So… what’s good about this news?
I mean, “gospel” is supposed to mean “good news.” Yet today’s Gospel lesson (Mark 8:31-38, NRSV) seems to be anything BUT good news.
In fact, the question—“What’s good about this news?”—is the title of a book written about Mark’s Gospel. New Testament scholars widely agree that Mark is the “gloomiest” of the Gospel writers. He often sounds less than convinced that news of Jesus the Christ is entirely good.
Indeed, it is Mark who reports three occasions of Jesus attempting to prepare his disciples for the agony ahead. Today’s lesson is the first of those attempts, and Jesus words must have shocked his listeners:
[T]he Son of Man must undergo great suffering, he says, and be rejected…, and be killed… No euphemisms, no glossing over, just rejection, suffering, death. (Mark 8:31, NRSV)
Of course, Jesus also mentions resurrection after three days, but…. the disciples don’t seem to hear that. It doesn’t take rocket science to figure out why. I’m guessing the human tendency to resist, reject and deny that which we really do not want to hear.. kicked in early in Jesus’ account.
By the time he got to the phrase, “be killed,” all they could hear was the silent scream of their own hearts and minds: No, no, NO, this cannot be. I’m sure “resurrection” didn’t even register. But even if they had heard it, would they have understood or believed it?
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| You are thinking not as God does... |
This is not a minor scolding. Peter is going to speak so bluntly to Jesus that he doesn’t even want the others to hear! The Greek verb we translate as “rebuke” is a strong verb, used elsewhere in the New Testament used for casting out demons and disciplining sinners.
In other words, Peter loses his cool and takes Jesus “to the woodpile,” so to speak, not for a spanking but certainly to chew him out and shut him up on the subject of what must surely have sounded like giving up and failure to Peter!
And Jesus? Jesus responds in kind: “Get thee behind me, Satan!”
Wow! Would any of us ever say that in seriousness to a friend? We do say it, but only in jest. Like when friends put sweets we don’t need in front of us!
We are witnessing a serious conflict, a hurtful exchange between close friends. They have traveled the length and breadth of Palestine together on foot, sharing everything. And in this scene, they hurt each other as only those who are close can.
You are familiar with this phenomenon. You have heard the saying: “You always hurt the ones you love.” You have done it and had it done to you.
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| Love Hurts, by Bette J. Kauffman |
But the idea of a vulnerable, suffering God is, well… unacceptable—to us today just as it was to Peter.
Peter, all of the disciples, indeed, all the Jews, believed the Messiah was to be different – a superhero who would lead the Jewish people to freedom and redeem them from their vulnerability.
And aren’t we a lot like Peter in our own way? We want a powerful, triumphant Messiah who will not only save himself, but all of us, from a harsh world! A Messiah who will come when we call, deliver goodies and keep bad things at bay!
We cannot imagine a freedom that involves willing submission to cruelty. We cannot imagine redemption that involves accepting humiliation and death.
In exchange for our good behavior, we hope and expect God to give us a good life, to save us from suffering and death. And we want a fair fight, our best defense to be a good offense, led by a triumphant savior on a white horse.
But today’s lesson conveys a harder truth. Peter tries to cling to an illusion. Jesus' harsh rebuke is devastating – meant not only for Peter, but all of us.
“Get behind me, Satan!” Jesus commands.
Baptism is a joyous occasion… but even as we accept God’s gifts of love and forgiveness and membership in the corporate body of Christ, we also are called to follow Jesus—NOT worship… NOT believe in… but FOLLOW Jesus.
And when we get behind Jesus, we cannot long avoid or deny the sight of him struggling on ahead toward the cross. Thus we also are confronted with a clear view of our own mortality. Remember that you are dust and to dust you shall return.
But remember also that the other side of that coin is… love, forgiveness, freedom. In other words, resurrection can only happen on the other side of suffering and death. Something must always die before something new can be born.
And the harder, tighter, longer we cling to the old reality…
* to our illusions of control…
* to our conviction that we can keep ourselves and our families and our nation safe and secure
* to our fears of an evil world full of people who are dangerous by virtue of being not us
* to our guilt for never living up to the ideals and standards we hold dear…
The harder, tighter, longer we cling to this reality, the more we defer the deeper, truer reality of God’s unconditional, unchanging, irrational love, forgiveness and freedom.
Our hardest sacrifice is giving up illusions. It feels like dying. Not once, but over and over again.
Our deepest human desire is for freedom and connection, freedom from fear and oppression, connection to each other and to God. Yet we are bound by these habits and compulsions, this focus on earthly things. We mistake this fearful, controlling, guilty self for our true self, this small, fragile, fleeting life as the only life available to us.
But the way of Jesus the Christ is the way of true freedom, freedom to draw near to God, to love and accept one another and ourselves without restraint. Jesus shows us how. In following him lies suffering, but also the possibility of becoming the humans God created us to be.
AMEN
