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Now Jesus and His disciples went out to the towns of Caesarea Philippi; and on the road He asked His disciples, saying to them, "Who do men say that I am?" So they answered, "John the Baptist; but some say, Elijah; and others, one of the prophets." He said to them, "But who do you say that I am?" Peter answered and said to Him, "You are the Christ." Then He strictly warned them that they should tell no one about Him.
And He began to teach them that the Son of Man must suffer many things, and be rejected by the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and after three days rise again. He spoke this word openly. Then Peter took Him aside and began to rebuke Him. But when He had turned around and looked at His disciples, He rebuked Peter, saying, "Get behind Me, Satan! For you are not mindful of the things of God, but the things of men."
When He had called the people to Himself, with His disciples also, He said to them, "Whoever desires to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me. For whoever desires to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake and the gospel's will save it. For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world, and loses his own soul? Or what will a man give in exchange for his soul? For whoever is ashamed of Me and My words in this adulterous and sinful generation, of him the Son of Man also will be ashamed when He comes in the glory of His Father with the holy angels." And He said to them, "Assuredly, I say to you that there are some standing here who will not taste death till they see the kingdom of God present with power."
- Mark 8:27-9:1
Yesterday, we read that the Pharisees came out and began to dispute with Jesus, seeking from Him a sign from heaven, testing Him. But He sighed deeply in His spirit, and said, "Why does this generation seek a sign? Assuredly, I say to you, no sign shall be given this generation." And He left them, and getting into the boat again, departed to the other side. Now the disciples had forgotten to take bread, and they did not have more than one loaf with them in the boat. Then He charged them, saying, "Take heed, beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and the leaven of Herod." And they reasoned among themselves, saying, "It is because we have no bread." But Jesus, being aware of it, said to them, "Why do you reason because you have no bread? Do you not yet perceive nor understand? Is your heart still hardened? Having eyes, do you not see? And having ears, do you not hear? And do you not remember? When I broke the five loaves for the five thousand, how many baskets full of fragments did you take up?" They said to Him, "Twelve." Also, when I broke the seven for the four thousand, how many large baskets full of fragments did you take up?" And they said, "Seven." So He said to them, "How is it you did not understand?" Then He came to Bethsaida; and they brought a blind man to Him, and begged Him to touch him. So He took the blind man by the hand and led him out of the town. And when He had spit on his eyes and put His hands on him, He asked him if he saw anything. And he looked up and said, "I see men like trees, walking." Then He put His hands on his eyes again and made him look up. And he was restored and saw everyone clearly. Then He sent him away to his house, saying, "Neither go into the town, nor tell anyone in the town."
Now Jesus and His disciples went out to the towns of Caesarea Philippi; and on the road He asked His disciples, saying to them, "Who do men say that I am?" So they answered, "John the Baptist; but some say, Elijah; and others, one of the prophets." He said to them, "But who do you say that I am?" Peter answered and said to Him, "You are the Christ." Then He strictly warned them that they should tell no one about Him. My study bible explains to us that Jesus' question here is probably the most important question anyone can ask, because the answer actually defines Christianity. First we hear the incorrect answers of the crowds. Jesus is not John the Baptist returned (we remember that this was what Herod feared). Neither is He Elijah returned (there was a prophecy that Elijah would return at the time of the Messiah; Jesus has said that the Baptist was Elijah returned in spirit). Peter's answer, "You are the Christ" is a direct statement of truth about Jesus, and moreover defines what Christianity is in a sense that separates it from other faiths. Christianity isn't simply a statement of truths, a philosophy, or an intellectual understanding of rules to live by. With faith in the Person of Christ, we enter into relationship, and the faith, no matter what its great teachings, is held in a relationship of love, with the Person we understand from the Gospels and the story of His ministry. For example, the fact that Jesus doesn't want Himself widely publicly identified as Christ tells us a lot about who He is, this persona of love; He is not in the world to use power for self-serving purposes, but for ministry. This understanding of relationship, and in some sense, of recognition, isn't something that happens only through intellectual assent and reason, by but revelation through faith. Christ means "Anointed One" or "Messiah." My study bible suggests that Jesus first draws out the incorrect understandings in order to identify them for His disciples, as a person is better prepared to avoid false teachings when they are clearly identified.
And He began to teach them that the Son of Man must suffer many things, and be rejected by the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and after three days rise again. He spoke this word openly. Then Peter took Him aside and began to rebuke Him. But when He had turned around and looked at His disciples, He rebuked Peter, saying, "Get behind Me, Satan! For you are not mindful of the things of God, but the things of men." After the revelation that He is Christ, Jesus teaches what His mission will be, what is to happen. This is the mystery of His Passion. My study bible explains that it was expected that the Messiah would reign forever, so the idea that Christ would die was perplexing to Peter, and remained a scandal to the Jews even after the Resurrection. When Jesus calls Peter Satan, it's because Peter has unwittingly spoken as one who would obstruct Jesus' mission: to save mankind through His own suffering and death. Peter's is a worldly perspective; Christ asks us to go into the mystery of His ministry in order to truly understand the things of God.
When He had called the people to Himself, with His disciples also, He said to them, "Whoever desires to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me. For whoever desires to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake and the gospel's will save it. For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world, and loses his own soul? Or what will a man give in exchange for his soul? For whoever is ashamed of Me and My words in this adulterous and sinful generation, of him the Son of Man also will be ashamed when He comes in the glory of His Father with the holy angels." Jesus speaks of the cross, which all knew as the terrible instrument of Roman punishment, but would become the symbol of Christians for suffering in imitation of Christ. Self-denial may come in many forms, but always with one purpose: for the love of God and the gospel. Suffering, says my study bible, isn't punishment nor an end in itself, but is a way to overcome the world with Him, for the sake of the Kingdom and the love of God in which He teaches us we are to participate. The cross, in this way, becomes a great analogy: its use in killing Christ is a great sin, but Christ's redeeming power turns it into a symbol of salvation, redemption, and overcoming evil, even the power of death, through the power of love which is God; and His life gives the cross a meaning of hope.
And He said to them, "Assuredly, I say to you that there are some standing here who will not taste death till they see the kingdom of God present with power." My study bible explains that this is a reference to those who would witness the Transfiguration, which we will find in tomorrow's Gospel reading.
What does it mean to sacrifice a life for the sake of the Kingdom? Why does Christ ask us to follow Him and take up our own crosses? First of all, we have to be able to see the exchange that's being offered here. We reject one type of life in order to embrace another. When Jesus speaks about losing one's life in order to save it, or about losing the world but gaining one's soul, He's not speaking about a sort of open-ended sacrifice for the sake of sacrifice. Not at all! And if we read this passage that way, it's my opinion that it is a great mistake. Indeed, we've missed the whole point. What Jesus is talking about is a whole Kingdom that He is bringing into the world, a way of life, a great embrace of God's love that we accept -- but we do so by changing our minds, turning away from a "worldly" way of thinking and being, in order to receive what He's offering to us. That may be a difficult thing to grasp without this experience of the love that He offers, and without understanding the love that is behind all of this great "event" of Jesus' incarnation and ministry to the world. That's why, as my study bible noted in the earlier verses of today's reading, faith in Christ isn't a set of intellectual principles or philosophy alone. It's a relationship in which we have to grasp something of the heart, what it means to trust this Someone who loves us and whom we love in return. It's the exchange of the life He offers us for the life we know. This is repentance, to sum it up very simply, and it's the life of the cross that He's teaching about. It's my opinion that this life, this exchange, can come in many forms. Sacrifice may be painful, but in the end the reward is something that is much better, it "wipes away every tear." My study bible says, "We gain eternal riches that are unimaginable." It may sound strange to hear sacrifice linked with issues of self-esteem and self-respect, but I would like to say that with a seeming epidemic of abuses in the news it's important that we understand the difference between sacrifice for a nihilistic end or for evil purposes and sacrifice for Christ's sake. When an addict, for example, sacrifices every form of comfort and relationship, jobs and family and standing in the community, for the sake of the addiction, then this cannot be called a worthy sacrifice! On the contrary, this is slavery, and it's a slavery that the power of Christ condemns and helps to redeem a person out of. God's love calls upon us to sacrifice all the things that lead to such a slavery and help to enforce it: friends who may be a part of that life or triggers for it, habits and ways of thinking that may have led us to that addiction in the first place. This becomes a lifelong struggle of taking up a cross in order to leave that "worldly sense" that got us into the addictive behavior, and take up what Christ offers us instead. It's not a simple question of just fighting the addiction, but of really changing our lives from the inside out, a repentance that calls us to someplace better and greater, and asks us to give up worldly ways of thinking. In such a context then, sacrifice can come to mean giving up things or even people we cling to in exchange for a greater love we're offered, for a sense of peace or of joy, and that is a tough lesson to learn! Self-centeredness gives way to Christ-centeredness and new meanings are given instead to how a greater sense of value is worth the sacrifice of immediate gratification. That's one small example of a way to take up our crosses and "change our minds," or repent. In so doing, "right-relatedness" becomes established as well, a different sense of how we relate to others around ourselves, and this is also a gift from Christ. That's only one example of how we might view taking up our crosses, but there is every kind of opportunity here. We may feel we "need" worldly power and glory in some sense, for example, as a form of addiction, if you will. We might feel we "need" approval desperately in order to consider ourselves worthy, as another example. But whose approval do we need, really? Where would the most important approval come from that gives meaning to our lives? That exchange of a kind of "praise of men" for the "praise of God" becomes a central struggle in our lives to take up the cross He offers us, and exchange one way of life for another. In so doing, we may find that He adds all kinds of things to our lives on the way. But this central struggle is never going to be easy or simple, and it's not going to happen overnight. As in the case of an addiction, it's a lifelong kind of a deal, something we're always working on. But that's the discipleship He offers, and the immense, vast Kingdom of reward in the exchange that calls.
