Matthew 16:21-28

Matthew 16:21-28 (NRSV)

²¹ From that time on, Jesus began to show his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem and undergo great suffering at the hands of the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and on the third day be raised. ²² And Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him, saying, “God forbid it, Lord! This must never happen to you.” ²³ But he turned and said to Peter, “Get behind me, Satan! You are a stumbling block to me; for you are setting your mind not on divine things but on human things.”

²⁴ Then Jesus told his disciples, “If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. ²⁵ For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will find it. ²⁶ For what will it profit them if they gain the whole world but forfeit their life? Or what will they give in return for their life?

²⁷ “For the Son of Man is to come with his angels in the glory of his Father, and then he will repay everyone for what has been done. ²⁸ Truly I tell you, there are some standing here who will not taste death before they see the Son of Man coming in his kingdom.”

 

Matthew 16:21-23 is the first prediction of the passion. The source is Mark. After every reference to his approaching death, Jesus begins a new lesson on discipleship. The Synoptic Gospel story divides the ministry of Jesus into two stages, one in Galilee, and one on a journey toward Jerusalem. The moment of the confession of faith by Peter becomes the hinge moment. Jesus will now “show” his disciples rather than teach them, that he “must,” suggesting divine necessity, go to Jerusalem and suffer. The early tradition behind the passion story seems simply to have recognized the divine necessity of the innocent suffering and death of Jesus in fulfillment of the prophetic testimonies of scripture. We can contrast this early tradition with later theological interpretations that give the death of Jesus an expiatory significance.[1] However, this view of the death of Jesus corresponds well with Galatians 5:2, which says that Christ loved us and gave himself up for us. The crucifixion is not so much the goal of his message and ministry as the result of his faithfulness to his prophetic call.[2] Apocalyptic writings used words like “show” and “must” when considering a sequence of events that are about to unfold, the outcome of which is part of the divine plan. In this case, the sequence of events involves a journey to Jerusalem; suffering imposed by the elders, chief priests, and scribes, his death, and on the third day, God will raise him from the dead. As it stands, the text reflects post-Easter faith. It reflects a summary of the core beliefs of the early church that we find in I Corinthians 15:3-4, Acts 2:23-24, 3:15, 3:18, and 13:27-31. However, some scholars believe Jesus concluded that the Son of Man and Messiah must suffer. Thus, although Mark (and Matthew accepting it) has framed the prophecy that reflect post-Easter faith, there is no reason to think Jesus could not have thought creatively about his own fate, in light of the prophets, the death of John, and the hostility of Jewish leaders. Jesus may have surmised his fate, but the details may come from the early preaching of the church. Under this view, Jesus prepared the disciples with the concept of Messianic suffering and later exaltation.  This would mean that Jesus made the unique combination of the Isaiah 53 passage with the apocalyptic hope regarding the Son of Man. In this view, the Son of Man, even as Isaiah 53 points to the later victory of the suffering servant, would find God exalting him. The immediate response of Peter is that God forbid such things happen to him. We see Peter stepping out of his disciple mode and seeking to become the teacher of the teacher! Given his confession of faith, we can appreciate this sentiment. The Jewish Messiah was to bring the defeat of the enemies of Israel and the victory of the Jewish people over their oppressors. The Jewish Messiah was not to be an unarmed teacher killed by Jewish religious leaders and experiencing the shame and horror of crucifixion. The response of Jesus is firm. Peter has become a Satan, an opponent, an obstacle, to the divine plan. He needs to resume the role of disciple in getting behind Jesus. Jesus rejects in strong terms the attempt of Peter to become the teacher. He needs to shift his focus from the human things to the divine things that are unfolding. He needs to differentiate between the human concerns he naturally has and the eternal matters Jesus has disclosed. He must learn to think divine things. Jesus has reasserted his leadership role. Peter is like all persons who follow Jesus. We want to follow Jesus, but the way is often confusing. The temptation is always present to think in an ill-informed and earthly way, the way human beings usually think of things, rather than think from the perspective of eternity. 

Matthew 16:24-28 contains sayings on discipleship. He will begin with a focus upon the cross and discipleship. Verse 24 has sources in Mark and in the material common to Matthew and Luke. He provides the condition for following him. The first is to deny the self. It would have been an odd phrase in Hebrew and Aramaic, for the ancient near east did not know of the notion of the free-standing self. In that culture, the self had its definition within and among a family group. The kinship group gave identity to and maintained the world in which the individual existed. To deny the self meant to give up your world. To deny the self meant to give up the human family that defines you. It also meant, of course, that your identity, which is always forming in a human life, receives its definition by your relationship to Jesus and the company of persons whom you join in following Jesus. We must renounce, withdraw, and annul our natural primary loyalty to self, leave the self constituted by yesterday and the person we had become, give up our previous form of existence, and step into the open, into the freedom that a moment can bring in following Jesus, regardless of the cost.[3] The second condition is that we must take up our cross. The cross was a familiar form of public execution by the Romans, designed to keep conquered people submissive. Paul said he died every day (I Corinthians 15:30). Jesus is already suggesting that to follow him means co-crucifixion, a theme we find in Paul as he refers to his own crucifixion so that his life is a matter of Christ living in and through him (Galatians 2:19-20). Thus, it pulls individuals even further away from the safety of a self that the kinship group defines. I find it difficult, then, that any preacher would say that you cannot succeed by preaching the cross. A popular preacher supposedly said this. His argument was that people do not want to hear about the cross from the standpoint of discipleship because they have enough problems. In any case, following Jesus may well add to your problems. Discipleship is a matter of forming a new identity in the destiny of Jesus. The bearing of your cross is the consequence of the special calling and sending we receive from God. The way of Jesus is the way of the cross, so the disciple follows in that destiny.[4]  Just as following Jesus means denial, so also it means death. Dietrich Bonhoeffer famously said in his Cost of Discipleship, that when Christ calls us, he bids us to come to him and die. Thomas à Kempis wrote,   

In the Cross is salvation;

in the Cross is life;

in the Cross is protection against our enemies;

in the Cross is infusion of heavenly sweetness;

in the Cross is strength of mind;

in the Cross is joy of spirit;

in the Cross is excellence of virtue;

in the Cross is perfection of holiness.

There is no salvation of soul,

nor hope of eternal life,

save in the Cross. (The Inner Life) 

"If you bear the cross gladly, it will bear you"

(The Imitation of Christ, 2.12.5).

 

The third condition is to follow Jesus. This saying makes it clear that we cannot separate Christology and discipleship.
           

In verses 25-26, we find that discipleship is a matter of giving up our lives, our primary commitment to a kinship group, and in doing so we will find true and eternal life. The sources involve Mark, Q, and John. I hope we can see the paradoxical nature of saying that in order to find life we must lose it. We cannot have fullness of life by preserving a life defined by the past. We can see here the supreme value of the soul or the true self. We cannot put a price on it. Setting aside our definition of the self will lead to happiness and real living. Such a life is meaningful. As the Prayer of Saint Francis puts it, “For it is in dying to self, that we are born to eternal life.” When we choose the self, we lose what we seek.[5] We renounce the self in favor of Jesus.[6] If we concern ourselves with the self in our practice of discipleship, we will miss the very thing discipleship offers. You will achieve the desire of your heart as a follower of Jesus if you lose your focus upon the self.[7] The first person to live out this pattern was Jesus. Jesus saved his life at the cost of proclaiming his message of the rule of God. Had he saved his life, he would have made himself independent of God. He would not have been the Son by an unending finite existence. Jesus chose an earthly existence consumed in divine service. He did not cling to his life. He showed obedience to the mission, regardless of the consequences.[8] We are not ourselves if we exalt ourselves by loving, choosing, willing, asserting, and maintaining ourselves. God has created us for the glory of God. We have our source in God. If we follow the pattern of losing ourselves, we are moving toward God. We are more fully human as we are open to God. If we choose the self-contained self, we miss the very thing we seek. We lose what we want to save.[9] We actually lose the desire of our hearts. Verse 26 has a source only in Mark and is part of the common wisdom of the time. Acquiring the whole world but losing the soul would be a bad exchange. The true self, the soul, is beyond all value. One can freely give it and freely receive it. Adolf Harnack thought with good reason that he had found a Magna Carta of the message of the infinite value of every human soul.[10] We need to give up our citizenship in the world of “me.” Our devotion needs to be to the people and tasks of our lives in order to find life. Much of modern notions of self find their critique here. Many parts of psychology have faith in the pursuit of selfhood as we form our identity. Yet, excessive focusing on our identity is a deformation of the theme of a human life. The goods and tasks of our lives and our openness to God need to be primary and therefore the source of our identity. We can see a parallel in Plato as he suggested that the upright and good are happy, while the pursuit of happiness for its own sake is egocentric and leads us astray. Only those who seek the good for its own sake will find happiness and identity (Gorgias 491bff, especially 506c.7ff and 470e.9f).[11]
              Verses 27-28 refer to the coming Son of Man and to our accountability to that future time. The source is Mark. The apocalyptic expectation of the Judaism of the time forms the context for this expectation. We find warning and consolation. Yet, to say that some standing here will not taste death before they see the Son of Man coming in his kingdom is puzzling. We could consider the possibility that Jesus made a mistake. If we are afraid of the implications of that, we could ponder other possibilities. Does it suggest that the rule of God arrives in the words and deeds of Jesus, especially as he casts out demons? Could the saying refer to the following story of the transfiguration of Jesus? Could it refer to the resurrection? Could it refer to the coming of the Spirit at Pentecost?

---

[1] Pannenberg, Systematic Theology Volume 2, 416.

[2] Pannenberg, Systematic Theology Volume 2, 438.

[3] Barth, Church Dogmatics IV.2 [66.3] 539-40.

[4]  (Pannenberg, 1998, 1991) Volume 3, 282.

[5]  (Barth, 2004, 1932-67), IV.2 [60.2] 421.

[6]  (Barth, 2004, 1932-67) IV.1 [63.1] 744.

[7]  (Barth, 2004, 1932-67) IV.3 [71.6] 652.

[8] Pannenberg, Systematic Theology Volume 2, 374-5.

[9] Barth, Church Dogmatics III.2 [47.5] 639, IV.1 [60.2] 421.

[10]  (Barth, 2004, 1932-67) III.4 [55.1] 387.

[11] Pannenberg, Systematic Theology Volume 2, 249.