Not What You Expected (Mark 8: 27-33)

In today's Gospel, Peter recognizes Jesus to be the Messiah. But when Jesus says he will suffer and die, Peter rebukes Jesus (!) privately and Jesus in turn rebukes Peter in front of the other disciples.

Peter's problem is that while he believes Jesus is the Messiah, he expects the Messiah to be an earthly king who will finally liberate Israel from foreign rule. And we can't really blame Peter because since the time of the prophets (did it start with Isaiah?), the Messiah had been expected to be a political liberator.

And Jesus was telling them, he was not going to be what they expected. In fact, just the opposite. He would suffer and die at the hands of the Romans.

I guess the strongly worded rebuke at Peter (Get thee behind me, Satan) reflects the internal struggle within Jesus. I mean who would want to give up the life of an earthly king and choose to path that leads to great suffering?

I guess it also applies to us to some extent.Some of our friends are called to lives of suffering and persecution or are called to do difficult things and the least we could do is not to tempt them to ignore that call.