Today marks the half way point in our series on the Gospel of Mark, and appropriately enough, today’s passage is also seen to represent the ½ way point in the gospel itself, and not just because Mark has 16 chapters, but more importantly because Peter’s confession, and what comes after marks a shift in emphasis for the entire story. The chapters leading up to this have been about the call to discipleship to prepare for what is to come, and then it shifts to be about the passion story, with the first passion prediction coming in the passage we just heard. It’s been said that Mark’s gospel is really a passion story, with a longer introduction, and if we look at the amount of time comprising the story, that is true because the three years of Jesus’ ministry are covered in ten chapters in Mark, and then the last week of Jesus’ life comprise the final eight chapters. So, the first chapters set up the passion story, just as the first three weeks have, hopefully established some groundwork for what is yet to come and the focus in Mark’s gospel on discipleship. And I know I keep saying that it’s about discipleship, and the cost of discipleship, and the fact that the disciples are set up as foils for what discipleship doesn’t look like, and yet I really haven’t proven that point yet, but today begins the start what where we will build on this theme over the next few weeks. But before we dig into that, we need to take a step back to what has happened immediately before Peter’s confession, because once again Mark has set us up for what to expect and how to interpret these stories by the stories that have come immediately before this passage.
The disciples have seen Jesus heal people, sometimes by casting out demons, and they have even seen him feed first five thousand and then four thousand people with only a few loaves and fish, and they have even received private instruction from Jesus, but they don’t get it. Immediately after the last feeding of the multitudes, Jesus warns the disciples to beware of the yeast of the Pharisees, that is it only takes a little bit to corrupt the whole batch, but the disciples think he is talking to them about literal bread, and say they don’t have any bread, and Jesus does a palm plant and says “why are you talking about having no bread? Do you still not perceive or understand?... Do you have eyes and fail to see? Do you have ears and fail to hear?... Do you not yet understand?” Then immediately after they encounter a blind man, and this is an unusual healing, first because we are not told that the man is made well because of his faith, or even the faith of those who brought him to Jesus, and secondly because this is a two-part healing. Jesus lays hands on him and then says, “Can you see anything?” and then man says, “I can see people, but they look like trees walking.” That is his seeing is not yet complete. Then Jesus lays hands on him again, and then we are told that the man sees everything clearly. They then made their way to Caesarea Philippi, an important change, which we’ll get to in a moment, and then Jesus asks the disciples the questions that will change the direction of the story. But how many questions does Jesus ask them? Two. First, he says, who do people say that I am? And they give him an answer. They don’t quite see clearly yet; their eyesight is not yet good. Then Jesus says, “But who do you say that I am?” and Peter says, presumably answering for all of them, “You are the messiah.”
Now this is the first time since the opening line of Mark, in which we any proclamation is made about Jesus being the Messiah, and Peter is the first human in the story to make any special claim about Jesus. In Mark’s gospels there are spirits and demons who make statements about who Jesus is, but no humans do so, until this point. You might also notice that this answer might be different than what you remember Peter’s response being, “You are the messiah, the Son of the living God.” That comes from Matthew’s gospel, and in Mark no one calls Jesus the Son of God, again except for demons, until the Roman centurion at the time of Jesus’ death. But, even still this is a significant statement for Peter to make, because it has all sorts of political and religious implications. That’s why its significant that it’s made in Caesarea Philippi, which is a Roman city, and the city from where Philip, the son of Herod the Great, ruled. And so what Peter is saying is that Caesar and his political appointees and rulers, are not in fact in charge, but that Jesus, the Messiah, is the true ruler. And so, we might think that Peter would get rewarded for that statement.
But, first Jesus tells him not to say anything to anyone else about it. This has become known as the Messianic secret, that Jesus wanted to keep his identity hidden until after his death, and you’ll read lots of things making that argument. Except that it doesn’t hold up, and we’ll cover this a lot more when we look at Mark’s resurrection story, but the only people who seem to be quiet about who Jesus is are the disciples, everyone else cannot keep their mouths shut, which is part of the roll of disciples. But, it also becomes very clear that even with the declaration that Peter doesn’t understand what the Messiah actually means, but more what he wants it to mean, because we are told that Jesus then began speaking to the disciples and a crowd of people and said that the Son of Man must under going suffering, be rejected and killed and then be raised again on the third day. Again, this is not a very good secret since Jesus is speaking about it quite openly, but Peter doesn’t want to hear anything about it. We are told that he pulls Jesus aside and rebukes him.
The Greek word there is the same word that Mark also uses when Jesus silences the demons from talking, so this is a pretty strong and demanding thing that Peter is doing. But then, Jesus quickly rebukes Peter, same word again, silencing him, and tells him that he is focusing on the things of the world, of his own cares and concerns, and not those of God. But it’s what precedes that message that gives a key indication of where Peter has failed, and that is that Jesus says, “Get behind me.” Now if Peter is not behind Jesus, then where is he? In front, but you can’t follow from in front, and so it immediately sets up Jesus saying, “If any want to be my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me.” A more literal translation of that would be “If any want to follow behind me, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow behind me.” Then he says, if you want to save your life, you will lose it… for what will it profit them if they can gain the whole world, but forfeit their life. Now thinking of the actual passion, Judas agrees to betray Jesus for wealth, and just as Jesus is saying I am, to the question if he is the messiah, which will cost him his life, just outside Peter is saying I am not, to the question if he is a disciple, in order to try and save his life.
There are three passion predictions in the gospel of Mark, and each one increases in its detail, and each one also comes with a teaching immediately after about what it means to be a disciple. Here it is to pick up your cross, and that to save your life you must lose it. Then after the second Jesus says, after hearing the disciples argue about who is the greatest amongst them, that “Whoever wants to be first must be last of all and servant of all.” Then the third passion prediction, and James and John ask Jesus for a favor, and Jesus says, “What is it that you want me to do for you?” and they say that they want him to grant to them that they will sit at his right and left hand in his glory, and Jesus responds “whoever wishes to be great among you must be servant of all, and whoever wishes to be first among you must be slave of all.” So, each passion prediction ends with a teaching about what it means to be a disciple, to be a follower of Jesus.
This section of Mark, which is what precedes Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem, ends with another healing, and again of a blind man by the name of Bartimaeus, who shouts out for Jesus’ help, and the crowd tries to silence him, but he shouts all the louder, remember that bit of the story for later messages, and Jesus calls him forward and says, “What do you want me to do for you?” The same thing that Jesus has asked James and John, who ask for power, but Bartimaeus says “let me see again,” and we are told that Bartimaeus’ faith has made him well, and he can see and then what does he do? He follows Jesus on the way. He was blind, but not only can he see, and see clearly, and so he follows Jesus. Whereas he has sight, the disciples are still blind.
For us, whenever Jesus says, “if someone,” or “whoever” wants to do something, we should here that as an insert name here space, or really hear it as insert your name here. If you_______ want to be a disciple, if you want to be a follower, if you want to be first, if you want to be great, if you want to save your life, here is what you need to do. But all that starts with the question, who do you say that Jesus is? And remember, it’s not what others say about him, as important as that might be in helping us to learn and to grow, it’s about what you say. But, that is just the start, which is where the modern church I think has gone tremendously wrong, that we think if we just say that we except Jesus, if we just say some special prayer, or utter some magic words, that suddenly everything is done. But, that the confession of faith is just the beginning of the journey, otherwise it is just, in the words of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, cheap grace. “Cheap grace is grace without discipleship, grace without the cross.” Which again means, and this has been repeated each week as a theme in Mark, and really all the gospels, making public proclamations of faith, claiming that you are religious, even to some degree doing “religious” things, is meaningless unless they are the right things, which in this case is about being a servant to all, and picking up your cross and following Christ, rather than trying to walk side-by-side or even ahead, as I’ve said before we like to serve God, but sometimes we’d prefer it be in an advisory capacity.
Now we have tended to metaphorize carrying our cross, and so we’ll talk about that co-worker we have to deal with, or that family member we can’t really stand to be around, and say “well, that’s just the cross I have to bear.” That is not what Jesus is talking about. Nor is it about pain or illness, the thorn in our side as Paul refers to. When people first heard Jesus telling them to pick up their cross, this was not about a piece of jewelry, but instead directly about crucifixion. And a form of torture and death that was used exclusively for people the Romans considered politically subversive, those who posed a challenge or threat to the empire, either directly or indirectly and needed to be made an example of. Because in Rome, Caesar alone claimed lordship of all, also was known as the son of god, in fact most of the proclamations we make about Jesus were also made about Caesar, and so to make a proclamation of faith was to challenge the authority of Rome, in addition to making a proclamation of your faith. But notice that Jesus does not say take up your sword, which would be a direct threat, but to take up your cross, which is the punishment of the empire. This is important for Mark, because at the time he is writing the gospel, the Jewish revolt against Rome is taking place, and there is a call to the sword, to violence, but the early church was a pacifist organization. But simply to claim the Kingdom of God, and to say that the age we live in is contrary to God was to threaten and challenge the powers and principalities, the status quo, those in charge who are attached to keeping their power, prestige and money.
Mark does not suggest, or even say, that suffering and death are God’s will, or that martyrs are to be imitated, but that as a consequence of living an all-encompassing life of love, that loss and persecution and even death are possible. Those who see to bring justice and peace and love are often victims of the violence and injustice they are trying to end. Just think of those from our own time, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Martin Luther King, Jr., or Archbishop Oscar Romero, to just mention a few. Additionally, this call to the cross and suffering is not a call to an aesthetic lifestyle of self-denial, but instead a call to find life, to find healing and wholeness and love through God, and through the community of God, because this is a communal exercise. And to be on the side of God, rather than the side of men, is to reject most of the ways that the world operates and to focus and to live into love, love of God and love of neighbor.
As most of you have probably been following on the news, this week, the former trainer for the US gymnastics team was sentenced to prison for sexual abusing hundreds, if not thousands of women. But as the story has developed, we now know that there were plenty of signs early on, including people making accusations as early as 1997. That in 2010 the new president of the NCAA was told of accusations about incidents at Michigan State, and yet nothing was done because hundreds of people enabled the behavior directly and indirectly. People in power chose to do nothing and to say nothing, or even to actively cover it up, because the power, prestige and money were more important than people’s lives. And we saw the same thing at Penn State and at Baylor and in many, many other places. Albert Einstein said, “The world is a dangerous place, not because of those who do evil, but because of those who look on and do nothing.” I know I keep harping on this, but the call to discipleship is a call to do the right thing regardless of the consequences. It’s easy to stand on the sidelines and say “well, if I had been there, I would have done something,” but in the heat of the moment it’s not as easy.
So, where are we being called and challenged in our own lives where we could make a difference, where we could change a life, where we could right a wrong? Where in our life are we being called out of the culture of violence and consumerism and self-interest? Where are we being called to be forces for justice and righteousness in opposition to injustice? Where are we being called to pick up our cross and to follow? And what are the possible consequences of those actions? Jesus didn’t want us to be ignorant of the consequences, but to know what they would be, so we would expect them when they happened, and to see it for what they are, the world striking out to keep the ways of men when faced with the changes needed for the ways of God. Because the world acts through fear, but fear is not the way to discipleship, fear leads us away from God, instead the way of God is love. Jesus said we will be known not because we proclaim Jesus as Lord, or say that he is the messiah, we will be known as his disciples because of the love that we show to the world. Because we are willing to lose our lives, we will gain them, because we are willing to be last of all, we shall be first, because we are willing to be servant to all, we shall find greatness. We are being called to pick up our cross and to follow, how often? Daily. I pray that it will be so my brothers and sisters. Amen.
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