24th Sunday of Ordinary Time
Mark 8: 27-35
St. Theresa, Sept. 11, 1988
“Jesus
… asked his disciples, ‘Who do people say that I am?’” (Mark 8: 27).
Who
is Jesus? The question comes up
repeatedly in Mark’s Gospel. In fact,
his Gospel is designed as an answer to just that question. Its 1st verse announces “the beginning of the
gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God,” builds to this scene at Caesarea
Philippi, and climaxes with the centurion’s confession on Calvary :
“Truly this man was the Son of God” (15:39).
Peter confesses that Jesus is the Messiah
--unidentified stained glass (Wikipedia)
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The
Caesarea Philippi scene is a recognition scene—but a scene of recognition
without understanding. It’s not until we
come to Calvary that recognition and
understanding are reached. Who is
Jesus? Seeing him dead on the cross, the
centurion not only confesses, as Peter does today, but understands, as Peter
plainly does not.
Generation
after generation continues to ask who Jesus is.
That’s the core of the current film The
Last Temptation of Christ. It was
the question Time posed in its cover story
on the movie last month. It’s such a
fundamental question, because the answer needs regular reaffirmation, like the
love between spouses. You can’t say it
just once and be done with it.
Who
is Jesus? The Gospel (as well as
Kazantzakis’s novel and Scorsese’s film) answer that Jesus is the Christ, the
anointed one of God come to save us and to inaugurate the reign of God, the
messiah.
No
sooner does Peter say this, presumably for all of Jesus’ disciples, than Jesus
begins to teach that he must suffer and die.
Again Peter seems to speak for everyone, arguing and protesting. How can God’s anointed one have that kind of
a future?
Peter
doesn’t understand. The other disciples
don’t understand. I wonder whether you
and I really understand. If Christ must
suffer, be rejected, and die, where does that leave us, his followers? He tells us where it leaves us: “If anyone wishes to come after me, he must
deny himself, take up his cross, and follow in my steps” (8:34).
You
don’t want to do that. I don’t want to
do that. Peter didn’t want to do
that. So Peter protested, and Jesus
publicly rebuked him: “Get behind me,
Satan! You’re not on God’s side but on
man’s” (8:33).
As
our experience has taught us over and over, suffering, rejection, and death are
part of being human. Saints and sinners
alike suffer, are rejected by others, die.
Misunderstandings, differences of opinion, accidents, disease, financial
miscalculations, and rush-hour traffic affect us all. Some of our suffering comes from the natural
world; some of it others inflict upon us, or we upon others; and some of it we
inflict upon ourselves.
If
human beings must suffer and die, doesn’t it make sense that our messiah, the
one who leads us toward God’s heavenly kingdom, should identify with our
condition, and should know not only human joy but also human pain? I think it does. I think we can believe a messiah, a Christ,
who has suffered, who has died. This man
is real. This man know us, our
struggles, our hurts, our temptations, our joys. This man’s sufferings and death give meaning
to the death we must eventually experience.
In his rejection, suffering, and death, Jesus kept faith with God his
Father and opened the way to the promised land, to eternal life. In our own suffering and deaths, we can keep
faith with God thru the power and example of Jesus Christ; we can share in his
messiahship, offering faith, hope, and love to a world hungry for salvation.
Who
is Jesus? Peter evidently thought it was
possible to be the messiah without being human, or thought humans could live in
this present life without pain. We know
that Jesus had to struggle with that temptation too. We recall his temptations to power and fame
and wealth in the desert before he began his public ministry. Today we hear Peter tempt him. We see him
sweating with fear in the Garden
of Olives , praying his
Father take away the cup of suffering that lies ahead. We listen to passers-by at Calvary ,
as St. Matthew describes the scene, mocking Jesus: “If you’re the Son of God, come down from the
cross. He saved others; he can’t save
himself. He is the King of Israel; let
him come down now from the cross, and we’ll believe him” (Matt 27:40,42). The last temptation of Christ, as imagined by
Kazantzakis, is really the same as the one Peter offers today: to flee from pain and rejection, to try to be
a man without having to face suffering and death, to run from the role of
messiah.
Jesus
saw all these as temptations, embraced his humanity, embraced his Father’s
will, and embraced the cross when misguided men forced it on him. Then his identity was plain even to the pagan
soldier: “Truly this man was the Son of
God.” Jesus encourages us to follow him,
not just to Calvary, but thru Calvary to
resurrection and life.
The Martyrdom of St. Peter (Lionello Spada) |
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