“From that time Jesus began to shew to his disciples, that he must go to Jerusalem, and suffer many things from the ancients and scribes and chief priests, and be put to death, and the third day rise again. And Peter taking him, began to rebuke him, saying: ‘Lord, be it far from thee, this shall not be unto thee.’ Who turning, said to Peter: ‘Go behind me, Satan, thou art a scandal unto me: because thou savourest not the things that are of God, but the things that are of men.’”
Jesus then unveils the consummation of the love story, the crucifixion and the resurrection that He would suffer for love, but keeps this only to His closest intimates. To proclaim His majesty before He was crucified would have been a lofty ask for those that only knew him tangentially. To plant, root up, and plant once again would till the soil too heavily: “But in the seventh year there shall be a sabbath to the land, of the resting of the Lord: thou shalt not sow thy field, nor prune thy vineyard” (Leviticus 25:4), and so the Lord tell His Apostles not to proclaim this to those who could not receive it. In this prophecy, the Lord says that He will go to the earthly Jerusalem to open the heavenly Jerusalem to His beloved: “And I John saw the holy city, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband” (Apocalypse 21:2). He voluntarily suffers at the hands of the elders of the city that He may welcome with joy those who would receive His love and thus live forever, the hands of God and the hands of His people working together in love. Then He was to rise again, “the firstborn from the dead” (Colossians 1:18), that He, with His beloved, may rear spiritual children to bring new life to the world, raising people to spiritual life, which is seen in a fuller way in the resurrection at the end of days. St. Peter, fresh from divine inspiration, loses sight of the divinity he proclaimed, doubting the perfection of the words Jesus said: “Every word of God is fire tried: he is a buckler to them that hope in him” (Proverbs 30:5). It is commonly said that St. Peter, God bless him, had too hot a zeal, for when lovers freshly find each other, their actions can, rather than transcending reason, be simply irrational: “I adjure you, O daughters of Jerusalem, if you find my beloved, that you tell him that I languish with love” (Canticle 5:8), for there is a difference between a wildfire that consumes a broad territory in reckless fashion and a white-hot flame that is concentrated in a blowtorch, used in a welder’s hands to cut through what is hard and fasten together what is separated, and the latter is prudent love: “If thou shalt call for wisdom, and incline thy heart to prudence: if thou shalt seek her as money, and shalt dig for her as for a treasure: then shalt thou understand the fear of the Lord, and shalt find the knowledge of God” (Proverbs 2:3-5). He then goes to Jesus, not conceiving that the Son of God could be put to death, and out of sheer affection says that it will not come to pass. While Jesus welcomes the love, the ignorance He refutes with a sharp rebuff: “Persevere under discipline. God dealeth with you as with his sons; for what son is there, whom the father doth not correct?” (Hebrews 12:7). Now, this excess of affection from the prince of the Apostles was not a suggestion of the devil, because whatever is done in love is welcomed by the God of love, but without the revelation of God’s truth, he speaks entirely from his own understanding: “Lean not upon thy own prudence” (Proverbs 3:5), showing that no matter how zealous one may be, without the guiding hand of truth it is “adverse” to the divine plan and human nature, as the name “Satan” means “adversary.” Many think that the rebuff of Peter and the devil in the desert are the same, whereas in the desert Jesus says, “Begone, Satan” (Matthew 4:10), to be away from Him into everlasting punishment, whereas to St. Peter He says, “Get behind me,” to follow Him in the paths of love, even to death: “When thou shalt be old, thou shalt stretch forth thy hands, and another shall gird thee, and lead thee whither thou wouldst not” (John 21:18), not stepping out in front and hindering God’s action by one’s own impulses, and this leads to a lesson that, in the zealous, loving pursuit of God, even what seems good may be contrary to God’s action. The temptations are less to sin and more to what isn’t fitting for you, and the Lord provides a defense for this: “My son, do thou nothing without counsel, and thou shalt not repent when thou hast done” (Ecclesiasticus 32:24), for “The heart is perverse above all things, and unsearchable, who can know it?” (Jeremias 17:9), and to go to a wise spiritual director, one’s spiritual friends that know you, or both provides a beautiful security in your decision making: “Designs are brought to nothing where there is no counsel: but where there are many counsellors, they are established” (Proverbs 15:22). There can also be a look into the true nature of love here, because love and the cross are intimately united, whereas love without toil and sacrifice is better known as lust. Thus, the Lord turns to Peter, who is blessed in receiving correction from the Divine Master: “Such as I love, I rebuke and chastise” (Apocalypse 3:19), and shows that the Apostle is lacking in his understanding of what love is and what it looks like, which he will come to know in time. Lastly, Jesus and anyone deeply immersed in His love are simply never offended. In both, love runs too deep, and so what is against them is seen with compassion. However, to the soul that is united to Him, they know their nothingness, and so no praise brings them up, but they also know how loved they are, and so no insult or scandal brings them down, and this is humility: “Be humbled in the sight of the Lord, and he will exalt you” (James 4:10). But in putting a block before divine action, St. Peter is made a scandal, for anything that inhibits divine love, though seen with compassion: “Who is weak, and I am not weak? Who is scandalized, and I am not on fire?” (2 Corinthians 11:29), inhibits the Divine Lover from doing His work of love.