Texts OT Isaiah 50 “The Lord GOD is my help, therefore I am not disgraced; I have set my face like flint, knowing that I shall not be put to shame. He is near who upholds my right.”
Mark 8:27-33 THE MYSTERY BEGINS TO BE REVEALED Peter’s Words About Jesus. [Part 1] 27 Now Jesus and his disciples set out for the villages of Caesarea Philippi. Along the way he asked his disciples, “Who do people say that I am?” 28They said in reply, “John the Baptist, others Elijah, still others one of the prophets.” 29 And he asked them, “But who do you say that I am?” Peter said to him in reply, “You are the Messiah.” 30 Then he warned them not to tell anyone about him. [ Part 2] 31 He began to teach them that the Son of Man must suffer greatly and be rejected by the elders, the chief priests, and the scribes, and be killed, and rise after three days. 32 He spoke this openly. Then Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him. 33 At this he turned around and, looking at his disciples, rebuked Peter and said, “Get behind me, Satan. You are thinking not as God does, but as human beings do.”
In reading the Gospel of Mark, one could definitely say that the crux middle part of the gospel is this section of Mark 8 proclaimed today. In fact, I think Mark wants to tell—in these two big, back-to-back moments of Peter and Jesus—the basic message of the whole gospel.
First, in verse 29, Peter wondrously confesses Jesus as Christ. We learn of what all of Mark 1 through 8 is about. Second, and right afterward in verse 33, Peter fouls up in his human weakness in disagreeing with Jesus’ plan ahead and he gets rebuked by The Lord, yet we’ll see he will go and follow Jesus as a disciple and learn to serve what Jesus plans are to do. That will be the Mark 8 through 16 message. Part 2 is the hard part for all disciples of Christ to take what challenges there are in following Him and do stay with it and serve God, come what may, even via suffering and not fully understanding God’s plan.
In these two verses or in this same lesson in the middle of Mark’s gospel, the basic message is there. Believing upon Jesus in what He has revealed and shown to you. Then, go be His disciple from that point on, serving His Gospel mission.
In helping us discern this Gospel periscope (or small section), I tried to look for an example of how two back-to-back things can define a whole experience. In sports, sometimes a sportscaster or writer will point out a defining moment of a game. It happened in last Thursday’s NFL game of the Bills and Dolphins. The media guys told that the whole game hinged on two back-to-back plays at the end of the 1st half of play. The Bills were winning 14-7, but the Dolphins offense had the ball at mid-field for a 4th down try for a first down. Big moment #1 occurred when the Bills big defensive tackle Ed Oliver exploded through the Dolphins line and hard tackled the ball carrier for a loss, and it stopped the Dolphins from possible tying the game before the half ended, and gave the ball over to the Bills. Then Big moment #2 came second later on their 1st down play when their running back James Cook scampered 50 yards for a touchdown, and even somersaulted into the end zone, scoring to put the Bills up, after the PAT kick by 21 to 7. Those two back-to-back plays, said the media guys, determined the whole game that ended at 31-10. That was the crux double-moment. But anyway—it kind of shows how Mark’s gospel has two verses right in the middle that speak for the whole gospel.
If the turning point of a game can be seen, then so can the turning point of a gospel. Jesus hears Peter (and then all his apostles) confess the amazing right figuring of saying He is The Christ (verse 29). This tells to Jesus of what is His next ‘play’ of the Messiah playbook, a very big one, which is to reveal more of His Mission, the hard part of it, and to tell His disciples how there is suffering and challenge soon ahead for Him, and for them, for if they follow Him they’ll see the Christ suffer and die on the Cross but then rise on the third day. Peter totally flubs up wrongly and disagrees with this plan of The Lord. Jesus has to rebuke him, even blurting out “get behind Me, satan!” and telling Peter that as much as he was right in learning via his faith from the Heavenly Father of Jesus’ true identity and confessing it, now Peter is only “thinking as humans do” and now listening to Satan, rather than the Father. It is one of the most contrasting dialogues in the Bible, as Peter’s told by Jesus: You’ve heard from the Father, Peter—now, instead, you’ve heard from Satan. Go deeper in faith, Peter, and not just on mere human reaction—becomes Jesus’ Word to the big fisherman disciple. If you stay on only human surface reaction, then you’ll be falling into deceptions from the tempter, who uses our human ignorance or our pride against us. Discipleship is about going further and deeper with Christ and participating in what Divine works will save the world. Peter’s lesson here in Mark 8 will be our own. As we come to know Who Christ Jesus really is to our lives, then we will live in discipleship to experience all of Christ and His work. We will deny our selfish pride, take up the cross, and follow Jesus—being His disciple and then help others to become His disciples. We call that as “missionary discipleship” today. I hope you know the term.
Catholic Christianity is much this two moment pairing: #1 Coming to realize and know Jesus as Lord and Savior. The Heavenly Father, via His Spirit, helps us to accept and see Who Christ is. We confess it: Jesus, You are The One sent to save us, the long-hoped for Savior of the world. I believe it and in You. That’s the A-plus realization that Peter had, and which followers of Jesus have! O Lord, You have been on life’s journey with me, and I realize You are God with me, Savior, Real God, Really Present in the Eucharist at Mass, and alive in the Scriptures to me now.
The #2 part is our conversion to becoming disciples of Jesus, even of His Cross, and into His Rising, and that we do live in the dying-rising Mystery of Life now until He comes in Glory. We live in the Kingdom of God as people of The Lord. We won’t be deterred from trials or difficulties or the temptings of the devil to derail us. We won’t live in mere humanity anymore, unlike those in worldly lifestyle, materialism, secular humanism, or socialism or ungodly way that depicts an “other” than God to be led by. The children of God are led by the Spirit of God. We’ve been made disciples of Jesus, living first to please God through Him.
Like the turning point in Thursday’s game, we live in the turning point here with Mark’s gospel. Jesus is ready to take us with Him in serious ministry unto salvation. Today’s gospel is paired with Isaiah 50 and a prayer our Lord likely used for His point of now focusing on Jerusalem and the fate awaiting Him. Hear it being on Jesus’ lips, and now on ours: The Lord GOD is my help ahead, therefore I am not disgraced; I have set my face like flint, knowing that I shall not be put to shame. He is near who upholds my right. *(Our 1st reading today.)
The turning moment is that now Jesus knows it is time to face his fate. His fate is to be sacrifice for the world—and Mark tips this off in his gospel at the start with John the Baptist pointing out: “Look, there is the Lamb of God Who takes away the sins of the world.” That’s Mark’s account of Jesus’ Baptism in the Jordan. In the bookend close of Mark’s Gospel, in chapter 15-16, it tells of Jesus’ death on the Cross, and then that third day rising which He said was coming.
Like 1st Timothy 1:15 states later in the New Testament, Jesus was born to die. Jesus knew He was entering the world to be the final and ultimate sacrifice for sin. His body had been divinely prepared by God specifically for that purpose. Hebrews 10:5 puts it “A body has Thou prepared.” Jesus was going to die for the sins of the world, and He knew it. Moreover, He was doing it willingly. That was the whole point of The Incarnation. But in this moment in Mark 8, even with a protest of Peter, Jesus knows it is time for Him to enter the last days of His ministry. Peter cries out “we won’t let that happen!” Jesus says ‘You must. Come along and see why. But don’t listen to what you just thought about me, as thinking only in your human capacity and easily tempted by Satan, but bear down deep in faith, in that same spirit that helped you to recognize Me.’ Maybe these words to Peter back then can resonate with us, as Jesus asks us to keep going along with Him and His Church in challenging times.
Application
There are moments in our own life when God is waiting to lead us along to the next big stage. He is pleased when we have faith and see it. Yet He is disappointed when we lean back to our living only as ‘all humans do who don’t believe.’ We are Christ’ disciples; we are much better than that. Like Peter would learn by following Jesus further, let us believe and have the Father’s lead us fully to the will of God ahead for us. Let us get to the next and better stage (or place) with God. We are not secular humanists, not socialist unbelievers, nor are we fearful people or an unloved-by-God people—rather (!) He is in our hearts with exceedingly great grace and love, for so to disciple us (as He had to once disciple Peter and the Twelve), and that is meant for us to accept, obey, go forward in faith with Christ, and let God’s ways be done. There will be a dying- rising theme to our life, and a victory in the end promise. So fellow disciples: Let God be honored; In contrast to the way of the world for to let self be honored. The world is in slavery to Satan and it shows in how they do not want for God to be first-place, nor for God to be served by our lives foremost, nor for God to be praised, nor loved by our country –yet this IS our purpose in life to lift Jesus as Lord, serve Him, adore Him, and help others to salvation in Him. Let us be living by faith and love of God to the max, nor existing and thinking merely as humans do. You now know that we are faith-alive people, not just human children of the world, who are apart from God, but we are missionary disciples of Jesus, reconciled to live as children of God, children of the Light, and as family or Body of Christ to our God.! ###
Bible Background: Mark was a disciple of Peter. We know he is the John Mark mentioned elsewhere in the New Testament, once traveling with Paul, but then to be with Peter. Mark had special ties to Peter. It is evident in two pieces of Biblical evidence. First, it appears Peter was part of a Christian group in Jerusalem that met in Mark’s home. When Peter miraculously escaped from jail (assisted by the angel of the Lord), he returned to this group to tell them the good news: Acts 12:12-14 When this had dawned on him, he went to the house of Mary the mother of John, also called Mark, where many people had gathered and were praying. Peter knocked at the outer entrance, and a servant girl named Rhoda came to answer the door. When she recognized Peter’s voice, she was so overjoyed she ran back without opening it and exclaimed, “Peter’s at the door!”
Peter appears to have been well known to Mark, and over the course of time, Mark became even closer to Peter as he ministered throughout Asia Minor and Rome. By the time Peter wrote his first epistle, Mark had become like a son to him: 1 Peter 5:13 She who is in Babylon, chosen together with you, sends you her greetings, and so does my son Mark.