“You are the Christ.” Perhaps there is no profession of faith in the Gospel as succinct and compelling as the one that we read made by Peter in Mark chapter 8. It all stemmed from a seemingly innocuous question: “What do people think of me?”. Jesus was certainly not interested in taking a poll but in getting his people to say out loud what he was to them. It is Peter who does this on everyone’s behalf. But if we think it is enough to make one’s profession of faith to say that we are his disciples, we are sadly mistaken. That is why the account proceeds: ‘And he began to teach them that the Son of Man must suffer greatly, and be reproved by the elders, the chief priests, and the scribes, and then be killed, and after three days rise again. Jesus made this discourse openly. Then Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him. But he turned around and, looking at the disciples, rebuked Peter and said to him, ‘Get away from me, Satan! For you do not think according to God, but according to men‘’. One becomes a disciple not when one gives the right credentials about Christ but when one begins to think in His way and no longer in the world’s way. For the world does not accept the logic of the Cross. The world does not accept the love that it gives but knows only the love that it takes. The world teaches us to fill our emptiness with anything, while Jesus tells us to heal our emptiness by helping others. To tell Jesus not to die on the cross is not to love him but to fail to understand him. Jesus is not a masochist who loves getting hurt. Jesus is the prototype of all love worthy of the name. Indeed, love is only truly such when it finds joy in being able to love. If love means giving one’s life, there’s great joy and immense pain in being unable to do so for loved ones. Peter wants to prevent Jesus from loving to the extreme. In this sense, he is ‘diabolical’ because he wants to spare love.
