Text: Mark 8:27-38 (RSV)
Peter’s Declaration about Jesus
27 And Jesus went on with his disciples, to the villages of Caesare′a Philippi; and on the way he asked his disciples, “Who do men say that I am?” 28 And they told him, “John the Baptist; and others say, Eli′jah; and others one of the prophets.” 29 And he asked them, “But who do you say that I am?” Peter answered him, “You are the Christ.” 30 And he charged them to tell no one about him.
Jesus Foretells His Death and Resurrection
31 And he began to teach them that the Son of man must suffer many things, and be rejected by the elders and the chief priests and the scribes, and be killed, and after three days rise again. 32 And he said this plainly. And Peter took him, and began to rebuke him. 33 But turning and seeing his disciples, he rebuked Peter, and said, “Get behind me, Satan! For you are not on the side of God, but of men.”
34 And he called to him the multitude with his disciples, and said to them, “If any man would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. 35 For whoever would save his life will lose it; and whoever loses his life for my sake and the gospel’s will save it. 36 For what does it profit a man, to gain the whole world and forfeit his life? 37 For what can a man give in return for his life? 38 For whoever is ashamed of me and of my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, of him will the Son of man also be ashamed, when he comes in the glory of his Father with the holy angels.”
In the Name of God, the Holy and Undivided Trinity. Amen.
Have you ever been in a conversation with someone when – all of a sudden and completely without warning – the person you’re talking to says something is so out of place, so completely out of context, and so surprising, that you’re just struck dumb with amazement?
That may be how Peter felt. Just a few minutes before, he proclaimed to Jesus and the world his belief that Jesus was indeed the Christ. Jesus didn’t contradict him, only asked him to keep it mum for the moment.
But then, after giving Jesus what he thought was some much-needed advice, Jesus calls him “Satan”! (“Satan,” by the way, is not a name, but a sort of title – calling someone a “satan” means calling that person an “adversary.” That’s what’s meant here, too.)
Mark doesn’t tell us what Peter’s reaction was – it wasn’t his focus to delve into the motivations or the emotions of the disciples, except in very specific situations – the motivation for Judas’ betrayal of Jesus, or Peter’s tearful realization of how he’d let Jesus down later on in this account, to mention a couple examples.
But I can imagine that Peter must have been pretty hurt. He was, after all, only saying what the other disciples were also thinking. So, just what did Peter say to Jesus when he “rebuked” him? We don’t have a transcript of the conversation, but it may have gone something like this:
Peter: What are you talking about? Rejection? Death? Rising again after three days? What does any of that have to do with being the Messiah? That’s NOT how it’s supposed to work! Really, Jesus, stop scaring us with all this and get with the program!
Jesus: Peter, you are the one who’s not getting with the program! I am the one who’s making the decisions around here, not you! I have just told you what’s going to happen, and how!
Peter: But…
Jesus: You’re on the wrong side here, Peter! Either get in line, or get lost!
And now, let’s consider for a minute how Jesus may have been feeling – he’s maybe thinking “All right! Peter finally gets it!”, but he finds out that, no, he still doesn’t. Peter’s still stuck in the old way of thinking.
The people of Israel had always believed that they were really God’s chosen people. They believed – in fact, they took it as a matter of course – that they had a very special place in the universe. They looked back on the days of David as the norm.
But as the years and centuries went on, it became harder and harder to hang on to that ideal. Ten of the twelve tribes of Israel were packed off to Assyria and lost forever. Then the Babylonians arrived and did the same thing with their leaders. Then came the Persians, then the Greeks, and now the Romans. With each invasion, the ideal of being God’s own people receded ever farther into the background, and was replaced with a growing and increasingly bitter desperation. Far from knowing what it was like to be the “top dogs,” they didn’t even know anymore what it was like to be free and independent.
So, the “old way of thinking” that Peter was really only repeating was that the Messiah, when he came, was going to usher in a new Golden Age for Israel. The Messiah they wanted, and had yearned for these many centuries, was a political and military Messiah, a new David, or a new Judas Maccabaeus, the legendary “Judas the Hammer” who had driven out earlier invaders, the Seleucid Greeks. This was the kind of Messiah who really got their blood pumping – he was King Arthur, Rambo, Superman, the Avengers, and Indiana Jones all wrapped up in one irresistible package! And – oh, boy! – when he showed up, Romans, watch out!
At the same time, another concept took hold, one that got intertwined with the concept of the earthly Messiah. That concept went something like, “Well, if we can’t regain our greatness on our own, then God will surely intervene on our behalf.” There would be all kinds of calamities; earthly kingdoms would be thrown down; there would be trials and tribulations of all sorts; and then, at long last, God would send his מָשִׁ֫יחַ (mashiach), his Messiah, his Anointed One, his anointed king (our word “Messiah” comes from the Hebrew, and our word “Christ” comes from the Greek – both mean the same thing: “Anointed One”). And then…and then…all those hostile powers, those arrogant conquerors would feel the very wrath of God. As the Jewish philosopher Philo wrote, the Messiah would “take the field and make war and destroy great and populous nations.”[1] And they would all be back on top again!
It must have been a crushing blow to Peter and the disciples when Jesus threw cold water on their notions of both who he was and what the Messiah was really all about. Peter got the title of Messiah right, but not the meaning of the title.
So Jesus calls the disciples together and sets them all straight: We’ve tried it the old way before, he says, the way of war and conquest, and domination, and look where it got us: Exactly nowhere.
Jesus tells them that God has something else in mind. The Messiah God will send, the Messiah God has sent, is not just another bully, like all those invaders and conquerors before who have come and gone, and left behind barely a trace of their presence.
It’s a new day, he tells them. There’s a new way of living, the one I’m offering you right now. But it requires you to “take up [your] cross and follow me.”
Ooh. There’s the fly in the ointment.
Taking up one’s cross and following Jesus was literally a deadly serious prospect, and even today following Jesus is not an easy thing. Jesus was under no illusions about what his earthly end was going to be, and he was brutally honest with his followers when he told them that his fate would quite possibly be theirs, too. Not the sort of thing you’ll find on any recruiting poster!
Following Jesus sometimes requires us to make tough decisions. So it’s hardly surprising, really, when even those of us who have spent our whole lives in the church sometimes get slightly nervous when we hear about taking up our cross. There are many reasons for this, but most of them boil down to the notion we got somewhere or another that “taking up our cross” means for most of us that we have to lead lives that are heavy on the denial and light on the fun. Some folks actually believe that, if they’re unhappy and cranky, they must be doing it “right.” One of the words we use to describe this is “puritanical,” from the Puritans of the 17th Century.
But that misses the point; that’s not exactly what Jesus was talking about. The Puritans didn’t even live like that! Instead, he tells us that it’s more a matter of balance and perspective. We’re either in or we’re out. The “life” we’ve been sold by Madison Avenue and TV isn’t real life at all, and he invites us to set aside those ultimately unsatisfying notions and embrace the full and abundant life God offers us. After all, Jesus does say that “My yoke is easy and my burden light.” As Professor David Lose writes, “Here’s the thing: we tend to think that life is something you go out and get, or earn, or buy, or win. But it turns out that life is like love, it can’t be won or earned or bought, only given away. And the more you give it away, the more you have. In fact – and as first time parents experience profoundly – only when you love others do you most understand what love really is. Likewise, only when you give away your life for the sake of others do you discover it. Somehow, in thinking about how to fulfill others’ needs your own deepest needs are met. Call this the mystery of life and the key to the kingdom of God.”[2]
Nothing scary in that, is there? In fact, that’s something we do every day. Most of us carry our cross without even thinking about it, because that’s simply “what we do.” The flip side to carrying our crosses is that we think that what we do is not important or significant. I’ve sounded this theme many times before, and the fact that it keeps coming back in one Gospel lesson after another tells me that it’s something we need to bear in mind.
So, let me repeat what Professor Lose wrote: “[O]nly when you give away your life for the sake of others do you discover it.”[3] Jesus tells us that the only things we can really hold on to are exactly the things we give away. A paradox, certainly; and part of the mystery that is faith.
For us today, denying one’s self and bearing one’s cross are not about doing what so many people do: They seek to make their world bigger by making it smaller. They’re only too happy to tell us what they’re against, but we never hear much about what they’re for. Taking up your cross is not about being less happy, but about discovering the real and abundant life – a kind of life the culture can hardly imagine – that comes in and through genuine and sometimes even sacrificial love in service to another.
I definitely think of Kay Kinneman in this regard – look around yourselves today and see what her loving, caring, and skilled hands made to the glory of God and for our worship. Kay did her part to usher in the Kingdom of God with a sewing machine, a needle and thread! There are others here today, too, who add so much to our common life. Taking up your cross means “open-handed living.” You all know to live like that – I see it all the time. And because of them, the Kingdom of God gets just a little closer!
That’s a cross we can bear with a smile on our lips, and a song in our hearts!
In the Name of God, the Holy and Undivided Trinity. Amen.
[1] Quoted in Barclay, William, The Gospel of Mark, Westminster John Knox Press, Memphis, TN., 2001, p. 227
[2] Lose, David, “Pentecost 16B: Intriguing, Elusive, Captivating, and Crucial,” “In the Meantime,” 07 September 2015, http://www.davidlose.net/2015/09/pentecost-16-b-intriguing-elusive-captivating-and-crucial/
[3] Ibid.