OIA Mark 8.27-91

Observations

• Who: Jesus, disciples, Peter, Satan, crowd;
• When: During travels in Gentile region; the transition between Jesus’ public teaching and his focus on final training for the 12, and the beginning of final journey to Jerusalem
• Where: the villages of Caesarea Philippi
• What: Jesus’ question about identity; Peter’s argument and rebuke; Jesus’ comments about discipleship.
• Connections: command to silence; Son of Man; speculation about Jesus’ identity; the conflict with religious leaders is further described.
• Contrasts: people’s understanding of Christ/disciple’s view; Peter’s revelation/Jesus’ rebuke; disciples/crowds; save/lose; profit/forfeit; life/death; death/power.
• Responses to Jesus:
• Speculation about Jesus’ identity continues and includes historic figures already dead
• Peter proclaims Jesus’ true identity
• Peter rejects Jesus’ teaching about the role of the Christ
• The disciples and crowds listen to Jesus’ description of discipleship

Interpretation

• 1st century, or Second Temple (the period of return from the Babylonian exile and the beginning of Rabbinic teaching) Jewish expectations of the Christ or Messiah focused on the restoration of David’s kingdom, God’s justice (which meant punishing Israel’s enemies and the restoration of a political nation), and recovering Israel’s unique role as God’s holy and chosen people. Rome was to be overthrown, Israel’s nationhood restored, and Temple worship restored.
• At least part of Peter’s and the disciples’ expectations about the Messiah would have been similar to those of their culture. So Jesus’ explanation of his anticipated future would have come as a real shock. Rather than vindication from Rome’s oppression, Jesus paints a picture of a victim. Rather than a restored Temple worship Jesus foretells religious persecution. Rather than a victorious revolutionary who restores national pride, Jesus predicts a martyr’s death. We can see why Peter takes this opportunity to correct Jesus!
• The way to new life is not at all what Jesus’ contemporaries, including his disciples, expected, or wanted. Jesus not only proclaims his own rejection, suffering, death and resurrection, but he makes it clear that the same things will happen to those who want to come after him!
• God’s strategy for overcoming evil and restoring creation is shocking and makes absolutely no sense from a human perspective. Victorious political power like Rome exercised, heroic conquerors like Caesar, Alexander, even King David: these do not represent God’s means of restoring fallen creation. Rather God intends to conquer evil by delivering His own son to an ignoble death and the hands of both the ‘chosen’ religious nation as well as the ruling Roman Empire. God overcomes the evils of political oppression and religious hypocrisy by the sacrifice and resurrection of his own son.
• In the parable of the sower Satan is the one who takes the word away as soon as it is sown. Here Peter assumes the role of the birds: he immediately tries to remove the word Jesus has just sown.
• Jesus’ definition of what it means to follow is universal, not limited to the disciples; anyone who wants to come after Jesus will share his experience of self-denial, of gaining life by giving life in cooperation with God’s design for redemption.
• What is there to be ashamed of in Jesus’ words? Humility, submission to God’s methods, religious and nationalistic pride are of no value, victory comes from suffering and not from accomplishment, and God is the author of this.
• What does it mean that some who heard will see the kingdom come with power? Some ideas include: the transfiguration; the resurrection; the destruction of Jerusalem in A.D. 70.

Application

• Are there ways that we share the religious and political expectations of 1st century religious thinkers? Is Jesus’ invitation to join him is his suffering and resurrection any less shocking today than it was 2000 years ago?
• Do we really believe that the hope for life, and for the world, comes through self denial, through giving our lives for Jesus sake? Both President Bush and Obama have spoken of the USA as the last, best hope for the world. Have we let this idea influence our understanding of discipleship?
• Who does the right to life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness compare and contrast to Jesus’ description of what is means to come after him? Do Jesus’ words still apply to us today?