Get Behind Me, Satan: Mark 8:31-38

The confession had barely faded when Jesus began to teach them something they could not bear to hear.

"The Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders, the chief priests and the teachers of the law, and he must be killed and after three days rise again."

He spoke plainly—no parables, no riddles. Suffering. Rejection. Death. Rising.

Peter pulled Jesus aside, perhaps thinking to correct a momentary lapse in the Master's optimism. He began to rebuke him. Peter rebuking Jesus—the audacity is staggering.

Jesus turned, looked at his disciples, and spoke words that must have burned like a brand:

"Get behind me, Satan! You do not have in mind the concerns of God, but merely human concerns."

Satan. The same tempter who had offered Jesus kingdoms without crosses was now speaking through the mouth of his closest follower. Peter had just confessed Jesus as Messiah. Now he was channeling the enemy.

Then Jesus called the crowd along with his disciples. What he said next was not for the inner circle alone:

"Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me."

Take up your cross. To Roman ears, this was horrifying—the cross was not a symbol but an instrument of execution, a public torture device, the way slaves and rebels died screaming. Jesus was inviting them to execution.

"For whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me and for the gospel will save it. What good is it for someone to gain the whole world, yet forfeit their soul?"

The mathematics of the kingdom inverted everything. Saving meant losing. Losing meant saving. The path to glory was paved with death.

"If anyone is ashamed of me and my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, the Son of Man will be ashamed of them when he comes in his Father's glory with the holy angels."

Peter had confessed the Messiah. Now he was learning what the Messiah had come to do—and what following him would cost.