PLEASE DON’T GO!

PLEASE DON’T GO!

Matt 16:21-23

21 From that time forth began Jesus to shew unto his disciples, how that he must go unto Jerusalem, and suffer many things of the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and be raised again the third day.

22 Then Peter took him, and began to rebuke him, saying, Be it far from thee, Lord: this shall not be unto thee.

23 But he turned, and said unto Peter, Get thee behind me, Satan: thou art an offence unto me: for thou savourest not the things that be of God, but those that be of men.

           It is not easy for us to grasp the oppression that was practiced upon the people by the religious elite of that day. They walked about in royal robes and added tax upon tax while working hand in hand with the oppressive Romans. Rightly did Jesus advise his followers to listen to their teaching but to shun copying their behavior.

           The scriptures at hand indicate either an end of the beginning or the beginning of the end. Jesus began and kept on teaching his disciples that immediately ahead was trouble. The very people who represented God to the people would perpetrate unthinkable cruelty upon the Son of God. Jesus would be killed and that is all that Peter could grasp. We wonder if he even heard the last part of the message – “and be raised again the third day.”

           What a burning rebuke it was to hear Jesus call Peter “Satan!” I am sure that Peter’s only motivation was the preservation of his Master but his resistance to God’s clear plan was devilish. Confusion and wonder filled Peter’s mind. He was not thinking spiritually but was thinking naturally.

           If we stand before our tilled garden with seeds in our hand we are faced with a decision and a choice. If we look at the seeds with a desire to keep them we will have no harvest. We must sacrifice them to the ground so that death might produce life.

           Thomas Jefferson, a great man, nevertheless could not accept the miraculous elements in Scripture. He edited his own special version of the Bible in which all references to the supernatural were deleted. Jefferson, in editing the Gospels, confined himself solely to the moral teachings of Jesus. The closing words of Jefferson's Bible are these: "There laid they Jesus and rolled a great stone at the mouth of the sepulchre and departed." Thank God that is not the way the story really ends! --James S. Hewett

Dear Lord, Peter begged you not to go. I beg you now to return. AMEN