MK 8: 27-38 

Marginally Mark… Pentecost + 17…Revised 2018 

Peter's isn't the only acknowledgment of Jesus as the Christ. The Samaritans of JN 4, & others, too, are up to the mark. One thought worth developing is that Jesus can cross any border; He’s His own ‘documentation’ to those who come to recognise Him & know Him! Another theme of our preaching today might be, that it isn’t whom Peter or any-one else back then says Jesus is, that matters. What matters is what you & I & others say He is now, & what we do, how we live, as a consequence.

To refer to JN 4 again, those in vv. 39-42 move from believing in Him because Samara (the woman at the well) has told them about Him, to, “We’ve listened to Him for ourselves & realise He’s the Saviour of the world”. Faith has to be a personal experience. Peter here makes a great leap of Faith, but will learn the hard way that we all have to keep ‘leaping that leap’ of Faith day after day. Faith is all about today, not yesterday. Always!

In vv. 31+,  Jesus sets out the kind of Messiah He’s come to be. David Lose¹ a few years back wrote: ‘This is the pivot point of the Gospel’ as Jesus sets His face towards His stead-fast march to the cross. What He says here is completely out of kilter with the expectations of people in general. Few discern, e.g., that the Suffering Servant of Isaiah & the Messiah, Jesus, turn out to be one & the same person. Jesus is no King riding a white charger with legions of angels at His heels to rid the land of those accursed Romans! Peter cops it here for failing to discern this necessary connection. What might some other connections be? How discerning are we of the kind of Messiah Jesus the Christ actually is in daily life, as distinct from the Messiah some of us still seem to expect Him to be? 

I’m sure I’ve mentioned this elsewhere, but it’s worth repeating: Kosuke Koyama²  says: 'Jesus doesn’t carry his cross like a business-man carries his lunch box’. Carrying Jesus’ cross is no easy matter. Putting some kind of manageable handle on the cross all too easily brings us undone. Fortunately, Jesus is with us in His Spirit to pick us up by one means or another, dust us off, put His cross back on our shoulder, & lovingly help us carry it. Even if we think He’s turned the next corner, & try to re-affix some handle of our own making!

What is 'being saved' anyway? Are many of our answers to that just too pious? Too ‘precious’? One, though, that makes sense, is to go back to what Jesus warns, & Koyama interprets, is that being saved means sticking at carrying such a rough thing as a cross, splinters, weight, threat of death, & all; trustingly, hopefully, & without any handle! 

Afterthought: Except maybe Jesus Himself? Does Jesus say somewhere - maybe in some lost version of JN - “I AM the Handle!”???

¹ On his website: ‘In the Meantime’. ² No Handle on the Cross, SCM, London, '76, p.1

Brian