“The way of the cross”
Mark 8:27-38 (September 15, 2024)
Thursday evening, Lindsay and I were getting ready for our walk. We do that every night. We walk through the neighbourhood. About a half hour or so, just to clear our heads, get some fresh air and a bit of exercise. Half an hour together, at the end of the day, is no bad thing! I don’t know if you remember, but Thursday was a drizzly day. Cloudy and wet. So before we left that evening, I checked the weather on my phone.
These little devices are amazing things! They’re not simple telephones. They give us access to all kinds of news and information. They have different ways of communicating. I can even remotely turn on one of the electrical outlets in my kitchen, so the coffee machine is ready when I get home. It’s incredible!
I opened the weather app. And it said: Light rain for 19 minutes, then stopping. Rain again in 40 minutes. And I said to myself, “That’s pretty detailed information.” I opened the back door and discovered it wasn’t raining at all! And I thought, “Can I trust this weather app?”
Weather is notoriously difficult to predict. “Rain for 19 minutes.” It seems to me like this app pretends to be smarter than it actually is.
It’s a “know-it-all” app. And know-it-alls can be annoying, claiming to know everything about this and that. Even when they don’t.
What we have in our gospel story today is an example of someone claiming to know things about Jesus.
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He’s on a journey with his disciples, travelling through the villages of Caesarea Philippi, a place of shrines and temples dedicated to pagan gods. It’s a teachable moment. And it sparks an important conversation.
Viewing his surroundings, Jesus asks, “Who do people say that I am?” The disciples respond with rumours they’ve heard. “Some say John the Baptist; and others Elijah; and still others one of the prophets.”
“But you,” says Jesus, specifically asking his closest friends, “who do you say that I am?” Now it gets personal. In matters of faith it always does.
It doesn’t matter what the rest of the world thinks of Jesus. Or what your parents thought of Jesus. Or the church. Or your friends. Or someone who’s written a best-seller, a celebrity on TV. What matters is what you think. Jesus looks at each one of us, waiting to hear what we will say.
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Peter was the first to jump in. “You are the Messiah.” “Messiah” in Hebrew or “Christ” in Greek. Both mean “anointed one.” The one anointed by God.
But now things start to get tricky. Because the common understanding of Messiah was associated with power and strength, the vanquishing of enemies, the establishment of God’s reign by force. The guy with the bigger gun always wins.
Jesus “sternly ordered the disciples,” not to go preaching that! Instead, he offers a radically different vision of who he is and what his life, in service to God, and all humankind, will consist of. If Messiah is the correct answer, it’s not the kind of Messiah that Peter thinks.
How often do we say the right words and still not get it right?
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Peter seems like a pretty smart guy. He’s got an instant answer to the question Jesus asks. But he’s shocked when Jesus begins to push him further.
From that moment on, Jesus “began to teach them that the Son of Man must undergo great suffering, and be rejected by the elders, the chief priests, and the scribes, and be killed, and after three days rise again.” Suffering, rejection, death ….
Now hold it right there! Peter can tell this is headed in absolutely the wrong direction. He grabs Jesus and pulls him aside. “Wait, you can’t be serious!”
It’s a cheeky move. Peter, the disciple, trying to correct his teacher. Attempting to re-direct Jesus at this crucial point in the gospel story.
We all have these pictures of who we desperately want Jesus to be. But he does not conform to our expectations. Jesus, the anointed one of God, does not answer to us. We’re not in charge. Jesus will be the Christ that God wants him to be.
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A disciple is supposed to be a learner. A disciple is a student. And these disciples, including Peter, have been following Jesus for some time. They’ve been part of a select group of friends, privileged with easy access and hours of instruction. They’ve listened to Jesus’ teaching and observed his ministry first-hand. But they still don’t get it. There’s still so much for these disciples to learn!
Well listen, isn’t there more for you to learn as well? Or do you have it all figured out? This enigmatic figure named Jesus. The great mysteries of a God who created the entire universe. The complexities of your own personal faith. If you think you’ve got all that sorted, well congratulations! But I think, like the weather app on my phone, you may be a little overconfident.
“Slaves are not greater than their master, nor are messengers greater than the one who sent them.” (John 13:16) We are not the boss of Jesus!
However long we’ve been followers of Jesus, there is always, always more to learn. The church, through the centuries, sometimes gets off track. But Jesus patiently calls us to return. To learn, and re-learn, and try again. To go deeper in our relationship with him. To go further in our journey toward his kingdom vision. We don’t become fully fledged disciples overnight.
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There’s a great story in the Gospel of Mark about the healing of a blind man. It’s only found in this one gospel. And it’s found immediately before the passage we read today. This is no accident.
In the story of healing, Jesus puts saliva on a blind man’s eyes and lays his hands upon him. Then asks, “Can you see anything?” And the blind man answers, “I can see people, but they look like trees walking.” And this is odd. Doesn’t Jesus usually get things right the first time?
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Christ_and_the_pauper.jpg" width="282" height="53" />Obviously, this is not going to be an easy miracle. So Jesus lays his hands on him a second time. And now, scripture says, “he saw everything clearly.”
Here’s what I think this story is telling us: The healing of the disciples will be a challenging project. You and me, we are not an easy fix! Jesus touches us once, and we can see – some things, sort of. But our sight is still fuzzy.
Here is Peter, the disciple. And he’s been granted a miraculous insight. “You are the Messiah!” he proudly proclaims. But he’s only half got it. Peter needs a second touch.
I guess we all do. A first touch, to open our long-blind eyes and show us the light. And a second touch to help us see more clearly. And then, I’m thinking, probably several more touches throughout our lifetimes, to illuminate and better focus our vision.
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It reminds me of a visit to the optometrist, where you look through a couple of peepholes and the doctor moves the dial switching various lenses and flipping them over. “Which is better, this or this?”
Our hope is always to see better.
I think also of that 12th century prayer made famous in the musical “Godspell”:
Day by day, Dear Lord, of thee three things I pray:
To see thee more clearly,
Love thee more dearly,
Follow thee more nearly,
Day by day.[1]
It doesn’t happen overnight. Our vision, like Peter’s is clouded by cultural expectations. Mistaken assumptions. Peer pressure. Personal preference. What we want Jesus to be, instead of what he really is.
Let me pause there and ask, “What might be clouding your vision?” Can you pray that God will reveal the Christ to you and enable you to follow the light?
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I said “follow” … because we don’t get to know him truly until we step out of our comfort zone and begin to act. The walk of faith is meant to encompass our whole being. Including who we are and what we do.
Faith that’s only shallow talk means very little. Which is why the next thing Jesus says to Peter and the disciples is even more challenging. Do you remember?
“If any want to be my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me.”
It’s fascinating that the cross, of all things, has become the universal symbol for followers of Jesus. We put them on our churches. We hang them around our necks. Muslims have a crescent moon, Jewish people have the star of David. But Christians have a cross.
So what might a cross-shaped life look like for you and me? At the very least, I think it means that we let go of our own self-interest and embrace the kingdom way. A way of loving, serving, giving, God-honouring. A Christ-centred way of life.
The apostle Paul tells us that, in our baptism, we are buried with Christ. We die to sin so that we might rise with him and walk in newness of life. (Romans 6:4ff.)
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We’ll hear more about this again next Sunday. We’re only half way through the gospel of Mark. And like those first disciples, we have much to learn.
Today we stand with Peter, feeling a little humbled. Did he speak too soon? Did he claim to know too much? Perhaps it was a necessary step on a much longer journey.
We say what we can. But we’re meant to say it in a spirit of humility. Because, Lord knows, we could be mistaken. We may be partly right. We haven’t plumbed the full depths of God’s will and purpose for our lives.
But we surely want to, don’t we? I know I do. I want to keep moving forward with Jesus, learning the full dimensions of the reign of God.
The church is not for know-it-alls. The church is for stuttering, stumbling disciples of Jesus who’ve caught a glimpse of something beautiful, and want to know more …
“To see thee more clearly,
Love thee more dearly,
Follow thee more nearly,
Day by day.”
May it be so! Amen.
[1] St. Richard of Chichester, 1197-1253, "Day by Day", in The Hymnal of the Protestant Episcopal Church of the United States of America, 1940, Hymn 429. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Day_by_Day_(Godspell_song) (Accessed September 13, 2024.)