TGBC Friday, 22 January 2021. Mark 8:27-38. The suffering messiah
Mark 8:27-38 Revised Standard Version
Peter’s Declaration about Jesus
27 And Jesus went on with his disciples, to the villages of Caesare′a Philippi; and on the way he asked his disciples, “Who do men say that I am?” 28 And they told him, “John the Baptist; and others say, Eli′jah; and others one of the prophets.” 29 And he asked them, “But who do you say that I am?” Peter answered him, “You are the Christ.” 30 And he charged them to tell no one about him.
Jesus Foretells His Death and Resurrection
31 And he began to teach them that the Son of man must suffer many things, and be rejected by the elders and the chief priests and the scribes, and be killed, and after three days rise again. 32 And he said this plainly. And Peter took him, and began to rebuke him. 33 But turning and seeing his disciples, he rebuked Peter, and said, “Get behind me, Satan! For you are not on the side of God, but of men.”
34 And he called to him the multitude with his disciples, and said to them, “If any man would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. 35 For whoever would save his life will lose it; and whoever loses his life for my sake and the gospel’s will save it. 36 For what does it profit a man, to gain the whole world and forfeit his life? 37 For what can a man give in return for his life? 38 For whoever is ashamed of me and of my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, of him will the Son of man also be ashamed, when he comes in the glory of his Father with the holy angels.”
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Here we are halfway through Mark's gospel before someone, Peter, finally seems to get it, says that Jesus is the Christ. (In Matthew's gospel Peter says more, "You are the Christ, the Son of the living God").
But when Jesus explains that to be the Christ means to suffer and die and rise again, Peter protests, and Jesus jerks a knot in Peter, calls Peter satan.
What's going on? This conversation is obviously important, in fact it's crucial, definitive, prophetic. But how? why?
Well, the fact is, Mark is not writing his gospel simply to record what Jesus said and did, including this conversation between Jesus and Peter, but to persuade us, his audience, who Jesus is, and inspire us to proclaim Christ. And there are three levels to perceive here. Inside the story, Peter is confessing Christ. But there are two levels outside the story. On one level Mark is still teaching us, by saying again what the unclean spirits have been saying all along, and Jesus has been affirming by shushing them (as indeed he does again here), that Jesus is the anointed one, the Son of God, the Christ, the Messiah. That's one level.
On another level outside the story, Mark is explaining something that is no end of a problem for the early church and has to be explained if anyone is to believe: the problem of the suffering and dying messiah. Messiahs don't ignominiously suffer and die, messiahs rise powerfully and do mighty works. What happened?
The explanation cannot wait until later, when it would come across as a rationalization; it has to be explained ahead of time, prophetically, by the One himself
Mark is explaining it to his audience, not weakly by explaining it himself as narrator, but wisely by quoting Jesus himself explain it, just as Mark had John the Baptist explain that he John is not the Christ, Jesus is the Christ. Mark is writing some forty years after Easter: Jesus is dead and gone, so it's obvious to anyone who was expecting a Messiah whom God would call and anoint to do great things (for the Jews, as the heroic Son of Man to reestablish the throne of David and reclaim the Holy Land from the Roman occupation), that Jesus didn't do any of that, so by human standards Jesus failed, therefore Jesus was not the expected Messiah.
Granted, that Mark is not a Jewish-Christian writing to convince a Jewish-Christian audience, but a gentile writing for a gentile audience seems to cloud the issue, but it doesn't: the fact remains that, whether one is gentile or Jew, it's illogical, makes no sense whatsoever, to hold up a long dead man as Savior (as indeed, it made no sense to Peter, and Jesus calls Peter satan for not believing Jesus, just so, we readers also are deterred from being unbelieving satans). Mark is a clever storyteller who always has his proclamation agenda in mind. Accordingly, in Mark, who is writing retrospectively, Jesus explains that the suffering and dying and risen Son was God's plan all along. Jesus himself overrules our objection in advance, not explaining after the fact of suffering and death, but explaining to us beforehand what's going to happen and that it's God's plan.
Jesus, as Mark presents Jesus, starts focusing us in the next paragraph, verses 34-38. Something apocalyptic, almost like Paul, about being Saved into the realm of God when Bar Enosh, the Son of Man comes. We may not understand Jesus as an apocalypticist like Saint Paul, but what do you think here?
As we move into the next part of Mark's story, having established who Jesus is, and that God intends for him to suffer and die and rise again, Mark will now proceed to lay God's plan of salvation out for us, and it's based on Jesus the suffering messiah.
Mark may hold off Jesus' complete explanation until the Last Supper, IDK.
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