NOTES for Mat 16:21-23

Not only many Pharisees, but even the apostles themselves did not understand their Teacher in everything. This, in fact, evidently explains Peter's reaction to Jesus' words about His coming death and resurrection. As for death and resurrection, the disciples never did understand Jesus, and only after His resurrection did the situation become somewhat clearer for them.

Evidently both Peter and the other apostles still held more or less traditional views of the Messiah and messiahship. And they did not understand at all how the Messiah could die. The issue here was not even that He would then rise from the dead - the apostles, like all their Jewish contemporaries, of course knew about the general resurrection on the day of Judgment. The issue was that the Messiah could not, must not die, because He was supposed to stand at the head of the messianic uprising in order afterward to lead the holy war for establishing the Kingdom of God on earth.

And when Peter says to Jesus, "May this never happen to You!" he is horrified not so much by death itself (after all, during the Last Supper he would speak with complete sincerity about his readiness to die beside the Teacher), as by the thought that Jesus' mission would turn out to have failed, that none of what he and the other apostles were waiting for would come about. Such a thing simply could not happen, because the Messiah is the one who carries out God's plans on earth; there can be no failure here. Failure is possible in only one case: if this Man is not the Messiah. But both Peter and the other apostles were afraid even to think of that.

That is why Jesus' words about His coming death and resurrection throw them into shock. But, as is clear, apart from Peter no one dared voice his fears and bewilderment aloud, perhaps fearing that he would hear the worst. All that remained was to follow the Teacher and see what would happen next.

We all went to school, and some of us even work there. We all know the logical sequence: give the right answer, get a top mark from the teacher and have your mother replace a visit to the dentist with a trip to the zoo. So after Peter confesses that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the living God, the words “Blessed art thou, Simon Barjona” sound entirely natural to us. But then: “Jesus began to show His disciples that He must go to Jerusalem and suffer many things of the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and be raised again the third day.” Even the thought of this frightens the disciples, and so Peter says, “This shall not be unto Thee!”

Confessing Jesus as the Son of God opens the way to our reward, but this reward is of a special kind: the opportunity to behold and experience the depth of God's mercy—a frightening depth. It is the opportunity to touch the hidden and ineffable nature of God's love: He gave His only-begotten Son so that the world might be saved through Him. In this depth there is an answer to every murmuring question we may ask, but we must accept Jesus as the Son of God and dare to hear His words.

For human beings this depth of mercy is always incomprehensible. The divine nature is impassible; the Almighty cannot suffer—such is the cry of Peter and the Jews, of Greek philosophers and Hellenized Christian theologians. The incarnate Son of God suffered for us in the flesh, and in horror we either say, like the Jews, that He is only flesh, or, like the Greeks, argue ourselves hoarse that He suffered in the flesh, only in the flesh, while the divine in Him remained impassible. But He Himself says: “Mine heart is turned within Me, My repentings are kindled together” (Hos. 11:8)—and therefore “He must go to Jerusalem and suffer many things.”

The apostles do not understand Jesus at once. Peter, calling Him Christ, that is, the Anointed One, King of Israel, cannot take in His predictions of His own death in Jerusalem.

Do we understand what it means to be Christians? For us, Christianity is most often associated with a certain form of spiritual life, a particular worldview, particular behavior, particular rules of life. Does our "salvation of the soul" not contrast with the words about those who "want to save their soul (life)"? He does not speak about rules, about a worldview, about "Christian values." He speaks about the cross, about bearing the cross, as the mark of a Christian.

If this is hard for us to understand and take in, we should not despair; the apostles could not either. The only important thing is to move along the path of this awareness. And in order to move, we need to know the goal.

The passage from the book of Numbers tells of human distrust, of how this crowd that came out of Egypt, because of its problems, does not see the presence of the One who can solve all its problems.

How contagious the opinion of the crowd is! Even Moses appears to fall under its influence and, losing trust, strikes the rock twice with his staff instead of bringing water out of it by the WORD. This small irresolution on the part of the one "to whom much has been given" leads to his inability to enter the desired promised land.

A distinctive answer to this story is found in the Gospel passage. Jesus, after listening to various opinions about Himself that come from the crowd, asks the disciples: "But who do you say that I am?" - helping them overcome this pressure from the crowd. And He receives Peter's God-inspired answer: "You are the Christ, the Son of the Living God."

Faith is one of the most mysterious things in the world. What gives rise in a person to the readiness to address a man named Jesus clearly and unambiguously and say to Him, “You are the Christ”—that is, the Anointed One, the King for whom all the nations of the earth wait in hope? In the case of Jesus’ contemporaries and compatriots, this can perhaps be explained by their conception of the Messiah as a national liberating hero. But how can it be explained now, when everyone knows that Jesus’ activity resulted in His execution? Today, merely acknowledging the possibility of addressing Him requires a person to hold certain unconventional assumptions about reality. These questions remain unanswered in the Gospel. Or rather, they have no human answer: “flesh and blood,” that is, a person unaided, has no reason to utter these words. This is a mystery. It is the work within a person of the Heavenly Father, who draws that person to His only-begotten Son...

Today's reading tells us about Peter's confession (vv. 13-20), which is preceded by Jesus' conversations with the Pharisees about signs (vv. 1-4) and with the disciples about the "leaven of the Pharisees and Sadducees" (vv. 5-12). It concludes with a description of Peter's conversation with Jesus, during which Jesus speaks rather sharply about His disciple (vv. 21-28).

The central event here is Peter's confession: he recognizes in Jesus the Messiah, the Christ promised by God, while the people considered Him a prophet (vv. 14-16). And then Jesus, confirming Peter's conclusion, says that he could understand this only through revelation from God (v. 17).

It would seem that the Messiah was expected not only by Jesus' disciples: in Gospel times, messianic expectation among the Jewish people was very intense. But the point is that Jesus least of all resembled the Messiah whom both the people and the learned rabbis expected. The people expected a Messiah-king who would free Judea from Roman rule; the learned rabbis and theologian-scribes wanted to see a Messiah who matched their theological theories. It is no accident that the Pharisees and Sadducees ask Jesus to show them one of those messianic signs by which, according to their own concepts, the Messiah alone could be recognized. And Jesus refuses - not, of course, because it was difficult for Him, but because He did not want to fit into any theological concept and had no intention of conforming to anyone's ideas. Accepting such a Messiah, one who matched no generally accepted norms or views, and in whom the majority were ready to see an ungodly man and a violator of the Torah rather than the Messiah, was truly possible only by revelation.

Soon after this, it was time for Peter and the other disciples to learn about the cross and the Resurrection (v. 21), and then it turned out that this knowledge was unbearable for a person. It was still possible to accept a persecuted and suffering Messiah, especially since the image of the suffering Messiah was well known to every believing Jew from the book of Isaiah. But to accept His complete defeat was utterly unthinkable, and death on the cross was perceived by Peter and the other apostles only as defeat. The reality of resurrection in general, and of Christ's Resurrection in particular, was still only a distant prospect for them, so that even when He had risen, they still could not fully believe it for a long time.

It is no surprise that Peter cannot come to terms with the thought that the Teacher's death is inevitable (v. 22). But Jesus is uncompromising here as well: one cannot stop halfway; one cannot accept the Messiah and refuse His path. A person who acts this way turns from a disciple into an adversary (v. 23). There is only one road into the Kingdom (vv. 24-27), and one can arrive there only by walking it to the end.