Our Gospel readings this morning are, once again, different in each church in the benefice. And because of the order we read them, this Sunday the readings are in the wrong chronological order. At St Mark’s this morning we read the story of Jesus’ Transfiguration, which we read at St Gabriel’s a couple of weeks ago, whilst at St Gabriel’s we read the story which comes immediately before the Transfiguration when, shortly after confessing that Jesus is “the Christ”, Peter rebukes Jesus for speaking about his death and resurrection and, in return Jesus rebukes Peter saying,
“Get behind me, Satan! For you are not setting your mind on the things of God, but on the things of man.”
Which leads to Jesus giving what must be one of his most well-known teachings,
“If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.”
When we read this story of Jesus’ rebuking Peter in this way, we have to understand that Jesus isn’t saying that Peter is the devil. We’re told that before he rebuked Peter, Jesus turned to the disciples, so this rebuke was probably intended for all of them. So there’s no sense that Peter himself is evil. It’s his thoughts and words that are evil, and not because they’re malicious, we’re given no indication that they were that, but simply because they’re contrary to God’s will.
I think it’s worth comparing this story about Peter with what we read about Judas Iscariot later in the Gospels. After Judas had argued with Jesus about allowing Mary to anoint his feet with expensive perfume, and had also been rebuked by Jesus, we read that,
‘…Satan entered into Judas called Iscariot, who was of the number of the twelve. He went away and conferred with the chief priests and officers how he might betray him to them.’
So unlike Peter, who argued with Jesus, was rebuked and then reconciled to Jesus, Judas argued, was rebuked but was not reconciled to Jesus. On the contrary, in response to disagreeing and arguing with Jesus, and being rebuked for it, he acted with malice aforethought to bring Jesus’ down. Again we’re not told that Judas himself was evil, but that Satan, evil thoughts had entered him. But unlike Peter, Judas allowed those thoughts to fester and grow so that they turned to evil action.
I think we also have to understand what Jesus might have meant when he used the name, or the word, ‘Satan’ when he rebuked Peter. We think of Satan as synonymous with the devil, perhaps a proper name for the devil, but that isn’t something we find in the Old Testament. In fact, most Jews don’t believe in the devil as an evil supernatural being. Satan, or ‘the satan’ to be precise, first appears in the Book of Genesis as someone akin to a prosecutor in a court case, someone who stands before God and accuses people of sin. And when they speak about Satan rather than the satan, different strands of Judaism interpret Satan as either a human adversary, an evil influence or, as in the Book of Job, an agent of God sent to test human beings so that he can then accuse them as the satan when he stands before God in the heavenly court. So when the Gospels speak of Satan, and especially when Jesus speaks about Satan, it’s almost certainly in one or a number of these ways.
If we read this Gospel story in this light, ‘Satan’ perhaps refers both to the tempter, who’d failed to turn Jesus from God in the wilderness and who’d now become an evil influence on Peter and the other disciples in an attempt to turn them into human adversaries of Jesus, and to Peter and the disciples who were, at that moment, acting as Jesus’ human adversaries by being an evil influence on him and themselves trying to turn him from obeying God’s will. And if we look at ‘Satan’ in those terms we can perhaps say that Judas was the most susceptible to this kind of testing and evil influence because he was the one who, in the end, conspired with Jesus’ human adversaries to plot his downfall.
And if Satan can be a human adversary who tries to turn us from obeying God’s will then, just as Satan entered Peter and Judas and turned them into Satan, Satan can enter us too, and in the same ways that Satan entered them.
Satan enters us when we argue with Jesus. We might not think we do argue with Jesus or even wonder how we can because Jesus isn’t physically with us to argue with. But we do argue with him. We argue with Jesus every time we question his teaching, or disagree with his teaching, and we do these things in many ways. We question his teaching when we try to interpret it in ways that allow us to act as we want to act rather than acting as he commanded us to. And we all do that because how often do we sin and then try to excuse what we’ve done by thinking and even saying that what we’ve done isn’t so bad, nowhere near as bad as the things other people do? Or try to excuse our sins by trying to argue that, if we interpret Jesus’ words in a certain way, what we’ve done isn’t a sin at all really? And when we sin and try to excuse what we’ve done, or worse, say we haven’t sinned at all, aren’t we really saying that Jesus is wrong? And isn’t that what Peter was doing when he argued with Jesus about his death and resurrection? And what Judas was doing when he argued with Jesus about allowing Mary to anoint his feet with expensive perfume, and when he plotted with the authorities to betray Jesus?
Some people argue that Judas has got a ‘bad rap’ because, after all, he brought about Jesus’ death through which our sins are forgiven, and we’re saved. They argue that Judas played a vital role in our salvation and so he should be, if not praised, then at least more pitied than vilified. But that doesn’t seem to be the way Jesus himself viewed Judas and his actions because he said,
“The Son of Man goes as it is written of him, but woe to that man by whom the Son of Man is betrayed! It would have been better for that man if he had not been born.”
Reading that, I’m sure none of us would like to be in Judas’ shoes. But when we acclaim Jesus as Christ, and as our Lord and Saviour, and then argue with him and live our lives as though we think he was wrong, aren’t we allowing Satan to lead us into betraying him too? Aren’t we at least inviting Jesus to rebuke us by saying,
“Get behind me, Satan! For you are not setting your mind on the things of God, but on the things of man.”?
Scripture tells us that Satan can enter all of us, either as a supernatural or human agent, and influence us towards evil, and because of that we can all be Satan by becoming an evil influence on others. What we have to do is to be able to recognise when Satan has or is trying to enter us and deciding whether we are going to respond as Peter did, or in the way that Judas did. If evil thoughts enter our minds, are we going to allow those thoughts to fester and grow until they lead us away from following God and Christ and into evil actions, or are we going to be resist the tempter and be reconciled to Christ so that we can stay on the right path? And if we’re going to respond in the latter way, as Peter did and we should, then we have to turn a deaf ear to whatever Satan is telling us, whoever that Satan might be, and listen to what Jesus is telling us. That is the right thing to do because it’s what the Father himself tells us to do. As we read in the story of Jesus’ Transfiguration,
“This is my beloved Son; listen to him.”
So let’s listen to Jesus and follow him so that we can resist Satan and the satan can’t stand before God and accuse us.
Amen.
Propers for Lent, 25th February 2024
Entrance Antiphon
Remember you mercies, Lord, your tenderness from ages past.
Do not let our enemies triumph over us;
O God, deliver Israel from all her distress.
The Collect
Almighty God,
you show to those who are in error the light of your truth,
that they may return to the way of righteousness:
grant to all those who are admitted into the fellowship of Christ’s religion,
that they may reject those things that are contrary to their profession,
and follow all such things as are agreeable to the same;
through our Lord Jesus Christ,
who is alive and reigns with you,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.
Amen.
The Readings
Missal (St Mark’s)
Genesis 22:1-2, 9-13, 15-18
Psalm 116:10, 15-19
Romans 8:31-34
Mark 9:2-10
RCL (St Gabriel’s)
Genesis 17:1-7, 15-16
Psalm 22:23-31
Romans 4:13-25
Mark 8:31-38
Parish Church of St Mark Chadderton 