On Thinking Like Jesus

Reflection on Jer 20:7-9; Ps 63:2-6, 8-9; Rm 12:1-2; Mt 16:21-27

The gospel reading starts with Jesus’ first prediction of His passion, death and resurrection and Peter’s strong reaction to it. Peter’s reaction provoked a stronger response from the Lord: a sharp rebuke of Peter and His emphatic teaching about discipleship. What was wrong with Peter’s reaction?

Jesus’ prediction must have seemed like foolishness to Peter. Peter may have thought, “If the Messiah can not save Himself from cruel death, how can He save us? Didn’t His own family say that He had gone out of His mind? His family must be right! How could “the Messiah, the Son of the Living God” (Mt 16:16)- a divine person- die? If His Church is so indestructible that “the gates of the netherworld shall not prevail against it” (Mt 16:18), how is it that its founder can be destroyed by death? Why would Jesus’ Father allow such a terrible thing to happen to His Son?”

“For my thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways my says, says the Lord” (Is 55:8). By rebuking Jesus’ for His prediction of His passion, death and resurrection and by declaring that “no such thing shall ever happen to you”, Peter was actually hindering the plan of God for our salvation. To obstruct God’s plan is to join Satan in his mission. This is why Jesus commanded him, “Get behind me, Satan! You are an obstacle to me. You are thinking not as God does, but as human beings do” (Mt 16:23).

By asking us to think as God does and not as men do, is Jesus asking for the impossible? The answer is yes, but God Himself has given us the means to make the impossible possible. In 1 Cor 2:12, God’s Word says, “we have not received the spirit of the world but the Spirit that is from God, so that we may understand the things freely given us by God.” This is the same Spirit who “scrutinizes everything, even the depths of God” (1 Cor 12:10). Because we are the temple of the Holy spirit within us (1 Cor 6:19), “we have the mind of Christ” (1 Cor 2:16). Therefore, we may be able to “discern what is the will of God, what is good and pleasing and perfect” (Rm 12:2).

To empower the mind of Christ in our lives, we must nurture and safeguard our communion with the Holy Spirit. The condition necessary to grow in communion with God is to live a life of holy worship (Rm 12:1). A life of holy worship is a life of self-denial – of detaching ourselves from the pleasures and the profits of this world and attaching ourselves to the person of Christ. A life of holy worship is a life of discernment, of getting behind Jesus instead of in front of Him, of seeking and obeying the Lord’s will in small and big decisions. A life of holy worship is a life of self-giving sacrifices, of sharing in the saving sacrifice of Christ through forgiveness, reconciliation, burden-bearing and apostolic work, even if these mean giving greater importance to the interest of others instead of our own. A life of holy worship is a life under the Lordship of Christ, wherein His Holy Spirit shapes and transforms us to His divine image from glory to glory, so that we become more of Him and less of ourselves (2 Cor 3:18).