During my original plan for Lent this year, I had the idea to focus on the second half of today's reading from Mark (see Mark 8:31-38). In the second half of our reading, we have the familiar and oft-used statement about "taking up our cross" to follow Jesus. This gets interpreted in all sorts of ways, some better than others. So my intent was to play with the either/or nature of Jesus' teaching to the crowds. And to an extent, I still come away with perhaps a different take on this section that the more common interpretations we tend to apply to the saying.
However, as I prepared this week, I found myself much more drawn to the first half of the reading. In particular, I was drawn to the other oft-quoted part of today's passage - "Get behind me, Satan" (Mark 8:33, CEB). As I pulled at that thread, I realized that the reading this week fits almost perfectly into the next line of the song, "Total Ecplise of the Heart," that I identified in conjunction with the season of Lent last week. Following the singer feeling a little bit nervous, the next line finds them feeling a little bit terrified.
As we consider Jesus' teaching and Peter's response, what do we find here to be terrified about?
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Our passage today is one of those that is likely familiar to most people, maybe even to those that aren’t a part of the Church. The reason for this is that it has a couple of lines in it that get used frequently. There are a couple of phrases here that we like to pull out and use over and over. In fact, as I was preparing this week, I had a difficult time finding prayers, hymns, or commentary that doesn’t focus on the most well-known phrase in this text.
And while there is nothing wrong with the two most popular lines in our text today -- we will spend some time with them ourselves -- the lines are most often used out of context. We like to say them, but we may not fully understand what Jesus meant by them. We often miss out on the meaning his words would have had for his disciples, and we have a tendency to read our own modern understandings back onto the text.
Not that there is anything wrong with our own sense of the world, but sometimes we miss the nuance when we assume that Jesus and his listeners would hear the words with the same meanings we attach to them. So I want us to try to consider how Jesus and his disciples would have understood this conversation and see how that fits with how we most often hear these words.
Jesus begins his teaching by plainly laying out what is to come. In the preceding verses, he has been having a conversation with the disciples about both who people think he is and who the disciples think that he is. Peter of course jumps forward to identify Jesus as the Messiah. As Jesus continues the conversation with our reading today, he doesn’t directly name himself, but he uses the phrase Human One or Son of Man, a phrase that his disciples would have understood as a reference to the Messiah. While there are others that might not yet know Jesus as the Messiah, his disciples certainly recognize that he is talking about himself when he says this. He plainly tells them that he will suffer, he will be rejected by the religious authorities, he will be killed, and he will arise from the dead
I think we sometimes are so used to Jesus’ teaching in parables, teachings that use metaphors to get across what Jesus wants people to understand, that we have a difficulty with these words being so directly stated in this way. Jesus doesn’t do anything to soften the blow. He doesn’t lead us to an uncomfortable answer through a compelling story. Jesus doesn’t pull any punches. He knows where his teachings will lead. He knows the results of speaking out against the checklist religion that their faith had become. Their religion had become one where the focus was on avoiding doing the bad. That was seen as a good all on its own. In the name of avoiding that which was bad, many had also ceased to do what is good. Jesus knows that those in authority won’t like him coming along and speaking out against such a way of life. Jesus wants the people to know that God wants more from them than to simply avoid what is unholy. God wants a relationship. God wants love in our hearts. This is what the law was originally meant to show us -- to give us guidelines for loving God and our neighbors. But it expanded instead into a series of rules that no one could truly expect to maintain.
Jesus knows that pointing out the discrepancies in their practice of faith will lead to suffering and death. He knows the power of the religious authorities in this time and place. His cousin John was put to death for less.
But Peter pulls Jesus aside to have some words with him. Our translation today says Peter begins to correct him. Other translations say that Peter rebuked him. We don’t know exactly what was said, but I think Jesus’ response gives us a clue.
Jesus first says, “Get behind me, Satan” (Mark 8:33, CEB). Here is one of those phrases we hear in various places. It is also one that I fear we misread by placing our own understanding on it. For many of us today, we read the word Satan and think of evil. We think of someone who is behind the vilest acts in our history. But this does not seem to be the meaning that Jesus and his followers would have understood.
The word satan comes to us originally from the Hebrew, and it is a word for an adversary or opponent; it is not a name. It is a description that is at times applied to various people in the Hebrew Scriptures, including to David, to speak of someone that might be or become an enemy. It also refers to one who might test or judge humans on behalf of God. Consider the book of Job as an example.
Looking to the Gospels, the understanding of Satan begins to shift slightly. After Jesus' baptism, Matthew, Mark, and Luke all speak of Jesus spending forty days in the wilderness being tempted by Satan. For Jesus at least, Satan may be an adversary or a judge, but Satan is also a tempter. Again, not evil, but certainly opposed to what Jesus is doing.
I wonder if considering all of this changes how we understand Jesus’ response to Peter here? How do we see Peter here as an adversary? Or how do we see Peter as a tempter? What could Peter have said to oppose what Jesus had laid out?
I suspect it is most likely that Peter tries to tell Jesus that things don’t have to happen the way that Jesus had said. Jesus is the Messiah; he can use his strength and authority to make things happen differently. He can force people to change, force people to act how they are supposed to. Jesus could use his power and might to throw down the powers that be so that he can come out on top. Jesus doesn’t have to die.
It seems plausible. Many Jews of their time thought of the Messiah as a political leader or conquering king that would overthrow the status quo.
But Jesus tells Peter, he is thinking human thoughts and not divine thoughts. Jesus did not come to maintain the power structures that are already in place by simply inverting who is on top. Jesus came to overthrow the structures altogether by showing us a new way, a way that cannot be reached through violence or power or might.
What do you think? Why do you think Peter pulled Jesus aside to correct him? Why do you think Jesus responded as he did?
For myself, I think Peter is reacting out of fear. It is fear of pain, fear of death, fear of loss, fear of the unknown. I can only imagine what it is like for Peter to be sitting there trying so calmly to hear what his teacher and friend is telling them:
The person we are following has just told us that the way he is teaching is going to lead to suffering and death. Where does that leave us? If the Messiah is going to suffer and die, what chance do the rest of us have? Did Jesus just tell us that this whole thing is doomed to failure?
Peter didn’t understand the fullness of what was before them. He couldn’t understand, couldn’t comprehend participating in a victory that starts with the death of the one who is leading the charge.
After calling Peter out in front of the other disciples, Jesus calls the crowds that seem to always be nearby. “All who want to come after me must say no to themselves, take up their cross, and follow me” (Mark 8:34, CEB). This teaching given to the crowds lends support to the idea that Peter was suggesting Jesus avoid his own death in some way. Jesus basically says "my way leads to the cross" -- a violent and gruesome death. Jesus continues by telling the crowds that those who make decisions solely based on preserving their own lives have missed the point of the kingdom of God. Those who choose the path of Jesus, even knowing it might lead to their own death, are the ones that bring God’s kingdom into being. To understand this, we must remember that Mark begins this gospel by making a firm link between the good news and the kingdom of God. So we need to understand that when Jesus refers to the good news here, he is talking about the kingdom of God.
Recently, I finished reading The Lord of the Rings with my oldest son. Oddly, for all the fantasy books I read in my youth, I didn’t actually read Tolkien until about five years ago myself. Now I’ve just finished reading the massive volume with my 11 year old son.
As I read our text for this week and reflected on Peter’s apparent fear in the face of Jesus’ teaching, I thought about the story of Sam and Frodo in The Lord of the Rings. Sam and Frodo were best friends. They lived far from the seats of power and wanted to live their own simple lives without any interference. Through a series of events, a ring of power comes into Frodo’s possession. He undertakes a journey to deliver it to those who will know what to do with it. After much arguing about how to destroy it, Frodo again steps forward to volunteer for the dangerous task of attempting to destroy the ring.
Along the way, we discover that Frodo doesn’t actually expect to survive the journey. He has volunteered for a task that will break the power of evil in the world and free the world to live in peace, but he does not expect to live to see what that world will be like.
Sam on the other hand only knows that he intends to follow Frodo wherever he has to go. Throughout their journey, Sam saves Frodo’s life, feeds him, cares for him, and more than once carries him when Frodo is no longer able to walk himself. It is only as they draw close to their destination that Sam realizes what Frodo has anticipated all along -- chances are they won’t be going home after this journey is done. Like Peter in our story today, Sam suddenly sees where this path is leading. But where Peter wanted to turn aside, to find a way to accomplish the task that would not lead through death, Sam drops all his gear, their few remaining supplies, and picks Frodo up to carry him up the mountain they need to climb.
For those that know the story, we learn that Frodo was both right and wrong. They were successful in destroying the ring, but they did not die in the attempt. At the same time, Frodo’s life is not the same. For the remainder of his life, he feels disconnected from the affairs of the rest of the world around him.
Jesus makes it plain where his path will lead. He knows that his teaching will lead to suffering, to rejection, to death. Unlike Frodo, Jesus knows that his path will continue on the other side of death. At the same time, we know that Jesus' life does not look the same after all he experiences.
Jesus tells the disciples all of this. Then he tells them not to make the safe choices, not to choose the easy path, not to make selfish choices in an attempt to protect their own lives. Instead, like Sam, Jesus tells the disciples to instead choose the hard path of loving others, the hard path of following in Jesus’ footsteps, the hard path of serving others needs even if it leads them to the same end.
As we hear the call that Jesus places on us, how do we feel? Do we want to give everything up and follow Jesus into death? Do we want to react like Peter, and tell Jesus he’s got it all wrong?
I don’t think the answer is simply either/or. I think it is a choice we have to make every day. We have to get up every day and make the choice to love others, to follow in Jesus’ footsteps, and to bring God’s kingdom that much closer. Some days we will succeed, and other days we may not. Even so, Jesus continues to urge us on, pointing the way that we are to follow.