21 From that time on Jesus began to explain to his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem and suffer many things at the hands of the elders, the chief priests and the teachers of the law, and that he must be killed and on the third day be raised to life.
22 Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him. “Never, Lord!” he said. “This shall never happen to you!”
23 Jesus turned and said to Peter, “Get behind me, Satan! You are a stumbling block to me; you do not have in mind the concerns of God, but merely human concerns.” Matthew 16:21-23
Peter’s initial reaction to Jesus talking about how He would die was wholly rational. He wanted to defend His new friend, to be on His side. How could these religious leaders possibly do such a thing as turn Him over to be killed?
BibleHub.com makes an interesting comment about Jesus’ return rebuke:
The chief of the Apostles was addressed in the self-same terms as those which had been spoken to the Tempter in Matthew 4:10. It was, indeed, nothing less than a renewal of the same temptation. In this suggestion, that He might gain the crown without the cross, and attain a kingdom of this world as the princes of the world obtain their kingdoms, the Christ saw the recurrence of the temptation which had offered Him the glory of those kingdoms on condition of His drawing back from the path which the Father had appointed for Him, with the associations that had gathered round its original.
Jesus was starting to emphasize the seriousness of His situation, something the disciples may not have fully grasped at the time. They were actually the same boat soon, so to speak, because they would have been marked men. The forcefulness of Jesus’ rebuke would have been enough to shock the other disciples.
Jesus said Peter didn’t “have in mind the concerns of God,” implying a larger, spiritual element. As the Second Person of the Trinity, Jesus was involved with something much greater than simple death. It was hard for the disciples to understand this right now, but they would soon.
I am convinced that we as a nation are in the midst of struggle for the soul of the nation. Riots, violent protests, crime rate soaring in many cities, fraudulent ballots and ballot harvesting for the upcoming election, foreign powers funding it all, and a viral pandemic that is turning out to be way over-hyped but still in force are all issues that could easily destabilize our current way of life.
God is doing something much bigger than all of those events, that much we know. Perhaps He’s giving us over to the desires of our hearts.
Perhaps He’s testing the western Church.
We do know that God is still in control.
We still need to rest and rely on His wisdom and grace for the future.
We know we can’t rely on our political class!