The God we want and the God who is
Notes
Transcript
This is an uncomfortable text - if for no other reason than that Jesus calls Peter Satan! Peter is one of Jesus's disciples, and not only that, he's one of the inner circle. Peter seems so fervent in his faith, so honest, and so childlike in a way that it feels uncomfortable when Jesus calls him Satan. Judas might be an understandable person to talk to in this way, but Peter? Sweet, talkative, take-charge, walk-on-water Peter?
Doesn't seem to fit the bill.
Patrick Morley in his book Man in the Mirror wrote:
There is a God we want, and there is a God who is. They are not the same God. The turning point of our lives is when we stop seeking the God we want and start seeking the God who is.
I believe that he really captures what is happening here in our text this morning.
In a blog post Morley wrote about when he fully surrendered his life to Christ, he wrote:
I had received Christ, but it dawned on me: Morley, what were you thinking? Did you really think any amount of reinventing God in your imagination to be the God you wanted Him to be would have one iota of impact on His unchanging nature and character?
It finally sank in. I had wanted to change God, but God wanted to change me. He wanted me to follow Jesus with my whole heart: wherever, whenever, whatever. That’s what He wants for all of us–a full, total, complete surrender to the lordship of Jesus. (https://maninthemirror.org/2013/12/23/541-seeking-the-god-who-is/)
That is still what God wants. In this text we hear about losing our lives, saving our lives, taking up a cross and being ashamed of Jesus.
This passage is hard, it is challenging and it is uncomfortable.
Part of the reason it feels so uncomfortable is that, if Peter gets called Satan by Jesus, then maybe we could fall into that category too-which leaves us with the looming question:
Why does Jesus say this?
1) Satan is an adversary.
1) Satan is an adversary.
It's important for us to know that "Satan" does not mean a cartoon devil with red horns and a pitch fork. What Jesus is saying is important, not a caricature.
The word "Satan" here means "adversary." Some versions actually translate the word here as adversary, which is more accurate. The word can sometimes be translated as "tempter" as well. Most often it is translated in the sense of a prosecutor in a court of law.
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.
Most translations say that Peter took Jesus aside. I like this version:
32 He said this plainly. But Peter took hold of Jesus and, scolding him, began to correct him.
I can almost picture my mother when I was young and had done something wrong and she grabs onto my arm and scolds me.
That is what I see Peter doing. Jesus is talking about all this death and dying. Jesus isn’t using any parables, he isn’t telling a story to illustrate what he’s talking about. He said this all very plainly, not mincing any words and Peter can’t take it any longer so he grabs onto his arm and begins to scold him for what he had said.
Peter did not just scold him for saying what he had been saying, he also began to correct him.
Peter starts to scold Jesus because I believe in Peter’s mind this is not the way it is supposed to be in his view. It is wrong for Jesus to talk about his death. Jesus is supposed to be the Messiah, ride into town on a white stallion and set up his throne, to be the king of Israel from the line of David.
Jesus isn’t supposed to be throwing his life away and die. For Peter, this whole movement of God is dead without Jesus.
Can you picture it in your mind? Peter has a hold of Jesus arm and his scolding Jesus. Jesus takes all he is going to take and turns around and looks him right in the face. The other disciples are right there watching this. Jesus look Peter in the face and says to him:
33 Jesus turned and looked at his disciples, then sternly corrected Peter: “Get behind me, Satan. You are not thinking God’s thoughts but human thoughts.”
Bishop N.T. Wright in his commentary on this passage wrote:
Lent for Everyone: Mark, Year B Week 1: Saturday: Mark 8:31–38
Jesus could have said, by way of response, something like he says to the two disciples on the road to Emmaus (Luke 24). He could have launched into a lengthy Bible study, as he did then, to show that the whole theme and pattern of the scriptures was for God’s people to be plunged into terrible trouble and misery and for God to do his new, rescuing work through that means. That’s how it had always been, and if he was introducing the last in the line of God’s great actions you might expect that it would have the same shape and pattern.
He could have done that; but he doesn’t. Instead, he uses the sharpest possible language to scold Peter. ‘Get behind me, Accuser!’ he said. In other words, Peter has put into words not only the counsel of prudence, of common sense. Peter has blurted out what the Accuser, the satan, has been whispering to Jesus all along. ‘You can’t go and die; that will ruin it all! You’re doing fine; some more healings, some more parables, people will get the message. Don’t be silly; don’t be rash; don’t be melodramatic; slow and steady and it’ll work out.’ Sounds good, doesn’t it? Almost a sigh of relief.
And Jesus recognizes the voice for what it is, even though it’s coming through the lips of his own closest associate. It is the voice of the Accuser, the one who is always on the attack, always eager to undermine the work of God, always ready to lead people into more sin and more guilt so there will be more for him to accuse them of. And Jesus is going to his death to take the weight of that accusation on to himself, so that his people need bear it no longer.
Peter is an adversary to this news because he begins to rebuke Jesus. He is tempting 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.
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 argument of Peter by not only reiterating that he is going to die but also by talking about how anyone who is going to be a disciple needs to take up their cross too.
2) Jesus rebukes the argument of Peter by not only reiterating that he is going to die but also by talking about how anyone who is going to be a disciple needs to take up their cross too.
When we think of crosses, we often think of empty, decorative crosses. This can sometimes anesthetize or sanitize the image of a cross for us. Today we might need to envision an electric chair, or a gurney used on death row for lethal injections, or the images of lynchings from the not-so-distant past.
We sometimes think of picking up our cross as bearing minor inconveniences or enduring circumstances that are frustrating or painful to us. We often use the phrase "it's my cross to bear."
We might consider the crosses we have to bear things like a frustrating job situation, a chronic illness, a flooded basement, etc. But 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.
Sometimes these difficult situations that we wrongly label our "crosses" are relieved, or used as tools for sanctification. We may still suffer, but it's different than a cross.
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 (think about the shame of the punishment of being put in the stocks in medieval times).
The crucifixion meant that everyone-the government, the religious rulers, and even his friends-thought Jesus had failed.
In his book The Victory of the Cross, Pastor Erskine White tells the following story:
“In the rolling hills of northern New Jersey stands a small church with a large, stone cross cut into an inside wall. Now, it happened that one of the church’s wealthier members didn’t like the cross there and said it was an eyesore. He offered to give a huge donation to the church in order to take the cross out of the wall and replace it with a stained glass window.
But when he presented his idea to the church’s leaders, they said to him, ‘We cannot do what you ask. The architect designed the church to have this cross; it gives strength to the wall. If you take away the cross, you will destroy the church.’” [1]
Jesus was aligning himself with the kingdom of God and the way and will of God, which were very different from the ways of the world. The way of God was humbling in the most extreme sense. The way of God was self-sacrifice. The way of God embraced the Beatitudes.
Rev. Lobdell also says, "The cross is the eternal 'no' of God to revenge, violence, power games, and cycles of retribution."
The way of the cross takes Jesus to literal death. The cross he bore was not a decoration but an implement of death. Jesus carried the instrument of his own cruel, suffering death.
The cost of discipleship is to follow the same path that Jesus followed, including carrying a cross.
The cross that Jesus calls his disciples to carry is not a decoration. We too are to humble ourselves to the point of public shame for what is good, holy, and loving. We too 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 out of love for God and others.
Mark A Suffering Messiah (8:27–9:1)
John Howard Yoder wrote, “The cross of Calvary was not a difficult family situation, not a frustration of visions of personal fulfillment, a crushing debt, or a nagging in-law; it was the political logically-to-be-expected result of a moral clash with the powers ruling his society.”3 Risking that particular kind of suffering is not a form of accepting an oppressive order, but a way of challenging it.
This call was not metaphorical for the disciples, most of whom did in fact die for following Jesus.
This call is not metaphorical for much of the world whose lives are in peril just for following Jesus.
This call is not meant to be metaphorical for us either. We must be willing to lay down our lives out of love.
Look at what Jesus says there in verse 35-37
35 For if you let your life go for my sake and for the sake of the gospel, you will continually experience true life. But if you choose to keep your life for yourself, you will forfeit what you try to keep. 36 For what use is it to gain all the wealth and power of this world, with everything it could offer you, at the cost of your own life? 37 And what could be more valuable to you than your own soul?
37 And what could be more valuable to you than your own soul?
Our baptism is an illustration of this cost of discipleship. We die with Christ, that we might know the power of the resurrection. We don't run from death because 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.
The Gospel of Mark: A Socio-Rhetorical Commentary Bridging the Horizons
Some years ago archaeologists discovered the tomb of Emperor Charlemagne of France. When it was opened for the first time in many centuries, the usual treasures of the kingdom were found, but in the center of the vault was a great throne, and upon it sat the skeleton of the ruler himself with an open Bible in his lap. His bony finger had been made to point to a certain verse of Scripture—in fact, the one just referred to: “For what shall it profit a person if he shall gain the whole world and lose his own soul?”
3) Why did Peter rebuke Jesus?
3) Why did Peter rebuke Jesus?
Back in in verse 29 of this chapter look at the dialogue between Jesus and his disciples.
29 He asked them, “But who do you say that I am?” Peter spoke up, saying, “You are the Messiah, the Son of the Living God!”
Jesus was just asking his disciples who people were saying who Jesus was. The answers included John the Baptist or Elijah, or some other prophet.
Jesus then asks them who they think he is. Peter is the first one to speak up. The one who walked on water with Jesus, one of his closest disciples, the one who later says that he’ll be with Jesus until the end.
Peter says “You are the Messiah, the Son of the Living God!”
But in just a few verses it is Jesus saying to him “Get behind me Satan.”
The key sentence is “You are not thinking God’s thoughts but human thoughts.
Going back to that quote from earlier
There is a God we want, and there is a God who is.
Peter was all about the “God we want.”
There is a good chance that Peter was tempting Jesus to take the easier way. There was comfort in the familiar way things had always been. Perhaps he trusted that Jesus had the power to do something different.
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.
Peter's response was human. We prefer comfort, ease, and privilege to giving up those things for the sake of others.
Most of us will do whatever it takes to avoid death-which is why the health, wealth, and prosperity gospels are so appealing. If we sacrifice just a little, we will get a lot-in exactly the way we want. That's desirable. And isn't it even fair? We love the idea of a Jesus who will swoop in and make our lives easy and comfortable.
The Preacher’s Commentary Series, Volume 25: Mark The Laws of Life
Harry Blamires, in his book The Christian Mind,1 exposes our failure to think Christianly. The marks of a Christian mind, according to Blamires, are an eternal time perspective, an awareness of evil, a concept of revealed truth, an acceptance of God’s authority, an incarnational concern for people, and a sacramental cast. Ideally, each of us subscribes to these marks of a Christian mind. In practice, however, we fall far short. Unconscious victims of the “Me” generation, we squeeze time into the immediate, downplay the power of evil, give lip-service to the great doctrines, negotiate God’s authority, excuse our lack of compassion, and seek our joy only in the pleasures of life.
Maybe Peter is relatable because we too would be telling Jesus to do things a different, easier way than the path he was called to.
We are called to the difficult way of the cross alongside Jesus. No matter the cost, we follow after him.
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 are numerous others we probably know of, even in our own lives.
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. The way to resurrection is through the cross. 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.
[1] The Rev. Erskine White, The Victory of the Cross (CSS Publishing Company, 1991).