walk with Jesus, have you come to a deeper appreciation of who He is, and what He has accomplished? Are you still trying to force your idea of what the Messiah should be on Jesus, or have you embraced the irony that life comes through death, and that victory comes through what by all accounts seems like defeat.
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