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?

 

 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 Him, 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 to 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 that you do 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.  As we have been following the map of Christ's journeys with the disciples, let us note that He has now headed north from Bethsaida, deeper into what is nominally Gentile territory although mixed with Jewish populations.  So, in some sense reminiscent of how He told the healed blind man not to return to Bethsaida in yesterday's reading (above), this revelation takes place outside of the reach of the Pharisees.   Let us first note that some say Christ is John the Baptist returned, as we hear that Herod suspects (see this reading).  It was prophesied that Elijah would return before the Messiah (Malachi 4:5-6); elsewhere Jesus says that this role was fulfilled by John the Baptist (Matthew 11:14).   My study bible comments that "Who do you say that I am?" is the greatest question that any person can face, because it is the question which defines Christianity.  Peter's correct answer prevents the Christian faith from being simply another philosophical system or path of spirituality, because it names Jesus as the Christ.  In Matthew's Gospel, this confession names the Christ as the Son of the living God (Matthew 16:15-16).  This position, my study bible adds, excludes all compromise with other religious systems.  Peter's understanding cannot be achieved by human reason, but only by divine revelation through faith (1 Corinthians 12:3).  Again, in Matthew's version, Jesus adds, "Blessed are you, Simon Bar-Jonah, for flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but My Father who is in heaven" (Matthew 16:17).   Christ means "Anointed One," and is equivalent to the Hebrew title "Messiah."

 

 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 Peter confesses that Jesus is the Christ, Jesus goes on to reveal the nature of His messiahship, and that is the mystery of Christ's passion.  My study bible explains that it was expected that the Messiah would reign forever, so the idea that Christ would die was strange to Peter, and would remain scandalous to the Jews even after the Resurrection (1 Corinthians 1:23).   Peter thereby unwittingly speaks for Satan, as the devil didn't want Christ to fulfill His mission of saving humankind through suffering and death.

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."  The cross was the most dreaded instrument of Roman punishment, crucifixion a death penalty reserved for the worst criminals.  The cross is also a symbol of suffering by Christians in imitation of Christ.  My study bible says that we practice self-denial for the sake of the love of God and the gospel.  To accept such suffering isn't punishment, and neither is it an end in itself.  It is rather a means to overcome the fallen world for the sake of the Kingdom, and to "crucify" the "flesh" with its passions and desires which can lead us away from God's purposes that are best for us (Galatians 5:24).  

"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."  Again, a note tells us that the central paradox of Christian living is that in grasping for the temporal, we lose the eternal.  But in sacrificing everything in this world -- that is, putting our lives into the hands of God and seeking God's direction for all things, we gain eternal riches that are unimaginable (1 Corinthians 2:9).  

"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."  This question regarding the soul is an emphasis on the foolishness of accumulating worldly wealth or power for its own sake.  It cannot redeem a person's soul, nor benefit them in the life to come.  Of incomparable value is the health and vibrant life of the soul, which cannot be purchased on worldly terms, and in turn magnifies all of one's life, and the life to come.

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 says this is a reference to those who would witness the Transfiguration (in our following reading), but also those in every generation who will experience in their own lives the presence of God's Kingdom.  

What does it mean to experience the presence of God's Kingdom?  How does this work hand in hand with our lives in this world?  Some might think that we live a life here in this world that is utterly separate from whatever "afterlife" we feel there might be for us.  But in my opinion, this would be a false reading of the Gospels.  When Jesus sends the disciples out into the world on their first apostolic mission, His instruction is that they should tell the people they encounter, "The kingdom of God has come near to you" (Luke 10:9).  In other words, they carry with them the presence of that Kingdom, and so we should think of ourselves as engaging in and following within that work of the disciples as we practice our prayer, worship, and other practices of the Church designed to shore up and expand our faith.  Our real goal is what we pray in the Lord's Prayer:  "Your Kingdom come.  Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven."  We don't live in what Fr. Stephen Freeman describes as a "two-story universe."  Father Freeman makes the point that we live in a one-story universe.  That is, one in which the Kingdom is everywhere present, as an Orthodox prayer to the Holy Spirit proclaims (see the top prayer at this page).    If one simply looks around at the interior of an Orthodox Church, one sees icons of saints and of angels, of Christ, and stories from the Gospels.  We understand this great cloud of witnesses to be present with us.  In Christian worship, we understand that we participate together with the angels who are continually worshiping God.  This is not a "someday" kind of understanding, but one meant to let us know the presence of the Kingdom and all its inhabitants with us.  In today's reading, Jesus gives us the understanding of the formula for building the presence of the Kingdom even as we live our lives in this world.  It is done as an exchange.  We live our lives as He did, placing everything in the hands of God, even all we possess and all the things we choose in how we live our lives.  It is in this sense that we each bear our own cross.  Just as the disciples left everything behind to become apostles, even following Christ's instructions on their first journey as they were sent out to take no special care for life on the road (Luke 9:3), so we also will find through a prayer life that we are asked to leave some things behind, to change our ways of thinking, and to be transformed by that life of the cross.  We are promised myriad ways in which the "life of the flesh" -- meaning a worldly life minus the awareness of the presence of the Kingdom -- and the life in Christ will conflict.  We come to see a worldly or entirely material way of thinking conflicts with the ways that God asks us to live so that God may live in us.  The practice of mercy is part and parcel of the reality of God, wherein a simplistic or self-righteous sense of justice only teaches us to vanquish what stands between a selfish or self-centered vision of what we desire and ourselves.  Our walk with Christ, on the other hand, invites us to continually expand our understanding of the good, even to see forbearance, and suffering for the sake of love and the Kingdom, as a good, precious, even rewarding gift.  The Cross is meant to transfigure our lives, to bring us to a greater sense of ourselves, a higher experience of life itself and what it can mean, and even bring salvation into a world beset with evil and suffering.  Let us remember that we live the Kingdom here, that is in our midst, within us and among us (Luke 17:20-21).  This does not happen merely through nominal "good deeds" or moral principles, but through our willingness to participate in that life of the Cross, to take up our own cross as He says, to be transformed in His likeness, and not to find salvation in self-righteous victory or victimization of others whom we don't like.  The Kingdom lives through the forward movement in spiritual freedom toward God and God-likeness, and this is where Christ asks us to go (see John 8:31-36).  We can see it in His own mission, in the things the disciples are asked to take on and to discard, even in the rejection they must accept, and the joy of their fulfillment.  We all have that choice for the soul, even as we live our lives in this world (John 17:9-19).