Proper 19, Year B
TEXT: Mark 8:27-38
[Jesus] asked them … “who do you say that I am?” Peter answered him, “You are the Messiah.” […] Then he began to teach them that the Son of Man must undergo great suffering, and be rejected by the elders, the chief priests, and the scribes, and be killed, and after three days rise again. He said all this quite openly. And Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him. (Mark 8:29, 31-32)
Peter got it—and yet, he didn’t get it. He got the Christ part—but not the cross part.
If we were to look at Mark’s Gospel as a teeter-totter, this is the centre, the fulcrum—the point at which the story begins to tip in another direction. Prior to this passage, Jesus has been traveling about preaching, teaching, and healing. From this point forward, his path leads to Jerusalem—and the shadow of the cross looms over everything.
Mark sets the transformation point on one simple question: “Who do people say that I am?”
It’s an easy question. The disciples tell what they have heard. Jesus has made an extraordinary impact on the public, and people are looking for ways to explain the charisma and power of this itinerant rabbi from Nazareth.
Some think he is John the Baptist. There were rumours, you see, that John was not really killed by Herod. It was a kind of first century Elvis Presley myth.
Other people thought Jesus was Elijah—or another of the great prophets—come to life again.
Then Jesus asked the disciples a tougher question: “Who do you say that I am?”
Peter rose to the occasion, answering, “You are the Messiah.”
Jesus told them to keep his identity under their hats. And then he told them quite candidly what it meant for him to be the Messiah: “that the Son of Man must undergo great suffering, and be rejected by the elders, the chief priests, and the scribes, and be killed, and after three days rise again.” (Mark 8:31)
Peter couldn’t stand it. He took Jesus aside and quietly tried to talk some sense into him. But Jesus angrily rebuked Peter, telling him that his mind was focused on human, temporal events and not on the larger perspective of God.
What a painful moment. Poor Peter! Like I said, he got the Christ part, but not the cross part.
I can relate to Peter, because I struggle with that, too—with understanding the Christ part and the cross part. Even after more than a quarter-century of ministry—and most of a lifetime as a professing Christian—the cross part perplexes me. I still wonder why Jesus had to die the way he did.
And I wonder why, after all these centuries, the cross yet casts its shadow across our paths. Suffering and calamity and brutal violence seem to be everywhere.
The tragedy which unfolded in Winder, Georgia earlier this month at Apalachee High School—where two students and two teachers were shot and killed and nine other people were hospitalized with gunshot wounds—serves to underscore our own fears as we consider the problem of evil. Why should so many innocent people have their lives so abruptly ended or senselessly changed forever?
And it was senseless—as all violence is senseless. That’s what makes it all the more tragic, and—since we are people of faith—what causes us to ask: Why did it have to happen? How could God allow it to happen?
Those are good questions. I wish I could give you some good answers—but I can’t. I don’t understand the why of suffering and death any better than you do. All I can tell you is that suffering and death appear to be part and parcel of our human condition.
Perhaps that is precisely why Jesus had to suffer and die: if he hadn’t, he would not have been genuinely human. He would not have been one of us—and if that was the case, then the doctrine of the Incarnation would be meaningless.
In Christ, God became one of us, entering our human condition, and sharing in it fully. In Christ, God came to live the life we live—not just the fun parts, but the sorrowing and suffering parts, too.
Why do innocent people suffer? Why does God allow evil things to happen? There are no satisfying answers to those questions. However, as we ponder them, we are wise if we consider the cross. Whatever may be the ultimate meaning of human suffering, we know that God did not shield himself from it. God did not shield his Son from it. In Christ, God bore our pain. In a body like ours, God’s Messiah embraced our pain. And with lips like ours, Jesus is still asking us: “Who do you say that I am?”
I believe that is the central question for the Christian. It is the question with which we live from our baptism until our death. Over the years we will probably give very different answers to the question. But that’s O.K.—because the important thing is not our answer, but our willingness to keep the question alive in our daily journey.
Our best resource for understanding Jesus is our own encounter with him. When we pray, we may address the prayers to God the Father, or to the Holy Spirit, or to Jesus—but we understand that, somehow, we are addressing one God. And in the listening to that one God, we may catch a glimpse of who Jesus is.
Jesus asks, “Who do you say that I am?” This is our homework assignment: to offer our lives as an answer to that question—even when the answer is painful. Although there is no due date on the assignment, I presume that God wishes to see some progress from time to time.
And prayer is one of the best tools we have for making that progress. So—do pray about specific issues and concerns that are on your mind. Do ask God all of your “why” questions. But when you have finished speaking to God, spend at least that much time listening.
As your life of faith becomes a journey with the question, “Who do you say that I am?” allow it to be open to two great mysteries which you may never be able to finally solve. They are these eternal questions: “How was Jesus God’s Messiah?” and “Why was the cross necessary?”
Like I said, I do not have clear answers to those questions. But I am constantly exploring and enlarging them, and I encourage you to do the same. With God’s help, I pray that we will begin to get both the Christ part and the cross part—for Jesus’ sake and our own.
Amen.