Jesus at the Temple

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Mark 8:31–9:1 NIV

31 He then began to teach them that the Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders, the chief priests and the teachers of the law, and that he must be killed and after three days rise again.

32 He spoke plainly about this, and Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him.

33 But when Jesus turned and looked at his disciples, he rebuked Peter. “Get behind me, Satan!” he said. “You do not have in mind the concerns of God, but merely human concerns.”

34 Then he called the crowd to him along with his disciples and said: “Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me.

35 For whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me and for the gospel will save it.

36 What good is it for someone to gain the whole world, yet forfeit their soul?

37 Or what can anyone give in exchange for their soul?

38 If anyone is ashamed of me and my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, the Son of Man will be ashamed of them when he comes in his Father’s glory with the holy angels.”

1 And he said to them, “Truly I tell you, some who are standing here will not taste death before they see that the kingdom of God has come with power.”

INTRODUCTION

I’ve always struggled with this text because when the term Satan comes up I have this picture that comes to my mind. You probably know the picture, because I’m guessing it is coming up in your mind too. And, it is not pleasant to think that Jesus uses this term on one of His own disciples. Not only is Peter one of Jesus’s disciples, he’s one of the inner circle. He is the disciple that we often think of when we think of someone that has such a childlike faith that he does things like jump out of the boat to walk on the water. He is strong in his faith - he’s honestly confronting Jesus because he doesn’t think Jesus has the right plan, so Jesus refers to him as Satan. It makes us very uncomfortable to listen in on this argument. Judas might be an understandable person to talk to in this way, but Peter? I mean this is the guy who walked on the water.

If Peter can be called Satan by Jesus, our fear is that we could find ourselves in that assessment as well. Why does Jesus say this?

BODY

1) Satan means adversary.

a) The term Satan is not what we often picture when we hear that word. When we hear that word, we usually think of some cartoonish red devil with a pitch fork and horns. But that isn’t what Jesus would have pictured when He used that word. So what is it that Jesus is saying when He uses that word.

b) Some versions actually translate the word here as adversary, which is more accurate. The word can sometimes be translated as “tempter” as well. What is interesting is that the word is most often translated in the sense of a prosecutor in a court of law.

c) Jesus is explaining to the disciples plainly that he is going to die. For once, he is not using parables but is telling them directly what is going to happen to him.

d) Peter is an adversary to this news because he begins to rebuke Jesus. He is operating as the tempter, because his argument tempts Jesus to not follow the path of the cross and to go a different way. He is arguing, like a prosecutor in a courtroom, that Jesus doesn’t need to die.

i) This word used here means that most likely Peter’s argument is a convincing one. While we don’t know exactly what Peter said, the use of the term “adversary” implies that it was a well- thought-out and well-executed logical argument.

2) Jesus rebukes the adversary.

And He adds that not only is He going to die, but that anybody that is going to be His disciple is going to take up their cross as well.

a) When Jesus talks about a cross, it is in the context of the Roman empire where crosses represented the most hideous and painful way to die that the Romans could concoct. That is almost impossible for us to grasp because we have used the cross for so many things. We use them as pretty pieces of jewelry. We use crosses to decorate our homes - we have bookmarks that are in the shape of a cross. We have used the symbol so much that it has lost its disgusting nature. In reality, the cross for the disciples would have brought up feelings like a noose or an electric chair or a firing squad.

b) Jesus says we must take up our cross and follow Him - the disciples would have known exactly what Jesus meant by that phrase. He wasn’t referring to some little inconvenience or frustration. We sometimes hear that phrase used flippantly when we go through some of the ordinary struggles of life. You’ve heard people say: “It’s my cross to bear.” when they are just being inconvenienced - that is not what the disciples would have heard when Jesus says these words. i) We might consider the crosses we have to bear things like a job layoff, wearing a mask, a chronic diagnosis, a flooded basement, the truth is we use that phrase in all kinds of ways that fall short of what Jesus meant by it. In the book Sacred Invitation, Rev. Stephanie Lobdell says, “[These] are not your cross . . . these are thorns.” “Thorns” is a reference to 2 Corinthians 12, where Paul talks about the thorn in his flesh.

ii) Sometimes these difficult situations that we wrongly label our “crosses” are short lived - the cross had one ending - death! Sometimes the things we struggle through can develop and deepen our Spiritual lives as God sanctifies us. These things are not pleasant, but it is not the same as carrying our cross.

c) When the disciples had seen people take up a cross - the result was an excruciatingly painful death. When Jesus picked up his cross he experienced extreme suffering and walked the path to a literal death. Crucifixion was a public shaming in the most extreme sense. The closest thing we can think about is the gallows where people were hanged, but the difference is that in a hanging the person dies very quickly in comparison. With the cross, the person would be hanging there for hours and hours in horrible pain and at the same time, they would be ridiculed and teased by those who passed by.

i) The crucifixion meant that everyone—the government, the religious rulers, and even his friends—thought Jesus had failed.

ii) Jesus was clarifying for His disciples that the kingdom of God involves a different path to success than the kingdom of this world. Remember that those who first read the words of this gospel would have remembered the walk that Jesus made carrying His cross. The way of God was humbling in the most extreme sense. The way of God was self-sacrifice.

iii) Rev. Lobdell also says, “The cross is the eternal ‘no’ of God to revenge, violence, power games, and cycles of retribution.”

iv) The way of the cross takes Jesus to literal death. The cross he bore was not a decoration but an implement of extreme torture and death. Jesus carried the instrument of his own cruel, suffering death.

d) Jesus says that if people are to be His disciples, the same path is to be taken. We must take up our cross - He says we must give up our won hopes and desires and literally give our lives for the kingdom of God.

i) The cross that Jesus calls his disciples to carry is not a necklace around our necks. Now, let me clarify that I don’t think there is anything wrong with using the cross as a decoration. But Jesus is calling us to humble ourselves to the point of public shame for what is good, holy, and loving. In the same way that jesus did, we are to align ourselves with the self-sacrificial way of the kingdom of God. We should willingly lay down our privileges, our blessings, our jobs—our everything—to follow after Jesus. Jesus calls us to lay down our very lives and to live our lives out of love for God first - and then for others.

(1) In the context that the original recipients of this gospel - as they read it, they would be reminded that most of the disciples had in fact given their lives for following Jesus.

(2) Imagine reading these words in a context where following Jesus might literally mean your death. In much of the world today, people who are disciples of Jesus put their lives on the line every day as they live our their faith in places where being a Christ follower is not only dangerous, but life-threatening.

(3) It is difficult for us to grasp that kind of sacrifice since we enjoy a great deal of freedom here in our nation. For us, the sacrifice that we give so far, means that we are living our lives in a way that we willingly lay down our lives out of love for God and others.

ii) Our baptism is an illustration of this cost of discipleship. It’s why I prefer baptism by immersion - the symbolism of being laid down under the water clearly identifies with death. We die with Christ, that we might know the power of the resurrection. We know that our hope is ultimately in the resurrection. We can face, with hope, the darkest and worst parts of the world and illuminate them with love because death is not the end.

3) Why did Peter rebuke Jesus?

a) Peter, like most of Jesus’ followers had a clear idea of what he thought was happening with Jesus. He believed that Jesus had come to lead the Israelites to freedom from Roman domination. He was tempting Jesus to take the way of power, control and victory as it is defined by the world.

b) There is also a chance that Peter knew that to be Jesus’s disciple meant following him wherever he went, which would mean death for Peter too. He had already given up a lot to follow Jesus. Maybe he was afraid of what else he would be expected to do if Jesus went willingly to his death.

c) Peter’s response was human. We prefer comfort, ease, and privilege to giving up those things for the sake of others.

i) Most of us will do whatever it takes to avoid death—which is why the health, wealth, and prosperity gospels are so appealing to people. That false gospel tells people that if we will sacrifice just a little, we will get a lot in return—and we will get it in ways that show we win! That sounds good to people, bu the problem is that it isn’t the truth - it isn’t the good news that Jesus offers. People love the idea of a Jesus who will swoop in and make our lives easy and comfortable.

ii) We sometimes are hard on Peter, but who among us wouldn’t have urged our friend, mentor, and leader to avoid going through torture and death.

d) We are called to the difficult way of the cross alongside Jesus. No matter the cost, we follow after him.

i) There are many people in history who we have seen do this: Mother Teresa, who willfully placed herself in harm’s way to care for people with leprosy; Dietrich Bonhoeffer, who even wrote a book called The Cost of Discipleship while defying the Nazi regime (and going to prison for it). There have been people throughout the history of Christianity who have laid down their lives - there are people still today that lay down their lives for their faith.

ii) These lives are a reminder to us that the way to follow Jesus is the way of the cross. It is hard, but it is good.

CONCLUSION

There is an old hymn called “The Way of the Cross Leads Home,” by Jessie B. Pounds. In it is a line that says “I must needs go home by the way of the cross, there’s no other way but this; I shall ne’er get sight of the Gates of Light, if the way of the cross I miss. The way of the cross leads home, the way of the cross leads home. It is sweet to know, as I onward go, the way of the cross leads home.”

This is the journey of Lent—for Jesus and for us. Without the cross, there would be no resurrection. There is no other way. Resurrection cannot be experienced without death. So we travel in the way of Jesus on the blood-sprinkled road he walked out of love, grace, and obedience. We follow the same way. We know where the path leads, and still we follow. Being a Christ follower is about trusting that God will forgive us of our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness, but it is about much more than just praying a prayer and going about living our selfish and self serving lives. We do not preach or live an easy faith - We are called to lay down our lives for the sake of the kingdom of God.