Expectations

Have you ever seen kid splay pretend? Maybe they are playing super heroes or playing house. Inevitably, you will have one child tell another child (or the parent attempting to play with them), “You’re not doing it right! Do this! Sound like this!” Sometimes the disciples did this to Jesus. Jesus was constantly challenging the disciples’ expectations of what God was going to do in the world. One exchange shows Peter being corrected by Jesus. Jesus was telling his disciples that he would go to Jerusalem and be tortured, die, and rise again on the third day (Matthew 16:21). Matthew reports, “And Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him, saying, ‘Far be it from you Lord! This shall never happen to you.’ But he turned and said to Peter, ‘Get behind me, Satan! You are a hindrance to me. For you are not setting your mind on the things of God, but on the things of man’” (vv. 22–23). Peter has an expectation of Jesus as the Messiah, and Jesus brings doubt to that expectation, so Peter says, “You’re not doing it right, Jesus!” But Peter’s mind was not set on God’s desire or perspective; he only saw his own.