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February 16, 2023In today’s First Reading from Genesis we hear, “For in the image of God
has man been made.” What an amazing revelation. You and I are created in the likeness of God. Unfortunately, in our human frailty, instead of honoring that gift, we all too often try to make God in our own image and we end up with a twisted, spiteful and revengeful God.
Peter, my all-time favorite, falls into the same trap of having a skewed vision of God. In the first half of the Gospel reading, he makes a giant leap forward. Jesus first asks, “Who do people say that I am?” He gets told John the Baptist, Elijah or one of the prophets. Moving from the general to the specific, Jesus gives further focus to the question, asking the disciples, “But who do you say that I am?” It is Peter, speaking for them all, who acknowledges Jesus as the Christ.
Peter has achieved an enormous growth in faith and is doubtless thrilled to have made it, but he is soon brought to earth with a bang. Instead of Jesus talking about future victories, glory and acclaim, he begins telling the disciples about his forthcoming suffering and death.
This isn’t at all what Peter and the other disciples were expecting from their Messiah. Impetuous as ever, Peter reproaches Jesus. It’s then that Jesus responds with the devastating comeback, “Get behind me, Satan. You are thinking not as God does but as human beings do.”
I don’t know about you, but I have to be constantly reminded that God’s ways are not my ways and to rejoice in that. Our God is infinitely more loving and gracious than we can possibly imagine.
