Mark 8:31-9:1
31And he began to teach them, that the Son of man must suffer many things, and be rejected of the elders, and of the chief priests, and scribes, and be killed, and after three days rise again.
32And he spake that saying openly. And Peter took him, and began to rebuke him.
33But when he had turned about and looked on his disciples, he rebuked Peter, saying, Get thee behind me, Satan: for thou savourest not the things that be of God, but the things that be of men.
34And when he had called the people unto him with his disciples also, he said unto them, Whosoever will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me.
35For whosoever will save his life shall lose it; but whosoever shall lose his life for my sake and the gospel’s, the same shall save it.
36For what shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?
37Or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul?
38Whosoever therefore shall be ashamed of me and of my words in this adulterous and sinful generation; of him also shall the Son of man be ashamed, when he cometh in the glory of his Father with the holy angels.
Mark 9
1And he said unto them, Verily I say unto you, That there be some of them that stand here, which shall not taste of death, till they have seen the kingdom of God come with power.
Here we get to the meat of the Gospel. Jesus straightforwardly tells the disciples what will happen to him. He will suffer, he will die, and he will be resurrected. Perhaps he felt it was time to let them know. Peter, however, does not appear to be ready to receive this news. Peter “rebukes” Jesus. In Matthew 16 this rebuke takes the form of Peter declaring that such a turn of events would never happen.
Perhaps Peter had hoped that Jesus would be the political figure that many Jews hoped would come and overthrow the Romans. It is a hard thing for us when we try to craft God into an image that fits our idea of what He should be. Our thinking can be reined in quite sharply. In this case, Jesus lays it out very clearly to Peter that he must lose his life; that is, Peter must submit completely to the will of God in order to be saved. The consequences of not doing so would be catastrophic.
This passage may be hard for us to hear as well. What do we dream about? What do we wish for? Are we willing to let go of them so we can follow Jesus? It’s hard, really hard, there’s no denying that.
But it must be done, for our soul’s sake.
Follow Jesus.
LJG (c) 2009
1 Comment
July 4, 2009 at 8:11 pm
Lori:
Thank you for sharing such a good reflection and exhortation. We can certainly try to shape God into our own image and expect him to jump through our pre-conceived hoops.
I have some of my own thoughts about this passage…but I think you may hear them in a future sermon!
John