Gospel Reflection on Matthew 16:21-27
August 30, 2026
From that time Jesus began to show his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem and suffer many things from the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and on the third day be raised. And Peter took him and began to rebuke him, saying, “God forbid, 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 on the side of God, but of men.”
Then Jesus told his disciples, “If any man would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever would save his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it. For what will it profit a man, if he gains the whole world and forfeits his life? Or what shall a man give in return for his life? For the Son of man is to come with his angels in the glory of his Father, and then he will repay every man for what he has done.
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It must have come as a shock to Peter, just after he successfully announces who Jesus is, to be told, 'get behind me, Satan!' Wasn't he correct? Jesus was the Christ, but Peter's understanding of what that meant was mostly wrong. His idea of God was mostly centered on someone with power and privilege.
Peter is like the older brother in the story of the prodigal son. On the surface, his devotion to his father was picture-perfect: he kept all the commandments, done all the required work. The irony is that he fails to notice that he is in fact, at this moment, not inside his father's house, but is standing outside of it and is being gently invited in by his father. What's keeping him outside? Bitterness, anger, a touch of envy.
Satan is the prince of these "virtues": jealousy, bitterness, a desire for revenge. Few things in life torment us as badly as these. They lurk in every corner of the human heart and come out from under our beds at night, darken our days, dampen our happiness, make us anxious about what's lying around the corner. We rarely talk about Satan, but we know what it means to be obsessed. The saints spoke of being possessed. Maybe it's just a matter of words. However we choose to picture that power, Satan is harassing us, all the time. And we need to learn the mantra, "Get behind me, Satan."
Here are some everyday examples. Every time our minds and hearts begin bitterly replaying old conversations, old wounds, old rejections, so that everything inside of us wants to scream, "This isn't fair. How dare he say that?" or "How could she do that after all I did for her? I hate these people." We're being tormented by Satan and we need to say, "Get behind me."
There will be no joy or moral strength in our lives until those obsessions leave us alone. Every time we feel a deep emptiness and our world feels flat and empty of meaning because we're obsessed with someone or something we can't have, we need to pray, "Get behind me, Satan." And where this is particularly important is in our efforts to offer the truth to those around us. If inside of speaking the truth there are elements of arrogance, anger, lack of understanding, or bitter moralizing, our truth will never be heard. Not because it's wrong, but because our energy is. Every time we feel pangs of jealousy and the disappointment we feel because our bodies, our careers, or even our lives haven't turned out as perfectly as we would have liked, when we find it hard to be grateful for our lives, we're being beaten up by Satan and we need to say, "Get behind me." Indeed, any time we have trouble falling asleep because some memory, some disappointment won't let us go and give us enough calm to sleep, Satan is harassing us.
Like the saints of old, we need at times to wrestle with them openly in the desert. But we need to, whenever our fears and obsessions begin to beat us up, learn to say that ancient prayer, that came to us from the mouth of Jesus: 'Get behind me, Satan.'
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