Gleanings from the Text
Mark 8:27-38
This gospel lesson is composed of three distinct scenes that, combined, present a unified vision of Jesus’ identity, mission, and call to discipleship. Scene one, verses 27-30, revolves around Jesus’ penetrating question, “But who do you say that I am?” and Peter’s confessional answer “Thou art the Christ.” In scene two, verses 31-33, Jesus warns his disciples that his ministry will culminate in death and resurrection, not in royal coronation, a teaching that provokes mutual rebukes between him and Peter. In the last scene, verses 34-38, Jesus heightens the tension considerably when he announces that self-denial and cross-bearing are vocations “for any who want to be [his] disciples.” The preacher must choose between focusing on one scene in particular, or on the gospel lesson as a whole.
There are many answers to the question, Who is Jesus? Some are better than others. The crowds understand Jesus primarily in terms of the past, a prophet returned from the dead. Peter, on the other hand, sees Jesus as an instrument of the future, the one God has anointed (Hebrew-Messiah; Greek-Christos) to vindicate Israel. But no sooner does Peter pipe up than Jesus shuts him up. Mark’s Jesus is loathe to draw attention to himself as an instrument of raw, divine power; thus he silences the demons when he casts them out, swears to secrecy those whom he cures, and cuts off coronation talk. But when it comes to the necessity for suffering, Jesus holds nothing back.
It is not only necessary for Jesus to suffer; it is necessary for him to rise again. The word “must” (Greek-dei) governs all the subsequent verbs in verse 31. There is no hard-core doctrine of penal substitution here. Instead, as The Son of Man, literally “The Human One,” Jesus knows that living humanely in an inhumane world will inevitably provoke massive resistance. Yet because the glory of God is a human being fully alive (Irenaeus), it is unthinkable that sin and death would have the last word on a life like Jesus’. Jesus “must” be resurrected. Peter would spare Jesus suffering, but at the cost of Jesus trimming the sails of his true humanity.
If dying and rising is good enough for the master, it is more than good enough for the pupil. Self-denial and cross-bearing were politically charged words, the cross being the Roman state’s favorite means of executing threats to the social order. Persecuted Christians had to choose between affirming loyalty to Jesus, and thus denying their own lives and freedom, or not. It is no less that case today. The word “any” presumably covers the modern reader as well as the crowds in the villages around Caesarea Philippi. Following Jesus will in some way or another bring the disciple into conflict with the powers-that-be, and to a kind of grief that only resurrection power can heal.
Food for Thought
Mark 8:27-38 presents an embarrassment of riches for the preacher. Given that Jesus poses the question “Who do you say that I am?” within earshot of the pagan city of Caesarea Philippi, home to a shrine to the Greek god Pan, a sermon on the identity of Jesus in a pluralistic society would certainly be in order.
Most commentators rush to assure us that self-denial does not mean denying oneself certain pleasures. No doubt they’re right, but in a world brought to the edge of economic collapse by highly leveraged over-consumption, crazed self-indulgence, not morbid self-denial, seems to be the greater danger. That this text turns up in Ordinary Time as well as Lent is entirely appropriate. Perhaps self-denial is an idea whose time has come again, a lifestyle for all disciples in all seasons.
Sink Your Teeth into This!
Sermon illustrations can illumine a scriptural truth, but can also overshadow the scripture itself. Here, the preacher should take special care with stories of suffering or martyrdom, lest they distance the hearer from Jesus’ call to bear the cross. Suffering is not just for those Christians “back then” or “over there.” It is for all Christians. So is the resurrection power that vindicates our suffering.
Works Consulted
M. Eugene Boring, Mark: A Commentary. Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2006.
Marvin Meyer, “Taking up the cross and following Jesus: Discipleship in the gospel of Mark.” Calvin Theological Journal 37:2. November 2002. p. 230-8.
Ched Myers, Binding the Strong Man: A Political Reading of Mark’s Story of Jesus. Maryknoll NY: Orbis, 1988.
Biographical Information
Marvin Lindsay is a Presbyterian minister and a Ph.D. student in Church History at Union-PSCE. He served congregations in Missouri and North Carolina for 14 years before enrolling in Union-PSCE in the fall of 2008. Marvin is married and is the father of two red-headed boys. He blogs at http://marvinlindsay.typepad.com/avdat
Posts
