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Sermon - Fifteenth Sunday after Pentecost (B) - 13th September 2009
St Alban's & Aidan's Anglican Church, Epping 8:30am
Readings: Psalm 19, James 2:18-26, Mark 8:27-38
By the end of this month you will begin to see the start of a new ad campaign called, “Jesus, all about life.” It is funded by some combined churches across Sydney from a variety of denominations including the Sydney Diocese. But the title of the campaign is an interesting one, “Jesus, all about life.” Is that correct? You wouldn’t get that impression from today’s gospel reading. Sure its true that Jesus is about life. There is also the problem of how to reduce the Christian message to an ad slogan. Any slogan will be a distortion of the facts. But I feel this one has gone too far – Jesus all about life. It doesn’t fit with Mark 8. Of course there is no question that is more important to ask than “Who is Jesus?” And the campaign is attempting to answer that question. But I don’t think their answer is a helpful one.
The answer to the question who is Jesus will change the rest of your life. It is the central question. Mark has made it the central question in his gospel. It is the turning point in his gospel. Up till this point the emphasis has been on the teaching and the miracles. But from this point on the cross becomes the central focus until the end. The cross dominates this gospel just as the cross dominates human history. The question of the cross and the question about Jesus are essentially the same question. Who is this man and what has he done are really the same question. Even when it is ignored by millions, it still cuts to the heart of who we are and where we stand before a sovereign God. This question dominates in a world filled with a constellation of beliefs and practices.
And Jesus raised this question in just such a world. When Paul walked the streets of Athens he was amazed by the many shrines to a host of gods. Where is the true God in this sea of confusion? We see that same confusion today as belief systems new and old vie for our attention. And Jesus was familiar with this world. He raised the question of his identity in the very city that was known for its plurality of beliefs. Caesarea Phillipi was once the centre for the worship of the Greek god Pan. Yet Eastern religions also had their presence. This city was well known for its idols to Baal. In later years, as it was incorporated into the Roman empire, it was an important centre for the Emperor cult. And it was in this city that Jesus made his claim for divinity. In this city Jesus wanted to claim his supremacy in all matters of faith. So he asked his question, “Who do people say I am?”
Now there is no doubt that Jesus knew the answer to this question. What was being said about him was very well known. What seems to be the problem here is that the disciples seemed to have given the question no serious thought. Even King Herod, back in chapter 6, had heard the rumours, that Jesus might be John resurrected, or Elijah or one of the prophets who’d returned. But it seems that the disciples had left it at that. They had given the question no serious thought, no deeper reflection. They had been with Jesus for at least 2 years. In so many ways they knew him. Yet, it seems essentially they did not know him. They seemed prepared to go along with the crowd and accept the rumours.
We can be in danger of being so familiar with the stories of Jesus and yet still not really know him. We may spend time with other believers, others who have put their faith in him and still not done so ourselves, like admirers, standing at a distance, but never taking that first step of faith, knowing plenty about Jesus, but never really knowing the man himself. These disciples didn’t seem to have any deeper understanding than anyone else in the crowd. Their view of Jesus was one that conformed to the religious expectations of their day. Jesus was another John, another Elijah, another one of prophets, just like the rest. But we need to take the risk of confronting the real Jesus, the risk of finding our expectations of Jesus smashed, to find the man we never expected, to meet the man we might never have anticipated who will make demands upon us we never bargained for.
In this exchange we might get the impression that Peter is the hero of the hour. He is the one who gets the question right, he can correctly identify Jesus as the messiah, the Christ. Yet we soon find that he is no different from the other disciples. He can get the answer right but it has no meaning for him. He can use the right words, but like the other disciples, he didn’t know this Jesus. He believed in a Christ of his own creation, his own imagining. Its an easy trap to fall into. We can know a lot about religion. We can say right things about Jesus, we can pray right prayers. But our hearts and minds can still remain shut off from the real Jesus. The real Jesus has had no impact on our hearts and minds and though we may know lots about him, we remain unmoved, perhaps with our ears blocked to the words of Jesus, because the revelation of Jesus is not found in words like Messiah or Christ. We discover the true Jesus when we hear what he will do, when we hear these terrible words. Here is the true revelation of Jesus when he speaks these ghastly words – words too terrible for Peter to bear. We can naively wish to hear the voice of God, but when Israel heard it at Sinai they trembled – it was too terrible. And as Jesus spoke these words, Peter begged him to stop. Jesus spoke of suffering, of rejection, of killing and of rising. It wasn’t a message all about life at all. It was a horrible message. But this is the message of the Christ. This is the mission of the Messiah.
This is also a repeat of the message of Chapter 1. There Jesus is called the Christ, the Messiah for the first time and immediately Jesus went into the wilderness to be confronted by Satan. And notice what Satan does. He doesn’t stop the mission, he just tries to re-direct it, to control it, to rob it of its power. But Jesus will not give in to Satan. Now for the second time Jesus is declared the Christ and this time he spells out his mission of the suffering, the rejection, the killing and the rising. This is the path of the messiah, this is the true work of the Christ. This is the glorious revelation of the Son of God. And immediately Peter moves to block him, to re-direct him, to control him. And Jesus utters those frightening words, “Get behind me Satan!” Jesus rejects Satan’s mission a second time. This is the wilderness revisited, and the messiah will not be deflected from his path. He will be the suffering man, he will be the dying man so that he might become the rising man, the victorious man.
But then Jesus does something even more remarkable. He extends his story to all of humanity. His story of living and dying becomes the story of every human being. The truth is, we each carry our own cross. We all live under a sentence of death. However long we live, no matter where we are in our lives, one day the sentence will be carried out. This is everyone’s story. One day we will all lose our lives but we will do anything to try to save it. Jesus too will lose his life so that he might rise again to new life and by doing that he issues his challenge. What will we do to save our lives? Jesus challenge is not so much about whether or not we will take up our cross. Who would do that willingly anyway. The point is, we are already carrying it. Jesus’ question is, as you carry your cross, who will you follow? And here Jesus introduces his paradox. He will be the Messiah, he will be victorious, but that victory is accomplished by losing his life, by succumbing to death, so that he might defeat death. And that is the path of discipleship as well. Those who lose their life for Christ’s sake will save it. To understand this Jesus, we need to look at his death to understand what he has achieved. Jesus – its not all about life. Its about his death and what his death achieved. So we ask ourselves, what are we living for? What are we dying for? Are we dying for Jesus? As we carry our own cross, who will we follow? Which path will we take? What good is it for a man to gain the whole world, yet forfeit his own soul?