Mark 8:31-38
Caesarea Philippi
“Who do people say that I am?” The disciples respond by reporting the gossip picked up on the waterfront, in the synagogue courtyards, & among the crowds at the market place. The suggestions roll off their lips for it is always easier to talk about what others think about Jesus.
“Who do you say that I am?” Peter’s hand is the first to go up. “You are the Christ!” He looks at Jesus & sees the Messiah – the Anointed One – presumably on His way to take control of Jerusalem, & to claim His crown in glory, honor, & power.
But then, the words of Jesus. He “begins to teach them that the Son of Man must suffer… and be rejected… and be killed”.
“God forbid it Lord!” Peter was horrified, not only because Jesus announced that He was going to suffer on a cross, but because that made a demand upon him to take up the cross as a servant like Christ.
What kind of Christ you have determines what kind of disciple you’ll be. That is, what you think of Jesus, will show in how you put you faith into practice. If you’re going to have a Christ who is a suffering servant, then that means that your discipleship will need to take the same form.
Jesus turns & rebukes, not Peter, but Peter’s understanding of discipleship: “Get behind me, Satan! For you are not on the side of God, but of man” (8:33).
We prefer the Jesus that is meek & mild, the projection of our human sentimentality; the Jesus who very easily meets our every desire, but lays little demands on us. Our portrait of Him is beautiful, but unscarred by thorns. His hands are gentle, but bear no marks of nails. He can sympathize, but not save. For this Jesus – the Jesus as we would have Him be – would never cause us to abandon Him, and nobody would be likely to crucify Him.
Right in the middle of the Gospel of Mark, indeed, right in the middle of our lives, Jesus turns to you & wants to know, “Who do you say that I am? What place do I have in your life?” “What kind of disciple are you anyway?”
