Mark 8:31 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 you to gain the whole world, yet forfeit your soul? 37 Or what can you give in exchange for your soul? 38 If any of you are ashamed of me and my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, the Son of Man will be ashamed of you when he comes in his Father's glory with the holy angels."
The immediate context of this passage is one of those "thrill of victory, agony of defeat" times for the Apostle Peter. Jesus had asked the group what people were saying about him; who do they say I am, he asked. And then he asked the even more pertinent question, who do YOU say I am? And in vs 29, answering for the entire group, Peter said, thou art the Christ. A++++++++++++++. Peter gets it. Jesus is the Messiah (Christos in the Greek). He is the long-awaited deliverer in a long tradition of deliverers: Moses; David; Hezekiah; Josiah; Zerrubabel; Judas Maccabeus. Like each of these, the Christos will face enormously difficult odds. Rome and her client armies constitute the most powerful military force in the world. However, Egypt was the most powerful military force in the world when Moses encountered them, and the Selucids greatly out-manned and out-gunned the Maccabees in their day. Every pious Jew knew that God plus an army of just one was invincible.
So...the time has come. The Christos is here. There's work to do: strategizing; recruiting; spreading the message that soon God's man will be leading the revolt against the hated Roman overlords. But what a glorious time it will be; and soon, very soon now, Israel will be restored as its own kingdom under God. To some degree, **some if not ALL of these thoughts had to be swirling through the heads of the Apostles after vss 29 & 30.
And then Jesus does something very strange--breaks the mood, you might say. Vs 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. This doesn't sound right. This is not according to plan. Where's the strategizing? Where's the scouting out of fortresses? Where's the stock-piling of weaponry? Sounds like Jesus is just having a bad day. Sounds like maybe he's having second thoughts about this, OR about the commitment of his core group. Best thing to do is buck him up. Let him know we're in this with him & we'll fight to the death. Vs 32 Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him.
And now the 'agony of defeat' moment for Peter. Jesus calls him a word never used on any of the other disciples: vs 33 "Get behind me, Satan!" he said. "You do not have in mind the concerns of God, but merely human concerns." Unfortunately at this precise moment, Peter had picked up the baton from Satan and was now running with it--tempting Jesus to do precisely what Satan had tempted him in the wilderness: BE OUR MESSIAH, but be the Messiah on OUR TERMS. Be the Messiah we want; Be the Messiah we've said we need.
Herein we find a major theme of the Gospels. Jesus the Messiah has come to free his people from the yoke of oppression; to liberate them from their enemy; to inaugurate a secure future for them under God. The only thing is, the enemies aligned against Jesus are not the Roman legions and their client armies. They are sin, death and the Devil. Jesus has come to do battle against those enemies; to defeat those enemies. And nothing, not even the good intentions of his closest followers will deter him from that mission.
cheers,
tm
No comments:
Post a Comment